WARSAW (ABP) — When Ellen Sauerbrey, the United States' assistant secretary of state for population, addressed a European conference on families May 11, she felt the need to defend her appearance there.
In her May 11 opening speech at the World Congress of Families IV in Poland, Sauerbrey told the audience, “the family is entitled to protection by the state.”
“The family predates the state,” she said. “The state did not create the family. The family created the state.”
A group of European parliamentarians had earlier denounced her appearance as putting “an official U.S. government stamp of approval” on the congress, which many European observers have dismissed as xenophobic, homophobic and retrograde.
A letter from the parliament members said Sauerbrey's attendance was an endorsement of the “extremist and intolerant views held by some participants and attendees” at the meeting. It accused event organizers of “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.”
It also accused Sauerbrey of committing a “diplomatic faux pas” by participating with “individuals whose views oppose what is laid out in the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.”
The congress, held in Warsaw, was billed by organizers as a chance to discuss ways of confronting the decline of the “traditional” family unit in Europe. With marriage rates dropping precipitously across much of the continent and birth rates stagnating in countries like Russia, France and Germany, the congress leaders have urged bolstering such families as a remedy for social and economic ills.
It featured speakers from Europe, Africa, North and South America and Australia. They plan to highlight what they call a “global epidemic of individualism” — and look to instill newfound pride in heterosexual marriages and intact family units.
“We are at war,” said Catherine Vierling, general secretary of the European Forum for Human Rights and Family. “Which kind of war? The European Union was built for peace, but today Europe is struggling for survival because Europe has no babies. Europe has no families.”
Vierling said that in Brussels, some EU mainstream and community-funded lobby groups, as well as civil servants, actively promote and implement aggressive anti-family and anti-faith agendas behind closed doors. She has urged attendees to create policies within their own countries that strengthen the family unit.
More than 100 members of the European Parliament have signed a letter supporting the family congress, but the European parliament recently passed a resolution on homophobia in Europe, adopted by a minority of parliamentarians.
In response to criticism, Allan Carlson, international secretary of the World Congress of Families, has called the parliamentarians' letter “an act of desperation.”
“On one point, the [writers] are correct,” he said in response to the letter denouncing Sauerbrey's apperance. “Our concept of the family differs markedly from their own. Ours is millennia-old, based on tradition and faith, and proven to work. Their agenda leads to social dissolution, demographic decline, a failure to socialize the young, and a lack of hope in the future. No wonder they dread an open hearing for our ideas.”
Several former Soviet bloc EU nations — including Poland, Latvia, Croatia and Slovakia — have become increasingly conservative in recent years on social issues like gay marriage and abortion rights.
Human-rights groups have criticized recent moves embracing anti-gay legislation and rhetoric by the leaders of Poland's ruling party.
In May, the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Poland for refusing to authorize gay-rights rallies in Warsaw two years ago. And French, Italian and Dutch members of the European Parliament have branded Poland's ruling party as “hateful” and “repulsive” for refusing to allow teaching on homosexuality in its schools and for proposing anti-gay legislation.
But conservative Europeans who believe the family is under attack are linking up with their American counterparts. Besides the Bush State Department, other American organizations in the meeting include Focus on the Family, the Alliance Defense Fund, and the Family Research Council. Paige Patterson, president of the Southern Baptist Convention's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, was scheduled to participate in a May 13 panel about how faith impacts the family.
Carlson is the president of the non-profit Howard Center For Family, Religion and Society in Rockford, Ill. He has led conservative opposition to legalization of gay marriage, embryonic stem-cell research and euthanasia, recently praising Russian President Vladimir Putin for recognizing a “demographic crisis confronting the industrialized world.”
Putin recently announced a program that will include a monthly $110-stipend to Russian families that have a second child. Mothers who stay at home to care for a baby would receive up to 40 percent of their prior salary. And Russian families with a second child would receive a direct payment of $9,000.
Polish dignitaries speaking at the World Congress expressed their hope for the implementation of similar measures in Poland, calling the family unit “the hope of Poland, the hope of Europe, and the hope of the world.”
More than 3,000 people from 75 countries have descended on Warsaw for the meeting. Most of Poland's 38 million people belong to the Roman Catholic Church. The Law and Justice party, led by Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski, has consistently stressed Catholic values.
-30-