The Vatican said it condemned all forms of violence against homosexuals, but did not support a recently-proposed U.N. Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, recognizing "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" as new categories that need human rights protections. The Vatican called the U.N. proposal as ill-defined and overly broad.

The Declaration on Human Rights, Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, is a French-initiated statement presented to the United National General Assembly on December 18, 2008. The declaration condemns violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization, and prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender identity. It also condemns killings and executions, torture, arbitrary arrest, and deprivation of economic, social, and cultural rights on those grounds. It is calling for an end to the laws criminalizing gay sex between consenting adults in private. It wants all States to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention. Sources say that "homosexuality" and gay sex between consenting adults in private is punishable by law in 77 countries and gay people can be executed in seven Islamic countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Mauritania and parts of Nigeria and Pakistan. On the other hand it is legal in 47 countries, while 57 other countries passed legislation to protect same-sex orientation. The declaration also urges States to ensure that human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity are investigated and perpetrators held accountable and brought to justice and to ensure adequate protection of human rights defenders, and remove obstacles to them carrying out their work on issues of human rights and sexual orientation and gender identity. The declaration has been recognized as an important step on the way to fulfill human rights' objectives, finally breaking the taboo against speaking about LGBT rights in the United Nations.

Sixty-six of the United Nations' 192 member countries signed the declaration, including every member of the European Union and every major Western nation except the United States.

Among the first to voice opposition for the declaration was Vatican. "Despite the declaration's rightful condemnation of and protection from all forms of violence against homosexual persons, the document, when considered in its entirety, goes beyond this goal and instead gives rise to uncertainty in the law and challenges existing human rights norms," a Vatican statement said. In early December, 2008, the apostolic nuncio leading the Holy See's permanent observer mission to the United Nations, Celestino Migliore, claimed: "If adopted, it would create new and implacable discriminations. A declaration might be used to put pressure on or discriminate against countries that do not recognize same sex marriage." In a statement Archbishop Migliore noted: "In particular, the categories 'sexual orientation' and 'gender identity,' used in the text, find no recognition or clear and agreed definition in international law. If they had to be taken into consideration in the proclaiming and implementing of fundamental rights, these would create serious uncertainty in the law as well as undermine the ability of States to enter into and enforce new and existing human rights conventions and standards." The statement was widely criticized, for example by France, as well as by Amnesty International and gay rights groups and Italian press.

Fifty-seven of U.N. member states supported an opposing statement. The statement rejected the idea that sexual orientation is a matter of genetic coding and claimed that the two notions of sexual orientation and gender identity should not be linked to existing human rights instruments, adding that the statement "fell into matters that were in the domestic jurisdiction of states" and could possibly "legitimize many deplorable acts, such as pedophilia."

However, Archbishop Migliore also made clear the Vatican's opposition to legal discrimination against homosexuals, which is clearly stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "The Holy See appreciates the attempts made in the Declaration on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity. The Holy See continues to advocate that every sign of unjust discrimination towards homosexual persons should be avoided and urges States to do away with criminal penalties against them," said Archbishop while speaking to a session of the UN General Assembly.

Following the Vatican's controversial opposition to a UN declaration calling for an end to discrimination against homosexuals, Archbishop Celestino Migliore confirmed that the Holy See also refused to sign a U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in May 2008 because it did not condemn abortion or assert the rights of fetuses with birth defects. The Vatican made its position clear on the United Nations International Day of Disabled People. Father Federico Lombardi, the Pope's spokesman, said the Holy See's position was "already widely known." Archbishop Migliore said the Vatican supported the rights of the disabled, but could not accept a clause in the UN declaration affirming a right to "sexual health and reproduction" because "in some countries such rights include the right to abortion."  The Holy See's position was criticized by the Italian Federation for the Handicapped.