Exporting Homophobia: The Deceiving Definition of 'The Natural Family'
Conservative groups in the United States have been working to export their values to the rest of the world. These values often include discrimination against a diversity of families (such as single parent families, grandparents raising grandchildren, and same gender parents), and even pressing the agenda that men should have dominance in a family. Several American organizations, perhaps most notably the World Congress of Families (WCF), have taken this agenda and successfully pressed Russia, Nigeria, and even the United Nations to set law and policies supporting this narrow definition of family and discriminating against and even criminalizing other families.
Here are a handful of quotes from the article:
From Russia to Nigeria to Australia, a seemingly innocuous definition of the “natural family” is quietly being used as the basis of new laws to justify the criminalization of abortion and LGBTQ people. Pushing this definition is the World Congress of Families, a network of conservative religious leaders from a variety of faiths—and their high-level government friends.
Rather than being the brainchild of a few homophobic Kremlin insiders, Russia’s Anti-Propaganda Law emerged from a years-long, carefully crafted campaign to influence governments to adopt a Christian-Right legal framework, coordinated by an international network of right-wing leaders under the aegis of WCF.
WCF is waging a campaign at local, national, and international levels to ensure that male dominance, heteronormativity (the belief that heterosexuality is the only acceptable sexual orientation), and religious hegemony are core tenets of civil society.
In Russia, for example, WCF manipulates deep-seated racial prejudices to mobilize demographic winter anxieties. In Africa, WCF exploits neocolonial concerns, arguing that racist Westerners are trying to abort Africa’s Black babies. All around the world, the “natural family” is a solution in search of a problem.
Human rights advocates have expressed fear that the resulting [United Nations] panel and report will be used to further marginalize diverse family structures, such as those led by single parents, grandparents, or LGBTQ people.