Jewish World Review Dec. 1, 1999 /22 Kislev, 5760
Don Feder
Church and mosque unite in Geneva
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
GENEVA -- When your opponents uncork a vintage whine, you know you're doing
something right.
The World Congress of Families, which recently met in Geneva has come under
fire from those who are using the United Nations to deconstruct the
traditional family.
In The Guardian, Britain's premier leftist rag, Gordon Urquhart warns of "a
new and potentially dangerous form of interfaith collaboration."
Why, there are evangelicals and Moslems, Mormons and Catholics coalescing
in the city of Calvin, Urquhart frets. This, he explains, is the latest
phase of a partnership begun at the U.N.'s 1994 population conference in
Cairo, when the Vatican enlisted the aid of Islamic states to block the
march of progress -- i.e., population control by any means necessary.
Urquhart notes that Cardinal Lopez Trujillo ("one of John Paul II's
right-hand men") addressed the multi-faith gathering. The conspirators are
"united not only by moral principles but also by the fundamentalist
rejection of separation between church and state; they are therefore
committed to imposing their views by political means."
They are committed to defending themselves against those who would impose
their bizarre views of the family, sexuality and procreation on faith
communities.
By the way, when was liberalism's First Amendment distortion
internationalized? In the U.N.'s charter, where does it say the religious
must be mute in international policy-making? After all, the Vatican does
have official U.N. status.
Urquhart chides the Geneva conferees. How dare they attempt what his side
has been doing so successfully for the past 20 years -- networking and
forming alliances to pursue common goals?
In league with U.N. bureaucrats, leftist NGOs (non-governmental
organizations) are busy bees. Groups like the Center for Reproductive Law
and Policy, and the Women's Environmental and Development Organization
(founded by the late Bella Abzug) have relentlessly pursued their agenda
from Istanbul to Beijing.
This spring, Cairo Plus Five, the follow-up to the Cairo Conference --
which considered ways to cure the "epidemic of childbearing among married
women" (in the words of Filipino Sen. Francisco Tatad) -- convened in
Manhattan. More than 60 of the delegates were members of the International
Planned Parenthood Federation. While ostensibly representing their nations,
all of their expenses were covered by IPPF.
Dr. Nafis Sadik, executive director of the U.N. Population Fund, praises
the work of anti-family NGOs. ("They have the flexibility to act in areas
where governments are not able or willing to act, because of political
sensitivity or logistical obstacles.") This is especially true in Third
World countries, where they labor to legalize abortion and promote
contraception.
At U.N. conferences, they have successfully pushed resolutions promoting
same-sex marriage, condemning bans on abortion as "forced pregnancy" (and,
as such, a crime against humanity), advancing the abolition of gender roles
in marriage, and demanding that children as young as 10 receive
"comprehensive training in sexual expression, sexual pleasure and sexual
orientation" (parental interference here would be classified as child
abuse).
In the face of this coordinated assault by a well-oiled machine, over 1,500
delegates from more than 50 countries convened in Geneva earlier this month.
Besides Trujillo, delegates heard from the widow of Egyptian President Anwar
Sadat, the head of the Mormon relief society, Nicaragua's minister for the
family, and a host of scholars, legislators and activists. The late Lord Immanuel
Jakobovits, former chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, was slated to speak
but had to withdraw due to a scheduling conflict.
Margaret Ogola of Kenya, a physician who runs a hospice for HIV-positive
orphans, described the world the other side has created, a world in which
"sex is no longer seen as a wonderful and sacred gift; nor the power to
beget children as anything very special."
Austin Ruse, president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute
and a member of the WCF planning committee, believes a bloc of 12 Catholic
and Muslim states, working in unison, could check anything feminists and
population cops try to impose on families.
People like Urquhart should worry, Ruse confesses. "We're determined to do
everything they're doing at the United Nations." Amen, brother, and Allah be
praised.
JWR contributing columnist Don Feder's latest book is Who's Afraid of the Religious Right. Comment on his column by clicking here.

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©1999, Creators Syndicate
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