World Congress of Families Meets, Seeks a New Dark Ages
It’s not an accident that the address for the World Congress of Families at 934 N. Main st, and the infamous Rockford Institute at 928 N. Main st., are so close together on North Main st in Rockford Illinois that it doesn’t matter. See Here and Here.
I suspect the 1997 “break” is for appearances only because active association with a white supremacist organization would otherwise drive funding and members away from WCF. It’s not unusual for traditionalist religious bodies that are affiliated with tribal supremacists to adopt “family first” rhetoric and patriarchal, feudalistic views of how families should work, it ties right into tribal supremacism and blood and soil based philosophies. Populist fear for family fueled by tribalism and catalyzed with religion can be a potent force for hate.
Last month the World Congress of Families (WCF), an international conservative network, met at the Palacio de Congresos in Madrid to share tactics in defense of the “natural family.” For its participants the natural family is a standard for social values that harkens back to a mythical era when men headed the household, women tended the kitchen and children, and sex was for procreation only.
Because these ideals don’t line up with the way many people live and think about their lives, it’s tempting to dismiss the WCF as a gathering of out-of-touch extremists. Scratch the surface, though, and what you find are well-connected and well-funded groups hard at work codifying their “traditional values” through national and regional legislatures and judiciaries.
The conference theme, “Marriage and Family, the Future of Society,” echoed many of the concerns of conservative religious organizations here in the U.S. (the WCF, unsurprisingly, is headquartered in Rockford, Illinois). While drolly retrograde panels like “Authentic Women and Rediscovering Homemaking” and “Solutions to Homosexual Behavior” featured prominently, embedded in these and most other panels were serious themes articulating a conservative worldview and strategies for protecting and promoting them in the public sphere.
Also note that their definition of “pro family” means adamant opposition to Gay Marriage.
