By Susan Brinkmann, OCDS Staff Writer The Obama Administration has signed on to a United Nations (UN) declaration calling for global “decriminalization of homosexuality,” a measure opposed by the Vatican as well as former President George W. Bush because it is a step toward outlawing religious opposition to the homosexual agenda. The U.S. State Department said it chose to endorse the controversial declaration out of concern for "violence and human rights abuses against gay, lesbian, transsexual and bisexual individuals" and "the criminalization of sexual orientation in many countries." The declaration is being sponsored by France and the Netherlands at the request of a homosexual activist named Louis-Georges Tin. Thus far, it has been signed by 66 of the 192 UN member states. More than 50 nations opposed the declaration with the U.S. being the only western country to refuse to sign on until the Obama Administration took over. Currently, 70 members of the UN outlaw homosexual activity – mostly Muslim nations – with homosexuality being punishable by death in some of those countries. The Obama administration claims the nonbinding declaration merely targets those countries that levy the death penalty for homosexual activity, but Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), said the announcement is further evidence that the Obama administration is in full support of the homosexualist agenda. Calling the declaration a "press release" initiated by the French government, Ruse said, "What the press release really does is encourage the acceptance of gender identity and sexual orientation as a category of non-discrimination in human rights treaties so that these categories would stand alongside race, religion, and other widely accepted categories of non-discrimination." In December, homosexualist activists around the world attacked the Vatican for opposing the declaration. Archbishop Celestino Migliore, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the UN, told a French news agency that the declaration is "sad and outrageous" and was a form of "modern savagery that will dismantle our society from the inside out."   "If adopted, they would create new and implacable discriminations," Migliore said. "For example, states which do not recognise same-sex unions as 'matrimony' will be pilloried and made an object of pressure." © All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly/Women of Grace. http://www.womenofgrace.com