A Bankrupt Worldview and An Identity Crisis at the WCF

RH Reality Check Exclusive: Over the next several days, SIECUS's opposition researcher will be providing ongoing coverage of the World Congress of Families, including reporting on discussions of such topics as "the natural family," "traditional values,"  marriage and family configurations, demographic shifts, pre-determined sex-specific roles, HIV/AIDS, and family related policies at national and international levels.

The fifth World Congress of Families (WCF), a "pro-family" gathering convened by a group of extreme right-wing organizations from around the world and the United States, brings together both "experts" and the inexperienced alike to galvanize the base - particularly seeking to jump-start extreme social causes in the host countries and regions of the WCF.  

WCF organizers explicitly selected the Netherlands as a challenge of sorts because of its progressive social policies, such as wide-ranging childcare coverage and school-based comprehensive sexuality education.  Last year's event, which was held in Poland, must make this year's conference seem like a foray into enemy territory. In Amsterdam, however, the Right seems to be facing an identity crisis, as a slightly more liberal or progressive edge is clearly present, yet remains in the background.  The most notable of these slight progressive influences is the presence of some speakers who may not share the delusional imaginings of the WCF lead organizers.  

The opening act for day one of the WCF was considered a coup for the event's organizers.  Andre Rouvoet, Minister of Youth and Family in the Netherlands, delivered words of welcome, via a pre-recorded message, to an audience of no more than 400.  But was Rouvoet's participation really the boon it was billed to be?  He delivered a somewhat vague statement until a section of his remarks in which he challenged WCF participants to accept "any form of family structure"- to build "bridges of living in a pluralist society" despite a "difference of opinion on aspects of policy." 

Still, countless speakers after him affirmed their definition of a family was based on the marriage between one man and one woman.  We aren't even just talking about state-sanctioned unions.  In the film Fireproof: Never Leave Your Partner Behind, shown Monday evening to WCF participants, a couple renews their vows in a covenant marriage, which seeks to restore marriage to a religiously-based "sacred covenant" and not merely a " civil contract."  Isn't this tacit rejection of a diversity of family structures espoused by the invited Rouvoet also the very foundation of the WCF? This wasn't the only seeming inconsistency in messaging from the WCF participants.  

For example, during remarks delivered on the subject of parents as partners with the education sector, Dutch educational advisor, Jet Weigard, invoked the oft-referenced work of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her call that it takes a "village to raise a child."  In a disorienting shift, Weigard was followed by Pat Fagan, Director for the Center on Family and Religion at the Family Research Council, who listed, ad infinitum, the range of psychological damage that could ensue, both to the child and the mother, when a child is cared for by someone other than the mother- no village endorsement there.  Michael Farris, Chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, also entirely contradicted Weigard when claimed that homeschooling was superior to sending children to educational institutions and that it also socialized them better than is possible in schools.  

Farris, as well as Peter Van Zuidam, head of the Netherlands Association for Home Education, invoked an extensive list of citations from international human rights instruments validating the right to school a child outside of a state institution.  Practically in the same breath, Farris assured the audience of an afternoon workshop session that despite a promise from the Obama administration that it would soon ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which even the Holy See has ratified), this would never happen as homeschooling advocates would rise up to defend the sovereignty of the family against international law. Mr. Farris apparently sees no conflict in claiming sanctuary from international law out of one side of his mouth while denouncing it from the other. 

The question remains: was this convoluted and contradictory series of ramblings an intentional strategy on the part of the organizers to draw in more progressive or at least less extreme ideas? Perhaps.  But if so, it was like asking a juggler to pull off Macbeth.  There was absolutely no substance and no effort to contextualize, leaving the impression of bumbling incoherence and inconsistency.  In other words, if it was an attempt at mainstreaming, it was a failed one.

The disjointed narrative on display at the WCF is more a symptom of the soul searching that often occurs when an oasis turns out to be a mirage.  As most of the groups assembled at the WCF are American or American-inspired, the end of the social conservative assault on America was ushered in with the collapse of their domestic power base at home and now has reverberations that reach to Amsterdam and back.

And that is why we are here monitoring this group of extremists.  For it is times like these, where meaning is sought, that either a wellspring is rediscovered or the hollow shell collapses in upon itself.  Our collective job as advocates of sexual and reproductive health and rights is to facilitate - and hasten - the latter.

Stay tuned for lessons and analysis from Day 2.