By Ryan Foley, Christian Post. (Photo: Nils Huenerfuerst/Unsplash)
A petition urging top U.S. diplomats to ensure that a clarification that the term “gender” refers to the two biological sexes is not removed from international law has garnered over 140,000 signatures amid concerns that a pending U.N. convention will be used to “criminalize legitimate pro-life and pro-family beliefs, speech, or public policy.”
Last week, the pro-life advocacy organization CitizenGO launched a petition addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz and U.S. delegates to the U.N., highlighting concerns about the inclusion of gender ideology as part of the ongoing development of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity.
Following the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York City on Tuesday, the petition has garnered over 140,000 signatures and is rapidly adding more.
The petition requests that U.S. diplomats “defend legal certainty in this text; specifically, to restore the definition of ‘gender’ that States have already agreed to, and to oppose the introduction of terms that lack strict guidelines to safeguard pro-life and pro-family citizens.”
According to the petition, “In 1998, the Rome Statute settled this question. Article 7(3) states that ‘the term ‘gender’ refers to the two sexes, male and female, within the context of society.’ Article 7(1)(h) criminalizes persecution on gender grounds and refers back to that definition explicitly. This is not contested language — it is binding treaty law, ratified by the U.S. and by 120 other States.”
The Rome Statute language is binding treaty law, but the United States is not a party to the statute. It signed the treaty in 2000 but never ratified it, and in 2002 the George W. Bush administration formally withdrew the U.S. signature altogether.