US: LGBT Envoy rejects Vatican claim that ‘aid only for same-sex marriage countries’
Randy Berry has rejected claims from the Vatican that western aid is only available to countries that allow same-sex marriage.
The first Special Envoy for the Human Rights of LGBTI people was speaking during a visit to the Vatican according to a report in The Tablet.
The Synod report claimed that it was “totally unacceptable in every case” when “international organisations attach conditions tofinancial aid to poor countries with the introduction of laws establishing marriage between persons of the same sex.”
When Berry was asked by the Tablet if this was the case, he answered “It is not. Period. Full stop,
“In the case of Uganda, for example, my government did suspend certain types of aid. That was the process of a very careful review about the types of assistance that would have gone into strengthening the mechanisms that would have allowed the state to prosecute people based on this awful law [the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act], which the Church also opposed.
“the notion that aid was given on the basis of civil unions is completely false.”
Berry was appointed as the first ever LGBTI rights envoy back in February.