Archbishop Defends Vatican Stance on Gays : Bias: Head of Catholic Conference urges support for rights but backs church’s position that it is not always unjust to take sexual orientation into account.

The head of the United States Catholic Conference on Wednesday defended a recent Vatican document that justifies discrimination against homosexuals, but also assured homosexuals that local bishops will work to safeguard their rights.

Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk of Cincinnati, president of the conference, said in a prepared statement issued in Washington that bishops will evaluate local laws aimed at extending civil rights for homosexuals with the Vatican document in mind.

The document, he said, “rightly warns” against proposals that are designed less to secure basic civil rights and more to grant legitimacy to homosexual behavior. The Vatican is also correct, Pilarczyk said, to oppose laws “which tend to promote an equivalence between legal marriage and homosexual lifestyles.”

At the same time, Pilarczyk said, “I believe that the bishops of the various local churches in the United States will continue to look for ways in which those people who have a homosexual orientation will not suffer unjust discrimination in law or reality because of their orientation.”

U.S. Catholic bishops, he said, will continue “to uphold the values of marriage and family life” while defending “the basic human dignity and human rights of all” and condemning “violence, hatred and bigotry directed against any person.”

The recent document, which became the topic of news reports last week, was distributed last month to U.S. bishops by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The office, which oversees Catholic doctrine, is the same Vatican office that issued a document in 1986 declaring homosexuality an “objective disorder.” The Vatican has long condemned sexual relationships between homosexuals.

The new document was issued as activists are seeking to secure and extend civil rights for homosexuals in such areas as employment and housing and demanding the same economic and property rights for homosexual couples as those accorded by law to married heterosexuals.

The document was leaked to the press by New Ways Ministry in Mt. Rainier, Md., an advocacy group for Catholic homosexuals.

The document says: “There are areas in which it is not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account, for example in the consignment of children to adoption or foster care, in employment of teachers or coaches and in military recruitment.”

It also defends discrimination against homosexuals in housing, cautioning that giving homosexual partnerships the same status as heterosexual marriages would endanger the traditional family and its values.

Pilarczyk said the Vatican is worried that proposals to safeguard the legitimate rights of homosexuals would “have the effect of creating a new class of legally protected behavior.”

Homosexual orientation, the latest document states, is not comparable to characteristics such as race and ethnic background in respect to discrimination laws.

The U.S. Catholic Conference is the social action arm of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, the organization that represents Catholic bishops throughout the United States.