The World Congress of Families (WCF) is a United States coalition that promotes Christian right values internationally. It opposes divorce, birth control, same-sex marriage, pornography, and abortion, while supporting a society built on "the voluntary union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage". WCF comprises organizations in several countries, and most of its member partners are strongly active campaigners against abortion rights and same-sex marriage. WCF was formed in 1997 and is active worldwide, regularly organizing conventions. Its opposition to gay marriage and abortion has attracted criticism.
In 2014, following its involvement with the 2013 Russian LGBT propaganda law, the Southern Poverty Law Center added WCF to the list of organizations it considers as anti-LGBT hate groups. WCF has also been influential in Africa. A 2015 report by Human Rights Campaign pointed to WCF's influence on anti-LGBT laws in Nigeria and Uganda, while the director of the NGO Rightify Ghana noted in 2021 that, after the WCF conference in Ghana's capital city of Accra in late 2019, "there was a rush to push legislation" against LGBT people in Ghana. The organization has received funding from sanctioned Russian oligarchs.
Background
Allan C. Carlson, President of the Howard Center for Family, Religion and Society, initiated the congress on the basis of article 16c of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, saying: "The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state". According to WCF, its purpose is to "stand up for the position of the traditional family, in a time of eroding family life and declining appreciation for families in general". The coalition defines "the natural family" as the "union of a man and a woman in a lifelong covenant of marriage" and works with other organizations such as the World Family Policy Center at Brigham Young University (BYU) to promote its views. The Human Rights Campaign called WCF "one of the most influential groups in America promoting and coordinating the exportation of anti-LGBT bigotry, ideology, and legislation abroad" and stated that their international conferences comprise "the most fringe activists engaged in anti-LGBT extremism". According to the HRC, the WCF and its affiliates are also linked to anti-LGBT advocacy in numerous countries, including on the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act, the Russian LGBT propaganda law, and Nigeria.
The WCF is controversial for its opposition to legal protections on the basis of sexual orientation, opposition to same sex marriage, and support for policies against homosexuality in Russia. It was added to the SPLC's list of active hate groups in 2014. The WCF responded to hate group designations by publishing a report addressing the 25-plus accusations made by the SPLC and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), including their labeling the WCF as a hate group. In response to the WCF report, Ty Cobb, director of HRC Global, did not react to the factual errors in his own report and just said "WCF's explanations do little to mask its record of anti-LGBT rhetoric or those of organizations it partners with around the world."
History
The WCF has organized conferences since 1997.
Following initial planning in 2010, the WCF sponsored the July 2011 Moscow Demographic Summit, which formulated a communique calling on governments to develop "a pro-family demographic policy and to adopt a special international pro-family strategy and action plan aimed at consolidating family and marriage, protecting human life from conception to natural death, increasing birth rates, and averting the menace of depopulation."
In London in 2012, the WCF were refused permission to hire out the facilities of the Law Society for an event entitled One man. One woman. Making the case for marriage for the good of society, and had to find an alternative venue.
In 2013, Mark Kirk, the Republican Senator for Illinois revoked the WCF access to a Senate meeting room in the U.S. Capitol.
In February 2014, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) included WCF in their listing of anti-gay hate groups. The WCF partners listing includes several groups that are also listed as anti-gay hate groups by the SPLC, including American Family Association, Family Research Council, Family Watch International, and Americans for Truth About Homosexuality.