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INTRODUCTION: WORLD FAMILY POLICY FORUMBy Professor Richard G. Wilkins |
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| January 13, 1999 My name is Richard Wilkins. I am a Professor of Law at Brigham Young University and one of the Directors of NGO Family Voice. I have a few preliminary details to address, and then it will be my honor to welcome you formally. You should have received a packet of information upon arrival at the hotel, supplemented by various materials received at registration this morning. I will touch upon a few matters covered in that information, clarifying some details of the Forum. First, if you have any questions regarding your stipend, housing, or transportation, please contact Florence Beal at the registration desk. Second, we wish to make every effort to accommodate the needs of those who are celebrating the Holy Month of Ramadan. An Al Eftar meal will be provided at sunset each evening, and we have arranged prayer facilities here at the Conference Center. Please advise me or Bachar Jamali of any additional special needs you may have. I also want to extend special thanks to Mr. Jamali, who has worked tirelessly the past six weeks pulling together various details of this Forum. Third, we have scheduled optional activities each evening and on Saturday. Tonight, there will be a banquet and entertainment at the Sky Room. Thursday evening there will be a special western dinner and show in Salt Lake City at the Wagon Master Restaurant, hosted by the Eden-Barn Corporation. Friday evening, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has invited you to attend a special dinner at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Salt Lake City. That dinner will be hosted by Elder M. Russell Ballard. Saturday, we offer sightseeing and skiing opportunities, followed by an early dinner at my home. These events are discretionary, and you are free to attend (or not) as your interest (and energy) permits. I am well enough acquainted with international travel to know that you may need simply to rest. For planning purposes, however, we would like you to indicate on the form included in your welcome packet which of the above events you desire to attend. We hope those who have already enjoyed an Al Eftar meal will nevertheless join us for dinner, or at least pleasant conversation, each evening. Fourth, we hope that many of you have prepared 10-minute statements to exchange during the second and third day of the Forum. We also hope that many of you have brought printed copies of those remarks. We would like to schedule times for those who have prepared a statement. In the lobby, during the lunch break and following the afternoon session, there will be a "Presentation Sign Up Sheet." If you would like to be assigned a time to present your remarks on Thursday or Friday, please sign that list. Also, give a copy of your prepared remarks to Marya Reed. Your remarks will then be copied and distributed to all Forum participants. Finally, we are videotaping portions of the Forum and have engaged a stenographic reporter to record our discussions. We hope to present you with a summary of our discussions at the conclusion of the Forum. We will also be able to provide a complete transcript of the Forum's proceedings upon request. It is now my pleasure to welcome you. On behalf of Brigham Young University and NGO Family Voice, I welcome you to the First World Family Policy Forum. It is a unique honor to have you here. The 65 participants at this first Forum come from some 25 nations, and hold numerous positions of importance (ranging from Ambassadors to Heads of National Women's Bureaus) within the United Nations System and domestic political structures. As such, you bring a wealth of experience, expertise and influence on issues related to the family. We hope that you will use your experience and expertise to sharpen and inform the discussions that will span the next three days, and that you will hereafter use the results of our discussions to influence positively the circumstances of families throughout the world. Strengthening the world's families is a task that demands urgent attention. On the cover of your binder is a reproduction of a thoughtful painting by well-known Utah artist Brian Kershisnik. The painting, entitled "Large Horse Small Riders," dramatizes the state of hope and peril in which the families of the world now find themselves. The painting, poetically described inside your binder, merits careful consideration. I quote the description of the painting: The smallness of this family in proportion to their mode of travel is striking. Their diminutive stature renders emphatic the largeness, the significance of their journey. The water is wide, and deep... The water that surrounds the families of the world is indeed wide and deep. Recently, a reporter for a Salt Lake City newspaper interviewed me regarding adoption policy. The reporter asked me whether I believed it was wise to place adoptive children with adults living in "nontraditional" arrangements, including same-sex relationships. I responded, simply, that most research demonstrates that children do best in traditional, well-functioning intact families. I pointed out that, for ideal development, children need the positive role models provided by an effective and loving father and an effective and loving mother. The resulting newspaper article more or less accurately reflected my statements, although (by comparing them to a 40-year old television show) the article suggested that the traditional family was rather old-fashioned and (perhaps) even fictitious. My apparently quaint statements were then contrasted with the more "modem" opinion of a professor of social work who warned that "broad generalizations" about what is best for children are positively dangerous. "Kids are going to suffer from a policy if we make generalizations about any kind of people," he said. He then asserted that the only real problem that would be faced by children adopted by a homosexual couple would be the fact that "we're in a homophobic society." He suggested that proper counseling would avoid any possible difficulties that children would encounter living in a home with two parents of the same sex. This afternoon we will hear from experts who will examine whether or not the views of this professor of social work are accurate. I defer substantive comment to that time. My present point is limited. Just a short time ago, in a discussion with a newspaper reporter, I made several statements that hardly would have raised an eyebrow a generation ago. Children are best served in stable families headed by both a father and a mother. Nothing in the past generation, moreover, has demonstrated this statement to be erroneous. On the contrary, study after study demonstrates that children thrive in such an environment. Nevertheless, in 1999, as we face a new millennium, any preference for a stable, two-parent family is labeled a "dangerous generalization" that, oddly enough, might harm our children. How did we reach this point? How did the water that surrounds the family become so deep? In part, because national and international policy makers have not paid enough attention to the fundamental importance of the traditional family. Also, in part, because other policy makers (and sadly, the academic community) have busily undermined the social norms that support the traditional family. Let me give you one recent illustration. This past summer, at the UN Conference for the Creation of an Intemational Criminal Court, language was introduced that - had it been retained in the final draft statute - might well have swamped the little family on the large horse. Among other things, the draft statute proceeded on the assumption that "gender" is a "social construct” unrelated to such standard (and purportedly limiting) notions as "male" and "female." Beginning from this premise, various proposed "crimes" contained in the draft statute attacked the traditional conception of marriage as a relationship between a man and a woman, laid the groundwork for dramatic diminution of parental rights, threatened the very notion of the human family by criminalizing pregnancy, and took aim at the world's great traditional religions. But, despite the peril, the effort to undermine family, religion and traditional morality at the International Criminal Court Conference did not (at least for the time being) succeed. The sociological claim that "gender" is a mere social construct based solely on "learned behavior" was resoundingly defeated. Gender, instead, was defined as "male" and "female." The final statute does not, as did the original, make pregnancy a crime. Language that could have criminalized a state's refusal to recognize same-sex marriage was deleted, and the possibility that traditional religious leaders could be prosecuted for the crime of "persecution" was reduced. But, while the statute of the International Criminal Court did not (at least for now) deepen the water that surrounds our little family, it could have deepened that water. It is to forestall and prevent such deepening that Brigham Young University has convened this World Family Policy Forum. The distinguished presenters you will hear during the next three days will identify threats to our little family on the water, and propose possible solutions to aid their journey. It is our profound hope that you will add your own observations, drawn from your own cultural perspectives,to further refine the ideas proposed by academic and policy experts. We come together from various cultures, from diverse faiths, to discuss, to listen, and to learn from each other. The waters that surround our little family are indeed wide and deep. Those waters flow swiftly. But, as the description of Mr. Kershisnik's painting concludes, the horse upon which our family rides: is broad and strong. [The family's] peril is intimate, horrifyingly large and absolute. But they know their way, and their helper is sufficient to the task. I look forward to the next three days as we work together to become more sufficient to the task of assisting the families of the world through the water. |
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