Staying with WorldNetDaily, Art Moore reports from the World Congress of Families:
While the rest of Europe largely accommodates a rising tide of secularism, many Polish leaders are prepared to fight back with a bold, traditional social agenda they envision not only for their own country but for the continent and the world.
Poland’s vice premier and minister of education, Roman Giertych told the World Congress of Families here his multi-pronged plan – including a proposal issued last month to ban “homosexual propaganda” in schools – is “something I have to do.”
…Giertych, whose father and grandfather were prominent Polish politicians, says Poland is threatened by “various ideologies … that have nothing to do with the well-being of children, that promote attitudes which are not true to life.”
Alas, Moore doesn’t tell us anything more about Roman’s “prominent” forebears. Roman’s father, of course, is Maciej Giertych, who was recently responsible for a notorious pamphlet which explains how Jews seek to settle “among the rich”; back in November he was obliged to fire his assistant when a video emerged which showed her at a neo-Nazi rally (Maciej is also a Creationist). And the “prominent” grandfather was Jedrzej Giertych, a Catholic traditionalist known for suggesting that Jews ought to be removed from Poland. Roman himself is the honorary chairman of the All Polish Youth, a skinhead group that he used to lead – another detail Moore doesn’t trouble his credulous readers with (Roman’s uncle, Fr Wojciech Giertych, is a speechwriter for the Pope, but there is no suggestion that he has inherited his family’s propensities).
ASSIST Ministries also reports from the Congress:
Allan Carlson, co-founder of the Congress on Families said in an interview with ANS, that the delegates were discussing ways to counteract what has been called the “demographics winter.”
Carlson explained that this expression related to “the sharp decline in fertility in most developed western countries particularly so in Europe which is related in turn to a retreat from marriage that’s been going on for several decades now and which we also believe is related in turn to secularization to the declining influence of religion in public life and in people’s lives.”
He continued: “We meet in Warsaw in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms in Article C that the family is the natural fundamental of society entitled to protection by society and the state and the architects of that declaration had a very clear idea of what they meant by family. They meant a man and a woman coming together in a life long bond of marriage for the purposes of procreation and rearing of children, binding together the generations. These are lessons that have been largely forgotten in parts of the world over the last several decades.
“It is kind of ironic that we are meeting here, the very place where the Communist Party of Poland used to hold their annual meetings. Stalin designed this building, so maybe in a way we’re doing a bit of informal intellectual exorcism here and in fact trying to restore the spirit of the natural family as a guiding force in western life.”
The event has also been documented by a series of press releases (here, here, here, here, and here). Some highlights:
…Ellen Sauerbrey (Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Immigration) echoed Minister Giertych’s remarks: “As you know, the family is the oldest human institution, the first and most enduring community of individuals working together for the common good. The family predates all states, and can be found in every culture, in every era…. The state did not create the family; rather, families created the state.”
…At a press conference preceding the opening of the Congress, Christine deVollmer, president of the Latin American Alliance for the Family, declared, “Europe has espoused not only anti-natalist policies of all kinds, but policies of sexual permissiveness which are proven to create infertility on a wide scale.”
…In a plenary session address, Fagan declared, “Feminists of Europe take note, the safest place for children is in the natural family. The most dangerous is cohabiting couples.”
Speaking on the impact of pornography, Bob Knight of the Media Research Center disclosed: “The leftist wants every aspect of life regulated except sex. Sex advances their reshaping of society.”
…”When I go back to my campus in the fall, I’ll be better prepared to confront abortion advocates and students whose lifestyles aren’t preparing them for a healthy marriage and family life.” Andrea Summers, student at Arizona State University.
I’m sure the students of Arizona will look forward to that. A celibate Catholic prelate also contributed:
…Cardinal López Trujillo noted, “The vocation of marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman.”
However, an undercover reporter for RH Reality Check has a rather different perspective:
Giertych and his hate-rousing speech was followed today by several other speakers, including Ellen Sauerbery, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration, who opened her speech by saying to the audience “I bring you greetings from President Bush!” She then went on to say that this Administration “values strengthening the family as an important goal for the sake of our common humanity” and congratulated Poland on its own courageous “pro-family” policies. Sauerbery did say a few things, however, that seemed out of place with the views of many of the other speakers—like advocating for the education of women as a way to protect the family.
Educated women were a sour note with several male speakers who blamed the “demographic crisis” in Europe on women attending university and choosing (imagine women with a choice!) not to have children until it was too late. In fact, there was a lot of blame being passed around today for the deterioration of the natural family. Educated women, law professors, liberal academics, LGBT individuals, judges, national governments, and local governments, and of course, the United Nations all share the blame.
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