Full Legislative History
Resolution Number: 1994-D015
Title: Reaffirm Support for Human Rights
Legislative Action Taken: Concurred As Amended
Final Text:

Resolved, That the 71st General Convention commend to the National Council of Churches, which has requested dialogue with its member commissions on human rights as it prepares its own policy statement on this subject, the perspective contained in this resolution; and be it further

Resolved, That this 71st General Convention reaffirm its support for human rights throughout the world and states its conviction that civil rights and political freedom are the universal bedrock of any meaningful scheme of human rights; and be it further

Resolved, That this 71st General Convention commend ecumenical and interfaith support for human rights as a moral imperative for Christians, growing out of the biblical understandings that human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, that they are endowed by God with an inalienable dignity, and that they thereby possess a value that is prior to and not dependent upon the acknowledgment of such rights by a political entity; and be it further

Resolved, That this Convention commend to the National Council of Churches, which has requested dialogue with its member communions on human rights as it prepares its own policy statement on that subject, the perspective contained in this resolution and its accompanying explanation; and be it further

Resolved, That this 71st General Convention encourage the President and the Secretary of State to take the initiative internationally in promoting the cause of human rights and in restoring the primary focus of human rights effort[s] to the civil rights and political freedoms that are the building blocks of decent and humane societies; and be it further

Resolved, That this 71st General Convention commend continuing dialogue, both within the churches and between other faith communities and their governments, on issues of human rights, especially those issues relevant to their own jurisdictions.

Citation: General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of...The Episcopal Church, Indianapolis, 1994 (New York: General Convention, 1995), pp. 183-84.