WARSAW, Poland (ABP) — Healthy traditional marriages inevitably create healthy societies, psychologist Patrick Fagen told a global gathering of social conservatives May 12, and European Christians must model that enterprise for their continent.
Fagen, who spoke on the second day of the World Congress on Families in Warsaw, Poland, told listeners that governments can't do nearly as much to protect and nurture children as being raised in a traditional household can.
The three-day event, co-sponsored by such groups as Focus on the Family, the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute and the Family Research Council, attracted Polish nuns, French economists, Kenyan pediatricians and Slovak trial lawyers. Besides Poland and the United States, Mexico, the Ukraine and Russia sent the largest delegations.
Like many of the day's speakers, Fagen — a former official in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Bush — stressed that people of faith cannot expect governments to build healthy societies.
“You do not go to politicians to find chastity,” he said. “You hope they are chaste, but that is not the work of politicians …. [creating healthy socities] will be done some by the work of government, but it will primarily be fed by the worship of God.”
Worship, or the lack thereof, directly affects public safety and well-being, he said. For instance, teenagers with the highest grade point averages come from intact families who “worship a lot,” Fagen said. And those religious, intact families also have the lowest numbers of teens who do drugs, engage in sexual activity, commit grand theft, run away from home, or are expelled from school.
And according to Fagen's report, serious abuse of children occurs the least in intact families. It occurs the most — 33 times more often — when a mother cohabitates with her boyfriend.
What's more, Fagen said, marriage is the “big difference between participating in the benefits of an economy or not.” According to www.familyfacts.org, a full two-thirds of single mothers in America live below the poverty line. The demographic group in the United States with the lowest median annual income, roughly $9,400, is widowed or never-married mothers, while the group with the highest median annual income, $54,000, is intact families where both original parents are present.
Jerzy Kropiwnicki, former head of the Polish delegation to the United Nations and now mayor of the city of Lodz, said the first way to promote family-friendly policies in international bodies is to educate lawmakers.
In his view, government programs designed to strengthen families are worth more than they cost. “This is not welfare,” he said. “This is not charity. They must recognize the special role of the family.”
Inese Slesere, a member of the Latvian parliament, has worked in her country to do just that. Since 1989, Latvia's population has decreased from 2.6 million to 2.3 million people. The number of Latvian children under 17 is down 30 percent since 1989, she said, and 39 percent — compared to 17 percent in 1989 –of Latvian children born in 2003 were born out of wedlock.
Slesere called those statistics a “demographic catastrophe.”
Government leaders in Latvia have taken some notice. In recent years, they have instituted a childcare allowance for one parent to remain at home for one year after the birth of a child, also adding tax incentives in 2005 to reduce income taxes for families after each additional child is born. Latvian authorities also provide housing guarantees and credits to families who may not be able to find housing.
After decades of communist policy, Slesere said, the efforts signify a welcome change.
“There is nothing more important in society, state or personal life than the well-being of the family,” she said. “We know that in order to build a strong nation, we as legislators must concentrate our efforts to build the natural family.”
Eastern European nations have led the way in what conference leaders have termed “pro-family” policymaking. Slesere said the number of abortions and the divorce rate has decreased dramatically since the 1990s. Latvia has also joined Poland in defining marriage in its national constitution in exclusively heterosexual terms.
“As Christian values are promoted, our economic stability will be advanced,” Slesere said.
Many disagree with that characterization. Poland is the only country in the European Union to have a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage. The nation has recently come under attack from leaders of the 27-member European Union because its ruling party has taken a hard-line stance against homosexuality.
Jarrett Lucas, director of outreach for the faith-based gay activist group Soulforce Q, said it is unfair to use economic arguments to justify legal discrimination against gay families.
“Limiting family structures to one biased concept is harmful to everyone regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity,” Lucas said. “The fact is that bigotry does not recognize national boundaries.”
Not all conservative Christians in Europe have signed onto such an agenda, though. Jim Smith, of the European Baptist Federation, said he hadn't heard talk among his constituents regarding this year's World Congress. It's not for lack of conservatism — many European Baptists tend to be against abortion and gay marriage — but Baptist support in general of such events is marginal, he said.
“Admittedly, it may be a hotter issue in some parts of Europe where evangelicals respond more to such issues, but I hear more prayers and concern being voiced regarding global warming, war in the Middle East, hunger and poverty,” Smith said. “Western European Baptists especially are very concerned about the environment.”
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Controversial gathering aims to focus Europeans on 'pro-family' politics (5/11)