Right Wing Watch - What The World Congress Of Families’ ‘Natural Family’ Means For Women
We normally think of homophobia and people fighting gay people’s rights, especially their right to marry, when we think of these far right “pro family” groups. However, they are not just anti gay, or anti LGBT, they look down upon women as well. To these theocratic misogynists, any women who doesn’t submit to her husband, or wants to be able to have sex without having children, is a “sinner” who needs to be put in their place. Some of them even seem to believe that the survival of humanity depends on us outlawing birth control. Miranda Blue has more,
This is the third in a series of posts about the upcoming World Congress of Families in Salt Lake City, Utah. Read our introduction to the World Congress of Families here and an exploration of WCF’s anti-LGBT politics here.
While the World Congress of Families has become well known in the U.S. for its anti-LGBT activism, that is just one part of its larger vision of promoting what it calls the “natural family” throughout the world. In fact, in keeping with the vision that Allan Carlson and Paul Mero laid out in their “natural family” manifesto, this year’s conference will feature not just anti-LGBT activists, but opponents of abortion rights, contraception, sex education and liberalized divorce laws.
These issues are closely intertwined in this worldview. One scheduled WCF speaker, Evan Lenow of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, explained it clearly in a 2011 lecture on “The Challenge of Homosexuality For Gender Roles.” Lenow laid out the argument that the Bible prescribes separate but equal roles for men and women in marriage, with women required to “submit themselves to the leadership of their husbands, just as the church submits to Christ.” Same-sex marriages, where gender roles are by necessity “egalitarian,” he said, “subvert” this biblically ordained relationship.
For many of these activists, all manner of evils date back to the “sexual revolution” and, in particular, the widespread availability and use of contraception