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The World Congress of Families IV, founded by Dr. Allan Carlson,  the Howard Centre,  USA, was held  in  Warsaw (May 11 - 13), and attended by  a gathering of 3,300 delegates from  Latin America,  USA, Canada, Europe including Poland, Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine and Russia, Asia, Australia and New Zealand.  Ironically   this pro-family event was held in a facility   sponsored by the Soviet  government in 1955 and originally named the Joseph Stalin  Palace of Culture and Science.  Now the  aura of Pope John Paul 11 dominated the present event  -  he was quoted by so many speakers.  Stalin once contemptuously asked “Where are the Pope’s  battalions?”  They were there  at WCF IV - speakers included Ellen Sauerbrey, Assistant US  Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Immigration; Inese Slesere   of the  Latvian Parliament; Christine de Vollmer, president, Latin American Alliance for the Family;  Katarzyna Mazela, vice president, Forum of Polish Women; Pat Fagan, Research Fellow,   Heritage Foundation; Bill Saunders,  Family Research Council,  and  Father Thomas Euteneuer, President, Human Life International. 

Before the opening,  speakers  went on a history tour of the city.  We saw monuments commemorating  tragic events that engulfed Poland during and after  World War 11:  a memorial to the Jews killed in the ghetto or transported in cattle trucks to concentration camps,  and  the monument to  Polish officers slaughtered in the Katyn forest massacre. The first atrocity was committed by the Nazis, the second by the Soviets. Poland  was a  country  caught between  two barbaric   regimes -  who would eventually turn on each other - but in the meantime inflicted enormous suffering on the Polish people. 

Poland is  again the front line in  another world war  - a moral battle for the soul of Europe and the world.  Its  two enemies are the population control/abortion industry  and the homosexual  movement.  The agency of oppression,  the European Union,  is demanding that  Poland  follow  regulations  by the European Parliament in Brussels to provide abortion, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage.  A European  Parliament resolution  in April condemned Poland for being “hateful” and “repulsive” for refusing to permit the promotion of homosexuality in schools.  The resolution suggested that “homophobic” countries like Poland would be taken to court. 

In   what could be described as “sexual harrassment”, the EU is also targetting  Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, with homosexual propaganda  which mandates that countries include “sexual orientation” among anti-discrimination laws as a condition of membership and benefits in the EU.  Malta is  another country attacked for its pro-life laws.  But these are little countries:  Poland, the land of Pope John Paul 11, author of  Evangelium Vitae, is the prize.  If  abortion and homosexual activists can topple Poland, they  think  others will fall in line.

How soon Europe forgets  it was John Paul 11 with his support for  Polish  Solidarity who achieved the non-violent overthrow of the Soviet Union.   There were   other stars in conjunction  like US President Ronald Reagan and British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher,   but John Paul 11 was the inspiration.  The Poles are  proud  this liberation of their country - and  of Eastern Europe -  was achieved without loss of life.

Poland’s Minister of Education and Vice Prime Minister,  Roman Giertych,   and  Speaker of  the Polish Parliament,  Marek Jurek, told    Congress delegates  Poland  would not be intimidated and has no intention of agreeing to the demands of the EU to provide abortion, homosexual rights and same-sex marriage or support  attacks on the traditional family.  Polish officials said Poland will be assuming a leadership role to end the demographic winter in Europe caused by a birthrate below  replacement level, and  instability caused by sexual permissiveness.   Defying the EU’s homosexual activism, Giertych said   legislation seeking to protect children in schools from homosexual propaganda would be put forward as planned. It’s “something I have to do,” he said.

The Homosexual Agenda:  www.Lifesitenews.com  reports

Peter J. Smith in  LifeSiteNews.com reports that the mayor of Lithuania’s capital came out in support of trolley bus drivers who refused to go to work until pro-homosexual ads were removed from their lines.  The trolley bus drivers went on strike until the ads “A gay can serve in the police” and “A lesbian can work at school” were finally taken down. 

The newly elected mayor of Vilnius, Juozas Imbrasas, backed the drivers  and criticised the dissemination of homosexual propaganda in the face of Lithuania’s commitment to traditional family values.

“We tolerate people of any kind of sexual orientation, nevertheless with priority for traditional family and seeking to promote the family values, we disapprove the public display of homosexualists’ ideas in the city of Vilnius,” he said. 

Algirdas Krivickas, director of the trolley bus company in the town of Kaunas, told Reuters some drivers feared the ads were deliberately provocative and would anger citizens in the pro-family nation.  “Some said they feared the trolley bus could be vandalised, some said they do not want friends to laugh at them,” said Krivickas. 

Both Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, are targets of the European Union’s pro-homosexual agenda, which mandated the countries include “sexual orientation” among anti-discrimination laws as a condition of membership and benefits in the EU.

Lithuania will become home to the European Institute for Gender Equality later in the year, and the government has provided one third of the funds to promote the EU’s campaign in Lithuania for homosexual tolerance - tolerance which elsewhere invariably leads to intolerance for any criticism of homosexual behaviour. 

Nevertheless, half of Lithuanian MPs believe homosexuality is perverse behaviour, and a poll last December found that just 17% of Lithuanians support same-sex “marriage” making the country vastly opposed to the EU’s homosexual imperialism.  The nation celebrated a “Day of Life” on April 29, with its first march for life and family among celebrations in Vilnius. 

Pro-family advocates in nearby Latvia are also gearing up for a confrontation with militant homosexuals determined to flaunt their disregard for Latvian family values with a “Pride” parade in Riga this June. Latvia’s leading church leader, Cardinal Janis Pujats, has warned laws protecting and propagating homosexual behaviour would constitute a “true military attack” on Latvian family values.

India

News from  Hilary White in Lifesite News.com:  The Calcutta Telegraph reports that the Indian government has refused diplomatic status to the same-sex “spouses” of two members of the Canadian diplomatic corps.  Indian culture is very traditional and Indian law retains a strict understanding of marriage being possible only between a man and a woman. While convictions are rare, section 377 of the Indian Penal Code retains provisions against “unnatural sex” and sodomy a charge that carries a possible ten year prison sentence.       The Telegraph quoted unnamed sources in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs who said that the Canadian government had requested an exemption from the law for the man and woman in question. But the Ministry sources said the government has told Canada its diplomats are not exempt from the law of the land in which the diplomat is based. 

The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations prevents any criminal prosecution for the families of diplomats, but with India refusing to recognize homosexual partnerings as equivalent to marriage, it is unclear if the Convention would protect the two.    

A spokesman for Canada’s Foreign Affairs Office told LifeSiteNews.com only that the report was “totally inaccurate,” but refused on “privacy” grounds to give any further clarification. The Canadian Press reports the same lack of response from Foreign Affairs.        Under Indian law, there is no recognition of same-sex “marriage” or any equivalent civil arrangement. Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made a visit to India at the height of the same-sex marriage debates in 2005, at which time the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, responded to questions about Canada’s “same-sex marriage” law saying, “There would not be much appreciation for a law like that in India.”      Only one member of a political party in India, Brinda Karat of the Communist Party of India, has endorsed the legalization of homosexual activity in a 2003 open letter to the then Minister of Law & Justice, Arun Jaitley. Other political parties uniformly view the homosexual anti-family ideology as something that is being imported by foreign interests. 

World Congress of Families International Secretary Allan Carlson noted that, "The Warsaw Declaration does not contain specific policy recommendations but instead offers a broad vision of the natural family as 'the fundamental human community' and creates a framework for pro-family activism."   The full Warsaw Declaration may be found at http://www.worldcongress.org/WCF4/wcf4.dec.htm .  

On my way  home  to the airport at Warsaw  I noticed  fresh  flowers  on the Katyn forest memorial, and in the Polish Airlines magazine I read about Wladyslav Sikorski, Premier of the emigre government during World War II and Commander in Chief of the Polish Armed Forces.  He was killed in Gibraltar in 1943, probably by agents of the Soviet government.  Poland is reclaiming its history.