At the American Bar Association's annual meeting on Tuesday, the House of Delegates (the organization's policy body) unanimously approved a resolution denouncing anti-gay laws as human rights violations and calling for repeals of those laws.

Read the resolution:

RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association recognizes that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people have a human right to be free from discrimination, threats and violence based on their LGBT status and condemns all laws, regulations and rules or practices that discriminate on the basis that an individual is a LGBT person;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the governments of countries where such discriminatory laws, regulations, and practices exist to repeal them with all deliberate speed and ensure the safety and equal protection under the law of all LGBT people;

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges other bar associations and attorneys in jurisdictions where there are such discriminatory laws or incidents of targeting of LGBT people to work to defend victims of anti-LGBT discrimination or conduct, and to recognize and support their colleagues who take these cases as human rights advocates; and

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the American Bar Association urges the United States Government, through bilateral and multilateral channels, to work to end discrimination against LGBT people and to ensure that the rights of LGBT people receive equal protection under the law.

Last year, a similar resolution was unanimously passed “urging federal, state, local and territorial governments to pass legislation curtailing the availability and effectiveness of the use of 'gay panic' and 'trans panic' defenses by criminal defendants.”