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NEW YORK CITY, November 10, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – “Free and Equal,” a United Nations campaign advancing homosexual interests, is using pictures of a candidate for Catholic sainthood, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and her words to promote its agenda.

Susan Yoshihara of C-FAM, The Center for Family and Human Rights, says the whole campaign is a fraud, so it is no surprise that it is misleading people by suggesting that devoutly Catholic Mother Teresa supported the homosexual agenda.

“If what this campaign stood for was really true, they wouldn't need to lie about Mother Teresa, who was always faithful to the Magisterium [the teaching authority of the Catholic Church]. She is scheduled to be recognized as a saint next year.” Yoshihara said that her cause for sainthood would have collapsed if there were any evidence she was in favor of homosexuality.

However, Yoshihara pointed out, “she loved homosexuals, and the Missionaries of Charity of San Francisco were helping victims of AIDS before anyone else would touch them. The Missionaries of Charity in Manhattan have been caring for AIDS victims for decades. But they should take her down off their website because she would never have supported something contrary to Catholic teaching.”

As if to underline the point, the Sisters of Charity in India itself  are embroiled in a dispute with the government, which has seen the sisterhood withdraw from arranging adoptions for the orphans they care for. While official Catholic  news agencies and the Indian government say the dispute is over letting divorcees and single parents adopt, as the government requires, the Indian Express quotes Sister Amala, head of the sisters' orphanage in New Delhi, as saying, “The new guidelines hurt our conscience. They are certainly not for religious people like us. What if the single parent who we give our baby turns out to be gay or lesbian? What security or moral upbringing will these children get? Our rules only allow married couples to adopt.”

The “Free and Equal” campaign describes itself as “an unprecedented United Nations global public education campaign for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality.” A project of the United Nations Human Rights Office begun in 2013, it especially targets nations with laws against homosexual behavior, which it blames for violence against LGBTQ people.

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It features two pictures of Mother Teresa on a  page titled “World Leaders.” Aside from retired South African Anglican prelate Desmond Tutu and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, virtually every other “world leader” on the page is a U.N. bureaucrat.

With one Mother Teresa picture are the words, “If we have no peace it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other,” and with the other, “What can you do for world peace? Go home and love your family.”

Comments Yoshihara: “It's not truthful to use that quote from her in this campaign, when the family she is referring to is clearly one with a mother and a father loving their children.”

One of the messages the campaign puts out is “UN: 'International law requires every country to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.'”

But Yoshihara told LifeSiteNews, “That is simply not true. There is no right to homosexual behavior. Sexual orientation or gender identity have never been recognized in any international treaty signed by U.N. member states. This is a statement of bureaucrats.” There is a significant gap between the U.N. bureaucracy and the much more conservative member states, she explained.  This campaign was an effort  by the bureaucrats to bully these states into line with the more liberal values of Northern Europe and America, “with our tax dollars.”

Father Shenan J. Boquet, president of Human Life International, supported Yoshihara's comments. “It is highly offensive to Catholics that this United Nations 'public education campaign' would so blatantly and intentionally misrepresent Blessed Mother Teresa's great love for others,” he told LifeSiteNews. “They know she opposed what this U.N. program is about, which is using emotional manipulation to promote a destructive and immoral lifestyle as if it were good. They owe the Church an apology, and these offensive images should be removed immediately.”

Neither the United Nations Human Rights Office nor the Missionaries of Charity responded to LifeSiteNews by publication time.