Posts on World Congress of Families

Every few years, right-wingers from all over the globe gather for the World Congress of Families in order to “affirm that the natural human family is established by the Creator and essential to good society,” share strategy, and urge their governments to adopt policies that “protect and support the family, and not usurp the vital roles it plays in society.”  Not surprisingly, high on their list of priorities is the protection of marriage and families against “pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality”: 

The complementary natures of men and women are physically and psychologically self-evident. These differences are created and natural, not primarily socially constructed. Sexuality is ordered for the procreation of children and the expression of love between husband and wife in the covenant of marriage. Marriage between a man and a woman forms the sole moral context for natural sexual union. Whether through pornography, promiscuity, incest or homosexuality, deviations from these created sexual norms cannot truly satisfy the human spirit. They lead to obsession, remorse, alienation, and disease. Child molesters harm children and no valid legal, psychological or moral justification can be offered for the odious crime of pedophilia. Culture and society should encourage standards of sexual morality that support and enhance family life.

So where is the next World Congress of Families going to be held, you ask?  Of all places, Amsterdam:

Last week, the Selection Committee for World Congress of Families V met in Washington, D.C. and unanimously recommended Amsterdam as the site for the next Congress. Their recommendation was accepted by the WCF Management Committee.

If the World Congress of Families sounds like some sort of international version of the sorts of “values voters” events put on in this country by right-wing political groups, that probably has something to do with the fact that many of those same groups are members of the WCF’s various steering committees, with groups like Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, and Concerned Women for America all playing a role:

The 16-member Selection Committee was composed of: Ignacio Arsuaga (HazteOir.org, Spain), Chuck Donovan (Family Research Council), Don Feder (World Congress of Families), Farooq Hassan (Pakistan Family Forum), Jesus Hernandez (The Family Network, Mexico), Marie-Claire Hernandez (Family & Society, Mexico), Randy Hicks (Georgia Family Council), Robert Knight (Culture and Media Institute, Media Research Center), Ewa Kowalewska (Human Life International,  Europe), Gwendolyn Landolt (REAL Women of Canada), Yuri Mantilla (Focus on the Family), Dorothy Patterson (Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary), Austin Ruse (Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute), Mary Ellen Smoot, Jennifer Swim (GFC Foundation) and Father Jaroslaw Szymczak (Institute of Family Studies, Poland). The meeting was chaired by Gwen Landolt (Real Women of Canada).

...

The Management Committee, which has ultimate oversight of the Congress, consists of Carlson, Janice Crouse (Senior Fellow, Beverly LaHaye Institute, Concerned Women for America), Paul Mero (President, Sutherland Institute), William Saunders (Senior Fellow & Human Rights Counsel, Family Research Council) and Christine Vollmer (President, Latin American Alliance for Families).

When the event was held last year in Poland, members of the European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics were not particularly jazzed that right-wing advocates were preparing to use the nation as a staging ground for saving Europe and the rest of the world from the “demographic winter and … the secularists.”

But the group soldiered on, despite the opposition. As Robert Knight of the Media Research Center put it: 

This is a nation that has suffered enormously over many decades. First from Nazism and then communism. They're a tough bunch of people who appear to have the strength to resist especially the homosexual agenda. If you've been victim of communists and Nazis, you're not going to run in fright from the forces from San Francisco.

Many scoffed in 1999 when the late Jerry Falwell’s magazine proposed that Tinky-Winky, a character on the “Teletubbies” children’s show, was intended as a gay role model, but recently the Polish government’s advocate for children said that she would be looking into the possibility of “hidden homosexual undertones” in the form of the character’s handbag. Ewa Sowinska backed away from the warning this week, but at least one American religious-right activist is defending her proposed investigation as a “legitimate inquiry.”

Allen Carlson of the Howard Center said, “I don't think anyone doubts that the creators of Tinky Winky intentionally were using stereotypes regarding homosexuality in creating this character.” Carlson praised Poland for “erring on the side of protecting children from harmful propaganda generated by the sexual revolution.”

Carlson support for reactionary anti-gay policies from the Polish government should be no surprise. Last month, Carlson organized the so-called World Congress of Families in Warsaw, where he and other speakers – including a U.S. State Department official – praised the Polish government for its efforts, in the words of the country’s education minister, to combat the “propagation of homosexual culture.”

As Robert Knight of the Media Research Center declared of a Poland standing alone in Europe,

This is a nation that has suffered enormously over many decades. First from Nazism and then communism. They're a tough bunch of people who appear to have the strength to resist especially the homosexual agenda. If you've been victim of communists and Nazis, you're not going to run in fright from the forces from San Francisco.

From communism to Nazism to “the forces from San Francisco” – and now to Tinky Winky.

At World Congress of Families, Minnery cites “’unprecedented’ cooperation of pro-family groups and local churches”

The “world’s largest conference of pro-family leaders and grass-roots activists” is slated to take place next month in Warsaw Poland. Known as the World Congress of Families, the event is backed by various right-wing groups such as The Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Concerned Women For America, The Heritage Foundation, and others.  

The year’s event, entitled “The Natural Family – Springtime For Europe and the World” is being held in Poland because apparently it alone is last hope for saving Europe and the rest of the world from the “demographic winter and … the secularists”:

Europe is almost lost; to a demographic winter and to the secularists.  If Europe goes much of the world will go with it.  Almost alone, Poland has maintained strong faith and strong families, though even Poland comes under severe pressure to change.  Poland has saved Europe before.  It is likely she will save Europe again.  On family and population questions, Europe is the battleground in the early years of the 21st Century, and Poland is the pivot point.   It makes abundant sense that The World Congress of Families IV meet among the brave people of Poland.

Among those who have reportedly agreed to attend is US Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Ellen Sauerbrey – and members of the European Parliamentary Working Group on Separation of Religion and Politics are not particularly understanding about the Bush Administration’s willingness to lend the “official U.S. government stamp of approval to [the] extremist and intolerant views” that will surely be espoused at this conference: 

We urge you to withdraw from this conference because your participation provides an official U.S. government stamp of approval to extremist and intolerant views held by some participants and attendees. These extremist and intolerant views include prejudiced attitudes toward foreigners, people from other religions, homosexuals, and the inclusive vision of what represents a family unit that has been developed by the United Nations and the European Union.

…

The United States rightly prides itself on supporting and spreading religious tolerance, pluralism and inclusion. This conference, and many who will be attending, reject that ethos outright. We have no problem with people expressing beliefs and convictions that we do not share. In a free society, that is right and just. However, we do object when foreign government officials lend support to such views, especially when platforms are used to denigrate and attack those with whom they disagree.

We’re not sure if any of those parliamentarians have been paying attention to American politics for the past six years, but it doesn’t seem very likely that concerns over religious tolerance, gay rights, and xenophobia would cause Sauerbrey to withdraw from a conference put together by a still-loyal group of the Bush administration’s ever-dwindling political supporters.