Gallery
Larry Jakobs, Brian Brown, Allan C. Carlson - World Congress of Families XI
Novák Katalin
Ludovine de La Rochère
| Founded | 1997 |
|---|---|
| Location |
|
Key people | International Secretary, Allan C. Carlson |
| Website | www |
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is a United States coalition that promotes Christian right values internationally. [2] It opposes divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, while supporting a society built on "the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage". [3] [4] [5] [6] WCF comprises organizations in several countries, and most of its member partners are strongly active campaigners against abortion rights and same-sex marriage. [7] WCF was formed in 1997 and is active worldwide, regularly organizing conventions. [8] Its opposition to gay marriage and abortion has attracted criticism. [9]
In 2014, following its involvement with the 2013 Russian LGBT propaganda law, the Southern Poverty Law Center added WCF to the list of organizations it considers as anti-LGBT groups. [10] [11] [12] [13] WCF has also been influential in Africa. A 2015 report by Human Rights Campaign pointed to WCF's influence on anti-LGBT laws in Nigeria and Uganda, [14] while the director of the NGO Rightify Ghana noted in 2021 that, after the WCF conference in Ghana's capital city of Accra in late 2019, "there was a rush to push legislation" against LGBT in Ghana. [15] The organization has received funding from sanctioned Russian oligarchs. [16] [17] [18]
Allan C. Carlson, President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, initiated the congress on the basis of article 16c of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, saying: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state". [19] According to WCF, its purpose is to "stand up for the position of the traditional family, in a time of eroding family life and declining appreciation for families in general". The coalition defines "the natural family" as the "union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage" [20] and works with other organizations such as the World Family Policy Center at Brigham Young University (BYU) to promote its views. [21] The Human Rights Campaign called WCF "one of the most influential groups in America promoting and coordinating the exportation of anti-LGBT bigotry, ideology, and legislation abroad" and stated that their international conferences comprise "the most fringe activists engaged in anti-LGBT extremism". [8] [22] According to the HRC, the WCF and its affiliates are also linked to anti-LGBT advocacy in numerous countries, including on the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, the Russian LGBT propaganda law, and Nigeria. [8]
The WCF is controversial for its opposition to legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation, [23] [24] opposition to same sex marriage, [25] and support for policies against homosexuality in Russia. [26] It was added to the SPLC's list of active hate groups in 2014. The WCF responded to hate group designations by publishing a report addressing the 25-plus accusations made by the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), including their labeling the WCF as a hate group. [27] In response to the WCF report, Ty Cobb, director of HRC Global, did not react to the factual errors in his own report and just said "WCF's explanations do little to mask its record of anti-LGBT rhetoric or those of organizations it partners with around the world." [27]
The WCF has organized conferences since 1997. [28]
Following initial planning in 2010, [29] the WCF sponsored the July 2011 Moscow Demographic Summit, which formulated a communique calling on governments to develop "a pro-family demographic policy and to adopt a special international pro-family strategy and action plan aimed at consolidating family and marriage, protecting human life from conception to natural death, increasing birth rates, and averting the menace of depopulation." [30]
In London in 2012, the WCF were refused permission to hire out the facilities of the Law Society for an event entitled One man. One woman. Making the case for marriage for the good of society, [31] and had to find an alternative venue. [32]
In 2013, Mark Kirk, the Republican Senator for Illinois revoked the WCF access to a Senate meeting room in the U.S. Capitol. [33]
In February 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) included WCF in their listing of anti-gay hate groups. [10] [11] [12] [34] As of August 2014 [update] The WCF partners listing includes several groups that are also listed as anti-gay hate groups by the SPLC, including American Family Association, Family Research Council, Family Watch International, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. [35] [36]
Larry Jacobs was invited to Russia to advise Russian Orthodox leaders in setting up Christian right coalitions that unite Protestant Evangelical and Roman Catholic groups opposing legalized abortion. [37] Larry Jacobs has been a strong advocate of the Russian LGBT propaganda law, commenting that "The Russians might be the Christian saviors of the world" [38] [39] The coalition stated "Russia, with its historic commitment to deep spirituality and morality, can be a hope for the natural family supporters from all over the world" [40] Jacobs commented that "The Kremlin used to be a no-no for conservatives," but added "We're going to redeem that building." [41]
In 2016 WCF rebranded with an umbrella organization called International Organization for the Family. [42]
| Edition | Host City | Year held | Attendees |
|---|---|---|---|
| I | Prague, Czech Republic | 1997 | 700 [28] |
| II | Geneva, Switzerland | 1999 | 1,600 [43] |
| III | Mexico City, Mexico | 2004 | 3,300 [44] |
| IV | Warsaw, Poland | 2007 | 3,900 [45] [46] |
| V | Amsterdam, Kingdom of the Netherlands | 2009 | [47] |
| VI | Madrid, Spain | 2012 | |
| VII | Sydney, Australia | 2013 | [48] |
| VIII | Moscow, Russia | 2014 (Cancelled) | |
| IX | Salt Lake City, United States | 2015 | |
| X | Tbilisi, Georgia | 2016 | |
| XI | Budapest, Hungary | 2017 | [49] |
| XII | Chisinau, Moldova | 2018 | |
| XIII | Verona, Italy | 2019 | |
| XIII | Accra, Ghana | 2019 | |
| XIV | Mexico City, Mexico | 2022 | [50] |
The meeting in Warsaw in May 2007 was to be addressed by Ellen Sauerbrey, at the time head of the United States Department of State's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, which provoked a letter from 19 Members of the European Parliament demanding that she should not go. [3] [51]
The 2009 conference in Amsterdam met with some controversy when the government minister André Rouvoet addressed the congress despite requests from other Dutch Parliamentarians that he should not do so. [52] Their local offices were defaced with paint, obscenities and anti-Christian slogans by unknown vandals, but the WCF said they would not be intimidated by radical opposition. The WCF comprises Christian, Islamic, and secular leaders, and the Chief Rabbi of the Netherlands was scheduled to speak at the conference. [53]
Prior to the 2013 WCF conference, Sydney politician Alex Greenwich sought to ensure that the conference complied with anti-discrimination legislation. [54] One of the reports presented to the conference said that children raised in two-parent families do best at school. [55]
The 2014 WCF conference was scheduled to be held in September in Russia, [56] and was promoted as "the 'Olympics' of the international Pro-Life movement supporting the Natural Family". [57] Because of the annexation of Ukrainian Crimea by Russia, planning for the conference was suspended. [58] [59]
Writer Masha Gessen attended the 2016 conference, and reported participants embracing white replacement worries expressed in the language of human extinction, and concerns that backers of gender ideology would overthrow the government—ideas described as conspiracy theories and moral panics. [60] [61]
The 2017 WCF conference was held in Hungary. The right wing Prime minister of Hungary Viktor Orban spoke at the event. [62]
The 2019 WCF conference was held in March in Verona, Italy. The deputy prime minister and leader of the League Matteo Salvini spoke at the event with a speech that spanned topics from population decline to illegal immigration and a critique of feminism. [63] Scheduled speakers included Moldova's president Igor Dodon, Hungary's Families Minister Katalin Novak, [64] and Dmitri Smirnov, a senior figure in the Russian Orthodox Church. [65]
In August 2014, the WCF held a regional conference in Melbourne Australia [7] [66] that was met with protests. [67] [68] [69] The Senate of Australia passed a motion to condemn the conference after several MPs and government ministers announced their intention to speak at the conference and four successive venues refused to host the conference. [70] [71] Federal social services minister Kevin Andrews was noted by the Senate as a recipient of the WCF's "Natural Family Man of the Year" award. [70] [72] Four of these ministers later pulled out of the conference because the conference was hosted by the controversial Christian group Catch the Fire. [73] [74] [75] Kevin Andrews, who was the international ambassador for the 2013 conference, has been promoted as the international ambassador for the World Congress of Families. [lower-alpha 1] After the conference, Andrews asked the WCF to remove a reference to him as "international ambassador" from their promotional material. [80]
The WCF held an African Regional Conference in Ghana in 2019. [81]
The Family Research Council (FRC) is an American evangelical activist group and think-tank with an affiliated lobbying organization. FRC promotes what it considers to be family values. It opposes and lobbies against: access to pornography, embryonic stem-cell research, abortion, divorce, and LGBT rights—such as anti-discrimination laws, same-sex marriage, same-sex civil unions, and LGBT adoption. The FRC has been criticized by media sources and professional organizations such as the American Sociological Association for using "anti-gay pseudoscience" to falsely conflate homosexuality and pedophilia, and to falsely claim that the children of same-sex parents suffer from more mental health problems.
The American Family Association (AFA) is a conservative and Christian fundamentalist 501(c)(3) organization based in the United States. It opposes LGBT rights and expression, pornography, and abortion. It also takes a position on a variety of other public policy goals. It was founded in 1977 by Donald Wildmon as the National Federation for Decency and is headquartered in Tupelo, Mississippi.
The Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) was an American conservative Christian organization. It was founded in 1980 at Anaheim California by Rev. Louis P. Sheldon to oppose LGBT rights. Sheldon's daughter, Andrea Sheldon Lafferty, was initially the executive director and presently serves as president. TVC was influential in the 1980s and 1990s in lobbying for government policy based in Christian fundamentalism.
Liberty Counsel is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt religious liberty organization that engages in litigation related to evangelical Christian values. Liberty Counsel was founded in 1989 by its chairman Mathew Staver and its president Anita L. Staver, who are attorneys and married to each other. The Southern Poverty Law Center has listed Liberty Counsel as an anti-LGBT hate group, a designation the group has disputed. The group is a Christian ministry.
LGBT rights opposition is the opposition to legal rights, proposed or enacted, for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people. Laws that LGBT rights opponents may be opposed to include civil unions or partnerships, LGBT parenting and adoption, military service, access to assisted reproductive technology, and access to sex reassignment surgery and hormone replacement therapy for transgender individuals.
"Gay agenda" or "homosexual agenda" is a term used by sectors of the Christian religious right as a disparaging way to describe the advocacy of cultural acceptance and normalization of non-heterosexual sexual orientations and relationships. The term originated among social conservatives in the United States and has been adopted in nations with active anti-LGBT movements such as Hungary and Uganda.
The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, also known as The American TFP, and legally incorporated as The Foundation for a Christian Civilization, Inc. is a Traditionalist Catholic American advocacy group. It is an autonomous organization which forms part of the larger anticommunist and monarchist international Tradition, Family, Property (TFP) movement founded by Brazilian intellectual, politician, and activist Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira.
Mission: America is an American Christian right organization based in Columbus, Ohio and founded in 1995 that seeks to "cover the latest cultural and social trends in our country and what they might mean for Christians." The organization publishes articles on its web site about its views on homosexuality and paganism. Mission: America's founder and president, Linda Harvey, is an outspoken critic of LGBT rights, including same-sex marriage.
Louis Philip Sheldon was an American Presbyterian pastor, and then Anglican priest, and chairman of the social conservative organization, the Traditional Values Coalition.
MassResistance is an American organization that promotes anti-LGBT and socially conservative positions. The group is designated an anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, in part for claims linking LGBT people with pedophilia and zoophilia, and claims that suicide prevention programs aimed at gay youth were created by homosexual activists to normalize and "lure" children into homosexuality.
Scott Douglas Lively is an American activist, author, and attorney, who is the president of Abiding Truth Ministries, an anti-LGBT group based in Temecula, California. He was also a cofounder of Latvia-based group Watchmen on the Walls, state director of the California branch of the American Family Association, and a spokesman for the Oregon Citizens Alliance. He unsuccessfully attempted to be elected as the governor of Massachusetts in both 2014 and 2018.
The Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society is a socially conservative U.S. think-tank and advocacy group that opposes abortion, divorce, and homosexuality, promoting instead the "child-rich, married parent" family.
The Center for Family and Human Rights (C-Fam) is a right-wing United States-based advocacy group, founded in 1997, in order to affect policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions. It was formerly known as the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute. The 501(c)(3) organization is anti-abortion and anti-LGBT.
The Values Voter Summit is an annual political conference held in Washington, D.C. for American social conservative activists and elected officials from across the United States.
Peter LaBarbera is an American social conservative activist and the president of the anti-gay organization Americans for Truth about Homosexuality (AFTAH).
Brian S. Brown is an American activist who is a co-founder of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), and has served as its president since 2010, having previously served as executive director. NOM is a non-profit political organization established in 2007 to work against legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States. NOM's mission is "protecting marriage and the faith communities that sustain it".
The Illinois Family Institute (IFI) is a Christian organization based in Tinley Park, Illinois. Founded in 1990, its stated mission is "upholding and re-affirming marriage, family, life and liberty in Illinois", and it is affiliated with the American Family Association. The organization's legislative arm is the 501(c)(4) lobbying group Illinois Family Action, founded in 2010. The organization's executive director is David E. Smith, who in 2006, succeeded Peter LaBarbera, founder of Americans for Truth about Homosexuality.
United Families International (UFI) is a United States nonprofit organization founded in 1978 by Susan Roylance. UFI works on an international scale to influence public policy toward "maintaining and strengthening the family". UFI has NGO status with ECOSOC and works to spread their opinion to United Nations (UN) ambassadors and delegates on family related issues. UFI also operates a website, DefendMarriage.org. They are listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as an anti-gay hate group. but are supported by and in agreement with significant portions of the Christian conservative coalition.
Gabriele Kuby is a German writer and sociologist. She is a Catholic convert and noted for Traditionalist Catholic ideas and orthodox positions on sexuality and gender, which are stated in works like The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom. She also became known for criticizing the morality of the Harry Potter series.
Feminist law professors Doris Buss and Didi Herman wrote, "In terms of international activism, it is through deployment of natural family discourse that the [Christian Right] has had the most success in forging global alliances with other religious movements."
The chief organizer is a Rockford, Illinois-based conservative think tank, the Howard Center. Co-sponsors include more than 20 other U.S. groups allied in opposition to abortion, gay marriage and other policies they blame for weakening traditional families in Western Europe.
A U.S.-based conservative group that supports Russia's efforts to curtail gay rights and abortion is suspending its plans for an international conference in Moscow
The World Congress of Families is the global conservative Christian organisation which was scheduled to hold a controversial regional event in Melbourne this weekend
The WCF is sponsored by Malofeev and Vladimir Yakunin, yet another U.S.-sanctioned Russian oligarch.
Larry Jacobs, managing director of the World Congress of Families, based in Rockford, Illinois, attended the Sanctity of Motherhood forum and praised Russia's new activists as allies. He has met with Metropolitan Hilarion... Hilarion highlighted a vocal anti-abortion stance as a uniting factor between Russian Orthodoxy and Protestant evangelicals. He has said they should form a "strategic alliance" with Roman Catholics.
Senator Waters, pursuant to notice of motion not objected to as a formal motion, moved general business notice of motion no. 391—That the Senate— (a) notes that: (i) the World Congress of Families is responsible for spreading: (a) homophobic and sexist prejudices around the world, including in Russia, the United States, and countries in Eastern Europe and Africa, and (b) harmful myths, including linking abortion with breast cancer and contraception with domestic violence, (ii) the World Congress of Families is holding a conference in Melbourne on Saturday, 30 August 2014, (iii) the Minister for Social Services (Mr Andrews) is planning to attend the conference and give an opening address, and has been awarded the 2014 Natural Family Man of the Year award by the World Congress of Families, and (iv) other state and federal Members of Parliament are also planning to attend the conference; (b) reaffirms the: (i) fundamental Australian values of equality, tolerance and non-discrimination, and (ii) value and dignity of all persons regardless of their gender, sexuality, or family status; and (c) calls on Members of Parliament not to attend the World Congress of Families conference. Question put and passed.
A conservative Christian group holding its annual conference in Melbourne this weekend has named the federal social services minister, Kevin Andrews, as its 2014 "Natural Family Man of the Year".
Andrews also serves as a special World Congress of Families International Ambassador for the natural family.
The Hon. Kevin Andrews MP, Australian Minister for Social Services and International Ambassador for WCF
The conference, which will take place late next month, will be opened and closed by federal Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews, who, according to the flyer for the event, is an international ambassador for the congress.
Mr Andrews is an international ambassador for the World Congress of Families which is organised by a US-based group dedicated to preventing abortion and the decriminalisation of homosexuality.