August 3, 2011
We are often asked what motivates the anti-family movement so prevalent at the UN. Why do they do what they do? UN expert, Tom Christensen, sheds some light on this important question.
As always, you will benefit from Tom’s perspective and we invite you to share this information with all who might wonder: “What drives this craziness coming out of the UN?”
Cordially,
Carol Soelberg
President, United Families International
“Unmasking Goliath”
Vastly outnumbered and outspent at the United Nations, family defenders often feel like David versus Goliath. These “Davids” become used to the daunting odds and a UN system that actively works against them.
Certainly, it would be easier to stay at home and forget about the UN. But family defenders continue to attend UN venues because they know
1. the preservation of the family is fundamental to human order;
2. the traditional family is under direct attack;
3. too few pro-family NGOs are accredited and attend UN meetings; and
4. the laws and programs adopted at the UN are the blueprint for judicial, legislative, and executive policies implemented worldwide.
Given the obvious contributions of cohesive families to society, not the least of which is to supply and train the country’s next generation, who is this Goliath that seeks to marginalize, redefine and dismantle the traditional family?
In a nutshell, Goliath represents those who seek power, funding, and new individual rights under a coercive, centralized regime. Goliath views the traditional family as the enemy because family advocates value limited, decentralized, constitutional government founded upon human agency and fixed natural rights and laws.
The Face of Goliath
In this alert, I will attempt to put a face on Goliath, objectively describing the major groups openly opposing the traditional family at the UN and why. While not all individuals who sympathize with these groups embrace the more radical anti-family concepts, they rarely dissent or part company at the UN.
1. Central planners. The traditional family is a threat to utopian planners (Fabian socialists, Marxist dictators, social scientists, etc.) who believe that the family is too independent, doctrinaire, dysfunctional and unreliable to function as the foundation of society. They prefer uniform government social programs, where the state takes the central role in the indoctrination, physical and emotional development, and economic support of children and adults from cradle to grave.
2. Feminists. A radical feminist lobby dominates the UN social agenda. Rather than celebrating positive male and female roles and traits, it seeks to obliterate them. It has little tolerance for women who choose marriage, childbearing, and full-time motherhood over career. According to this brand of feminist, women will never be free until they break from traditional roles, marriage, and male dominated religion; and obtain subsidized birth control, abortion services, day care, education, work quotas, etc.
3. Population controllers. Expanding third world families are a threat to developed nations in population decline. As native populations age and dwindle, unassimilated foreigners quietly take over the local culture. To reduce the fertility rates of migrating populations, UN officials incentivize women to work outside the home and to avoid or delay marriage/childbearing. To reduce the number of live births, they legalize and subsidize abortion and promote the myth that fetuses are really not people, and the killing of them constitutes a valid choice – even a human right.
4. Environmentalists. Large families are a threat to global environmentalists who claim they are producing too many children that will eventually consume all finite resources with their wasteful consumption, and destroy the planet with their harmful emissions. Using scare tactics such as global warming, they seek to expand UN regulatory authority and controls.
5. Children’s Rights Advocates. “Kiddy libbers” such as those advancing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (“CRC”) believe that, rather than protecting a child’s innocence and opportunities in a home environment, children must be trained and sexualized in public settings at younger and younger ages. To protect children from abusive or ignorant parents, they attempt to provide all children with greater autonomy and rights similar to an adult, to be enforced by national, state and local governments. They refuse to recognize the positive impact of an enduring marriage and the negative effect of divorce or single parenting on children, or that there is anything that can be done to improve marriage rates or decrease divorce rates. The CRC is only one Senate ratifying vote away from becoming US law.
6. Gays and Lesbians. The homosexual agenda, an offshoot of the feminist agenda, first gained traction at the UN. It seeks global endorsement of so-called same-sex marriage, promotes the myth that “alternative lifestyles” are as just as happy and beneficial to society, and that children and adults are not harmed when social mores and stigma on sexuality are removed. Illustrating how far the homosexual agenda has come, SB 48, recently adopted in California, requires textbook revisions to positively portray lesbian, gay, and transgender individuals to children. States or nations that embrace the LGBT agenda are those where religion, marriage, and the family are weak or dying.
7. International Humanists. As outlined in the Humanist Manifesto, global humanists oppose moral standards and those who attempt to incorporate them in law and policy. For example, they seek to remove from the UN the Vatican, a nonvoting permanent member of the UN– and a very strong voice in support of human life, virtue and the traditional family. Self proclaimed humanist Ted Turner, and his corporate friends and foundations, Bill Gates, George Soros and others, have poured billions into the global anti-family agenda.
Combined as one at the United Nations, this coalition constitutes a formidable threat to the traditional family. What can a person do to stand up to this Goliath? I will attempt to address this question in my next alert.
Tom Christensen and his wife of 28 years, Dixy, reside in South Jordan, Utah where they are successfully raising their last ten of fifteen children. Christensen, who served for five years as CEO of United Families, lead delegations and spoke at UN conferences in New York, Nairobi, the Hague, Lisbon and Geneva, and published several articles on family policy. Christensen was featured in the front page Deseret News series, “Utahns Making a Difference Abroad,” and received in Budapest in behalf of United Families, the “Family and Peace Award” from the World Association of Non-Governmental Organizations. ______________________________________