The Christian Right’s New Global War on Gays

As other posts on this blog have noted, as the American Christofascists have been steadily losing the culture war over gay rights and marriage equality, they have been increasingly focusing their efforts on exporting the extreme religious beliefs and anti-gay animus overseas.   The Trojan horse that they are using for this endeavor is "protecting the natural family" which translates to opposing abortion, contraception, divorce (at least in theory) and, most importantly, gay equality and marriage.  Leading the export of ignorance and religious intolerance is the World Congress of Families (WCF) which defines the "natural family" as "centered around the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage."  A piece in The Daily Beast looks at WCF's insideous throcratic agenda.  Here are excerpts:

The news looks bad for America’s conservative rear-guard. This month’s decision by the Supreme Court may soon make marriage equality the law of the land. Over three-quarters of Americans support anti-discrimination protection for gays and lesbians. One of our star athletes (and a Republican!) has transitioned her gender to overwhelming (though not universal) applause.
Does the Christian Right have a Plan B?

You bet they do. Their main weapon is an unfamiliar term: “natural family.” And they’re going to use it to beat back advances in women’s and LGBT equality worldwide, starting at the UN.

Since 1948, the United Nations has stated that the family is “the natural and fundamental group unit of society.” It makes policies and appropriates funds with that in mind.
But whose family? Does the term (and the policy and the money) only cover Mom-and-Pop nuclear families? Does it include single parents and kids? Gay families? Extended families? Families of choice?

These parameters are not just semantic, because they dictate policy. If “family” means a heterosexual couple with as many children as possible, then policies like family planning and LGBT equal rights should be opposed, if (a big if) they have a negative impact on families thus defined. If “family” is a broader term, then those same policies should be promoted.

These issues came to a head in 1994, designated the “Year of the Family” by both the United Nations and the Vatican. . . .In fact, progressives had sought to make 1994 the Year of the Families, plural. Conservatives successfully beat that back, but between pluralism and support for reproductive freedom, 1994 was a wakeup call.

“Natural family” was one response. As defined by its leading promoter, conservative activist Allan Carlson, the “natural family” is a small, conservative subset of actual families. It is “centered around the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage,” and is for the purpose of “ensuring the full physical and emotional development of children.”  Although this definition is at variance with the Biblical institution of polygamy and concubinage, it nonetheless became the central value of the World Congress of Families (WCF), founded by Carlson in 1997 . . . . 

One of WCF’s biggest successes is Russia. Beginning in the 1990s, Carlson and his Russian counterparts—conservative sociologists at Lomonosov Moscow State University—melded American “family values” conservatism with Russian concerns about a “demographic winter.” One result was the first WCF conference, in 1997, and its declaration that, in Parke’s words, “condemned policies that subvert ‘the legal and religious status of traditional marriage,’ as well as those that promote contraception and abortion, ‘state welfare systems,’ comprehensive sexual education, nonmarital cohabitation, ‘homosexual unions,’ and single parenting.”

[A]s it happens, there is no demographic winter—in Russia or anywhere else. What there is, both in Russia and the United States, is a demographic shift toward, bluntly speaking, more brown people and fewer white people. This is what the Russian Orthodox Church and Putin’s revanchist circle are fighting—and the WCF is happy to help.

Inside Russia, WCF helped pass the notorious Anti-Propaganda Law, banning gays from any public displays of existence, and wrote the ban on gay adoption.  

[A]t the UN, Russia has blocked every effort to recognize multiple forms of family—most recently in June 2014 . . . “It is part of a broader agenda led by the U.S. Religious Right aimed at cementing a patriarchal and heteronormative family structure as the fundamental unit of society, and then using that as a tool to advance conservative, right-wing social policies through the UN and other international organizations.”

[At the 2015 WCF assembly in Salt Lakr City] the cast of characters will be the same: Russian and African far-rightists, together with WCF partners Focus on the Family, the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, Concerned Women for America, Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Alliance Defending Freedom, and Americans United For Life.  Not surprisingly, the theme of the conference will be “religious liberty.”

There are plenty of reasons to take these wingnuts seriously. First, there’s a lot of money: oligarch/Putin money in Russia, conservative foundation money here. Second, the governments of Russia and many Global South countries are actively hostile to LGBT people, blaming them for every problem under the sun, from Ebola to Hollywood movies. Third, they may have the votes at the UN—as they did last year in Geneva.

It’s entirely possible that LGBTs and women throughout the world will suffer a backlash because of advances in rights for gay people and women in the US and Europe. That means those advocates in the West shouldn’t get too carried away with themselves. Opponents of equality are just getting started.

Religious conservatives remain a cancer on society and the world.  As throughout history, they continue to market hate, discord and theocracy at the expense of human rights and science and knowledge. 

Extremists Planning Major Anti-Gay Conference in Salt Lake City

As if being the site of the headquarters of the Mormon Church doesn't tarnish Salt Lake City in the eyes of many Americans, now a gathering of anti-gay extremists are planning a witches coven "conference" in that city next year.  The conference is being organized by the disingenuously named World Congress of Families, a noted extreme anti-gay organization that has worked to spread homophobia and religious based hatred around the globe, including Vladimir Putin's Russia, which has garnered a hate group designation from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the same group that monitors the KKK and Neo-Nazi groups.   The New Civil Rights Movement looks at the planned toxic gathering which, if the Salt Lake City city fathers were smart, should be blocked or sabotaged.   Here are story excerpts:

The World Congress of Families is an association of far-right individuals and organizations who advocate against any form of family or way of living that does not fit their narrow definition. Its primary target are LGBTQ individuals and their families. Founded in 1997, it has hosted major conferences all over the world where it attempts to "educate" local citizens and politicians about its agenda and advocate for anti-gay legislation. It is listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The next conference will take place in October, 2015 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The planned conference and the recent turn of events regarding the emergence of marriage equality in the State of Utah should not be considered a coincidence. The organization also has a long history of targeting well publicized battlegrounds in their fight against gay rights. Over the last several years the organization has sent its members to promote and defend anti-gay legislation throughout the world. In particular, they've focused on Russia, whose current President Vladimir Putin has been described as a Christian hero by allies of WFC.

Janice Shaw Crouse of Concerned Women for America and a board member at WCF has in the past defended Putin's persecution of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot because they insulted the Christian religion. National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown was sent to Russia in order to help encourage the creation of anti-gay legislation. WFC had also planned a conference in Moscow to have taken place this September. However, the group was forced to cancel it's plans as a result of the potential bad publicity they might receive as a result of Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

A large portion of the conference's agenda was specifically geared toward anti-gay advocacy. There are also many members of the Utah-based Mormon Church who are dedicated followers of the World Congress of Families.

The theme for the upcoming conference, 'religious liberty' is one that is all ready the new rallying cry for conservative Christians over the last few months. Given the recent Hobby Lobby victory at the Supreme Court, one can only imagine how organizations like WCF might try to take advantage of it. If marriage equality is affirmed by the Supreme Court in Utah and the rest of the country, it's possible that WCF and other groups will try to temper the advancement of gay equality by using 'religious liberty' as a tool to justify mass discrimination against the LGBTQ community in employment and housing.

This isn't the first time Utah has served as a focal point in the religious right's agenda. Aside, from being the source of money and support for Proposition 8 in 2007 and 2008, it has also served as a stage for major right-wing conferences in the past.

SPLC Adds Liberty Counsel and Other Groups To Anti-Gay Hate Group List

As noted before on this blog, the Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC") tracks hate groups that range from supremacist groups to Neo-Nazi organizations to anti-gay hate groups.  In order to win a "hate group" designation an organization must have a demonstrated track record of disseminating deliberate lies with a goal of demonizing targeted groups and engendering hatred.  In short, merely reciting religious beliefs without more doesn't earn one a hate group designation.  Now, SPLC has added seven anti-gay organizations to its hate group list.  Domestically, the most well known is Liberty Counsel which is affiliated with Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, and headed up by Liberty University law school deans Mat Staver (pictured at right) and Matt Barber, two virulent homophobes and hate merchants of the highest order.  Also making the hate group list are The World Congress of Families/Howard Center For Family, Religion and Society, based in Rockford, Illinois, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights institute (C-FAM), which have actively supported Vladimir Putin's Russian war against LGBT individuals.  Here are highlights from Truth Wins Out on these new designations:

Two of the new groups on the list have grabbed the spotlight much more in the past year than in the decade before. Indeed, they’re often mentioned in the same breath. The World Congress of Families/Howard Center For Family, Religion and Society, based in Rockford, Illinois, and the Catholic Family and Human Rights institute (C-FAM), have actively supported Russia in the pogrom it’s waging against its LGBT citizens. The World Congress convenes international events which bring anti-gay and other hate groups from around the world together under the guise of “protecting the family,” and this year, their conference will be held inside the Kremlin. In fact, the two organizations were formed around the same time, with many of the same people involved, with a direct intention to spread far-right Christian thinking around the globe.

The World Congress of Families serves as a vessel to bring worldwide hate groups together, as one can see from perusing the sponsors for their international events. The Religious Right has lost the culture war in the United States, and they realized over the past decade that they would have to expand internationally in order to keep their pocketbooks solvent and their ideology relevant.

Both the World Congress of Families and C-Fam have been vocally supportive of Russia’s anti-gay laws, with the WCF expressing support in a press release not long after the Duma’s final vote on the “propaganda” law. The World Congress also held a roundtable in US House of Representatives office space recently in order to teach American “pro-family” activists how to export their hate around the world. Austin Ruse, president of C-Fam, expressed regret that the United States wouldn’t be able to start the sort of pogrom against LGBT people that Russia has, as he praised Russia in their efforts. It’s likely that the international activities of these groups contributed heavily to the SPLC’s decision to label them hate groups.

The Liberty Counsel‘s inclusion on the list has been a very long time coming. . . .  Liberty Counsel, in its legal capacity, is a go-to outfit for conservative Christians claiming persecution (AKA having to play by the same rules as everyone else), most notably in the past several years in their defense of kidnapper Lisa Miller, who left the country with her daughter, rather than having to share custody with her former partner, Janet Jenkins. Liberty Counsel has also been very active in fighting to preserve anti-gay parents’ rights to torture their kids with harmful, discredited “ex-gay” therapy, which creates the very real possibility that those kids will be scarred for life.

These two men [Mat Staver and Matt Barber] are champions of asserting that any advance made by LGBT people is an assault on Christians, despite the fact that millions of Christians disagree with their beliefs. Just in recent months, Barber has suggested that anti-gay bigots are just like Jesus; claimed that Christians who support LGBT people are apostates; suggested that gay people are essentially  monsters; claimed that President Obama is trying to purge Christians from the military; and put forth the strange theory that gay marriage caused the Biblical flood. In the same time frame, Staver has come up with doozies of his own, such as his belief that, once marriage equality is nationwide, everyone will go gay, and his worry that, once “ex-gay” therapy is banned for minors nationwide, wingnut parents will have to resort to taking their kids to “back-alley” ex-gay parlors for the therapy they so desperately want to inflict on their children. 

Other new groups added include the Ruth Institute (formerly affiliated with NOM), the Pacific Justice Institute, Generations With Vision and Christ The King Church.