'Family' Group Takes Its Anti-LGBTQ Crusade To The Global Stage

Perhaps in light of a new political administration that, sadly, might be more receptive to his right-wing conservative views, National Organization for Marriage (NOM) President Brian Brown is ramping up his fight against the LGBTQ community. 

On Saturday, Brown announced the launch of the International Organization for the Family , or IOF, which aims to “take the global fight to preserve and protect marriage to a whole new level,” in a blog post on NOM’s website.  

The new group, Brown wrote, will be focused exclusively on anti-equality efforts at the global level. Meanwhile, he’ll serve as president of both IOF and NOM, which will now “focus fully on the continuing fight here” in the U.S. 

Calling IOF a “great development for the international pro-family movement,” he said the group “is assembling a coalition of allies to take the worldwide lead in fighting for marriage, religious liberty, parental rights, the truth of gender and other issues.” 

Not surprisingly, he also praised Donald Trump’s surprise victory , and noted that he and IOF members looked forward to working with the president-elect, “the Congress and our allies in Washington and the states to pursue a wide ranging agenda on behalf of our issues.” 

While Brown was tight-lipped about IOF’s specifics, the group’s first project is reportedly called the “Cape Town Declaration ,” Right Wing Watch notes. That effort aims to reaffirm “the dignity of marriage as the conjugal bond of man and woman” across the globe. 

The declaration continues: 

A thriving culture will therefore serve marriage—and all society—by promoting purity outside it and fidelity within; by discouraging pornography, adultery and divorce; and by firmly resisting every push to redefine marriage: to include same-sex or group bonds, or sexually open or temporary ones. 

We rededicate ourselves to honoring, restoring, and protecting these truths. We commit, where possible, to refuse to deal with corporations that deny them. We pledge to resist the rising cultural imperialism of Western powers whose governments seek nothing less than the ideological colonization of the family.

Whether or not Brown’s group will find mainstream support remains to be seen (and, after what’s happened around the globe this year, anything’s possible). But with research finding that that a majority of Americans are in favor of marriage equality, here’s to hoping the conservative group remains a fringe effort.