Pro-Family Groups Outraged Over US Making Gay Pride Events a Priority
Correction appended
The international pro-family and pro-life community has expressed outrage at an apparent policy of the Obama administration to offer its strongest support possible to gay activist events throughout the world.
Organizations from a dozen countries, including the United States, have signed a letter demanding that the U.S. Embassy in Prague cancel plans to participate in the Czech Republic's gay pride parade on Aug. 18.
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Don Feder, Communications Director of the World Congress of Families, has noted that the widespread support for the letter gives a clear indication of the "outrage" being felt.
"Obama is the first president to embrace gay marriage and the gay rights agenda. Many people simply can't believe that the American government is doing these things," said Feder in a phone interview with The Christian Post on Wednesday.
Feder is almost certain that U.S. Embassy reps will be at the Prague gay pride event. He told CP: "I assume the (U.S.) ambassador is going to be there. This has become a priority for our president and US diplomats abroad to take part in so-called gay pride events."
"It's happened so far in Latvia, in Bulgaria, and there have been others. It was a directive that came down from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton late last year that basically ordered U.S. diplomats abroad to be involved in gay rights activities wherever they are stationed," the Communications Director continued.
The World Congress of Families, an international network, is urging others to also sign the letter, noting that President Barack Obama, who in May announced he now supports allowing same-sex couples to marry, is already pushing his agenda through foreign policy by making the support of gay activist events a priority.
More than 120 groups and leaders have already signed the letter, including a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, a former Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, a former Arkansas governor, the head of Torah Jews for Decency, and the former Venezuelan Ambassador to the Vatican.
"We were able to collect these names in just four days," Feder added, revealing that their signature-gathering campaigns usually last two weeks, and that they could have gathered more signatures if the drive was conducted in September.
Feder added that the initiative to participate in gay pride events is "the new U.S. foreign policy establishment."
"The United Nations has never affirmed homosexual marriage or rights," the letter says, and states that the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights specifically says that "men and women...have a right to marry and found a family."
Family is described as "the natural and fundamental group unit of society" and "is entitled to protection by society and the state."
The pro-family organization also highlights that although Obama has personally endorsed gay marriage, most U.S. states still support the traditional definition of marriage, and the American people are largely in favor of preserving it.
The letter continues by noting that gay people have the same rights as any other citizen, but that does not mean that the U.S. should be actively supporting an amendment to the definition of marriage. "This does not include the 'right' to force others to validate a lifestyle they find objectionable, for religious or other reasons. It also does not include the right of men to marry men and women to marry women. The foregoing pseudo-rights do not advance human freedom and dignity but debase them."
The World Congress of Families also reports that there are a number of Czech pro-family leaders who have expressed their anger at the U.S.' involvement in the Prague gay pride event, and lists a host of names of European leaders who have signed the letter and are calling on the U.S. embassy to rethink its plans.
Larry Jacobs, World Congress of Families Managing Director concluded in a press release: "When the Czechs asked us to rally international support for the natural family, it was serendipitous. World Congress of Families I was held in Prague in 1997, with the support the Civic Forum and Michal Semin, who's organized opposition to the Prague gay parade."
The Czech Republic implemented civil partnerships in 2006 for same-sex couples to gain legal rights, but it has not amended its definition of marriage, which is between one man and one woman.
Correction: Friday, Aug. 17, 2012:
An article on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2012, about pro-family groups signing a letter incorrectly reported the name of a network as World Congress of Families Leadership. The correct name of the network is World Congress of Families.
