Brian Brown was in Russia strategizing with those seeking ‘Solutions to Homosexual Behavior’
October 22, 2013, by Jeremy Hooper
In a statement to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, NOM president Brian Brown has confirmed that he has been spending time in Russia planning for next year’s World Congress of Families conference:
NOM Brian Brown quote from the Rachal Maddow Show
Now, obviously the fact that Brian is in Russia is very alarming, considering that nation’s really intense war on LGBT people, our rights, and our families. Right Wing Watch has thoroughly covered the role that Brian Brown has played in creating that country’s culture of fear and intimidation, and I encourage you to familiarize yourself with that reporting if you have not already. When the group fighting us on marriage here at home looks to a country that’s in the news because of its much broader and more sweeping fight against everything having to do with LGBT welfare, and that organization sees in that nation a great opportunity to expand its own horizons, we should take that opportunism seriously.
But rather than focus on Russia, I want to also take a second and remind folks of just how extreme this World Congress of Families organization. And to do so, I only need to show you the title of a session the WCF ran at its 2012 conference:
Richard Cohen Solutions to Homosexual Behavior, SOURCE: World Congress of Families
In this chillingly titled session, unlicensed “ex-gay” “therapist” Richard Cohen led the crowd to believe that gay people “choose” our “lifestyles,” that we need to “change” in order to be okay with both man and God, and that we are some sort of global problem with an agenda for which we must find a “solution.”
Brian Brown was in attendance at this 2012 conference. In fact, Brian gave a speech there, right alongside radically anti-LGBT American voices like Peter LaBarbera. It only makes sense that Brian spoke (and continues to align himself with WCF), because 2012 was the year NOM became an official WCF partner. The two orgs are now bosom buddies. WCF even sponsored NOM’s 2013 “march for marriage.”
Which brings us back to WCF and its ideas. WCF continues to feature these “Solutions to Homosexual Beahvior” materials on its site. The sheer fact that they’d think it’s a good idea to run a session like this, with this truly startling title and support for “ex-gay” junk science, is enough to give anyone pause. However, when you factor in the deeply concerning politics of a country like Russia, where public erasure of any and all exposure to LGBT lives seems to be the goal, you can’t help but ask what the WCF’s “solution” might be.
And by the WCF’s “solution,” I also mean NOM’s. Jeremy Hooper
NOM Exposed | Human Rights Campaign
And here is why I fear what everybody else thinks of as reasonable people speaking in reasonable tones. The Madrid Declaration from the May 2012 meeting of The World Congress of Families sounds nice until you begin to consider the consequences of it’s ideas. Read the declaration yourself and make up your own mind. Art
The Madrid Declaration
Assembled in Madrid, Spain, this 27th Day of May, 2012, we delegates to The World Congress of Families VI reaffirm the truth that “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state” (Article 16, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights). This natural family is inscribed in human nature and centers on the voluntary union of a man and a woman in the lifelong covenant of marriage. The institution of marriage foremost provides love and joy to the couple and is also aimed for the procreation and rearing of children. The marital union also offers security for them in times of trouble, the foundation for a society that balances order and liberty, and the binding of generations.
Alas, in our time, assaults on the natural family are growing in number and intensity. Ideologies of statism, atomistic individualism, and sexual revolution challenge the very essences of marriage and family. Recent legal and public policy changes have corrupted the meaning and dignity of marriage, devalued parenting, encouraged easy divorce and births outside of marriage, confused sexual identities, promoted promiscuity, created conditions that increased child abuse, isolated the elderly, and fostered depopulation. These changes were particularity acute in Europe in the last decades and, more specifically, in the nation of Spain during the years 2004-2011, when a radical government actually worked to subvert the natural family.
In response, The World Congress of Families VI endorses a set of principles to create a cultural and political environment that is compatible with life, liberty, and hope for the future:
We affirm that the natural family, not the individual, is the fundamental unit of society.
We affirm the natural family to be the union of a man and a woman through marriage for the purposes of sharing love and joy, propagating children, providing their moral education, building a vital home economy, offering security in times of trouble, and binding the generations.
We affirm that the natural family is a fixed aspect of the created order, one ingrained in human nature. The natural family cannot change into some new shape; nor can it be re-defined by eager social engineers.
We affirm that the natural family is the ideal, optimal, true family system. While we acknowledge varied living situations, all other “family forms” are incomplete or are mere fabrications of the state.
We affirm the marital union of a man and a woman to be the authentic sexual bond, the only one open to the natural and responsible creation of new life.
We affirm the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death; each newly conceived person holds rights to live, to grow, to be born, and to share a home with its natural parents bound by marriage. Abortion, euthanasia and all forms of manipulating human beings in their embryonic or fetal state are therefore attacks on human life.
We affirm that the natural family is prior to the state and that legitimate governments exist to shelter and encourage the natural family.
We affirm that the world is abundant in resources. The breakdown of the natural family and moral and political failure, not human “overpopulation”, account for poverty, starvation, and environmental decay.
We affirm that human aging and depopulation are the true demographic dangers facing the earth in this new century. Our societies need more people, not fewer.
We affirm that the natural family is the main source of social and economic prosperity and the main pillar on which to achieve the overcoming of the current world economic crisis.
We affirm that women and men are equal in dignity and innate human rights, but different in function. Even if sometimes thwarted by events beyond the individual’s control (or sometimes given up for a religious vocation), the calling of each boy is to become husband and father; the calling of each girl is to become wife and mother. Culture, law, and policy should take these differences into account.
We affirm that the complementarity of the sexes is a source of strength. Men and women exhibit profound biological and psychological differences. When united in marriage, though, the whole becomes greater then the sum of the parts.
We affirm the parents’ right to educate their children for their good with no interference from the state.
We affirm that every human being is entitled to religious freedom and that the political community must respect the freedom to profess one’s faith, to hand it on, and to raise one’s children in it.
We affirm the “family wage” ideal of “equal pay for equal family responsibility.” Compensation for work, taxation, and social insurance plans should reinforce natural family bonds.
We affirm the necessary role of private property in land, dwelling, and productive capital as the foundation of familial independence and the guarantor of democracy. In a just and good society, all families will hold real property.
And we affirm that lasting solutions to human problems, including the current economic crisis, rise out of families and small communities. They cannot be imposed by bureaucratic and judicial fiat. Nor can they be coerced by outside force.
