LGBT rights in Vatican City | |
---|---|
Status | Legal since 1890, as part of Italy |
Gender identity | No |
Military | No army |
Discrimination protections | None |
Family rights | |
Recognition of relationships | No legal recognition |
Adoption | No |
The legal code regarding lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Vatican City is based on the Italian Zanardelli Code of 1889, since the founding of the sovereign state of the Vatican City in 1929.
Although Pope Francis, the incumbent Sovereign of Vatican City, has expressed support for same-sex civil unions, Vatican City does not currently recognize them. [1] [2]
Since 1890, the territory of what is now Vatican City has had no criminal laws against non-commercial, private, adult and consensual same-sex sexual activity. The age of consent is currently set at 18 years for all persons, regardless of gender. [3] In the case of sexual relations within marriage – only in the cases of marriages recognized as valid by the Catholic Church and by the laws of Vatican City – the legal age is set at 14 years old. [4]
Foreign diplomats, in order to be accredited, must not be part of a same-sex family, [5] and must not be divorced. [6] In 2008, Jean-Loup Kuhn-Delforge, who is an openly gay diplomat, and who is in a civil pact with his partner, was rejected by Roman Catholic officials to be the French ambassador to the Holy See. In 2015, Laurent Stefanini, an openly gay practising Catholic diplomat was rejected by Roman Catholic officials to be the French ambassador to the Holy See, despite being single. He was backed by President Francois Hollande and was supported by France's top Curia cardinal, Jean-Louis Tauran, who was the Camerlengo of the Holy Roman Church, and Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, Archbishop of Paris. France kept their ambassador position vacant from March 2015 to May 2016 in protest, before nominating another diplomat in May 2016. [7] [8]
Vatican City State does not have any civil rights provisions that include sexual orientation or gender identity.
Vatican City has always expressed disagreement with any civil recognition of same-sex unions, same-sex marriage, and against the granting of adoption rights to same-sex couples. [9]
The Vatican reserves the right to remove, suspend and dismiss immediately any official and employee who publicly admits to being gay or questions the general policy of the Vatican towards homosexuals. [10] [11]
On 13 January 1998, the LGBT activist of Arcigay Alfredo Ormando set himself on fire in St. Peter's Square (which is under the jurisdiction of the Vatican City) in protest against the attitude of deep-rooted refusal that has always been expressed by the Catholic religion towards homosexuality. As a result of the severe burns suffered, he died a few days later in hospital. [14] [15]
In 2021, the Vatican foreign minister, Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, delivered a letter to the Italian ambassador to the Holy See, expressing "concerns" over a bill in the Italian Parliament meant to legally protect LGBT Italians against violence and discrimination. The letter claimed the section of the bill prohibiting incitement of hatred on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity constituted a violation of freedom of speech and of religion, and asked for the draft law's text to be reformulated. [16] [17] [18]
Same-sex sexual activity legal | (Since 1890) |
Equal age of consent (18) | (Since 1890) |
Anti-discrimination laws in employment only | (The Holy See reserves the right to remove, suspend and dismiss immediately any employee declaring themselves homosexual or against the position of the Catholic Church on homosexuality or transsexuality) |
Anti-discrimination laws in the provision of goods and services | |
Anti-discrimination laws in all other areas (incl. indirect discrimination, hate speech) | |
Same-sex marriage | |
Gays, lesbians and bisexuals allowed to serve openly in the Gendarmerie Corps and the Pontifical Swiss Guard | |
Access to IVF for lesbians | |
Commercial surrogacy for gay male couples | |
Allowed to donate blood | There are no hospitals in the Vatican to donate blood at, [19] nor any official policy to ban blood donation for homosexuals and or transgender individuals. |
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The Christian tradition has generally proscribed any and all noncoital genital activities, whether engaged in by couples or individuals, regardless of whether they were of the same or different sex. The position of the Roman Catholic Church with regards to homosexuality developed from the writings of Paul the Apostle and the teachings of the Church Fathers. These were in stark contrast to contemporary Greek and Roman attitudes towards same-sex relations which were more relaxed.
The Catholic Church has intervened in political discourses to enact legislative and constitutional provisions establishing marriage as the union of a man and a woman, resisting efforts by civil governments to establish either civil unions or same-sex marriage.
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