ROCKFORD, Ill., Nov. 23, 2011 /Christian Newswire/ -- Spain's Popular Party won a historic conservative victory in Sunday's election and the ruling Socialists suffered their worst defeat in 30 years.
While acknowledging that the dismal state of Spain's economy was a factor in the election, World Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs noted the significant impact of family issues. "Over the past 8 years of its socialist misrule, the Zapatero government painted a symbolic bulls-eye on the Spanish family and moral virtues -- liberalizing and promoting divorce, instituting same-sex marriage and adoption, creating easy access to abortion, lowering the age of consent, eliminating parent's rights, and mandating pro-homosexual education in the schools."
This led to massive demonstrations, especially on the life issue. Just this year, on March 27, 2011, more than 150,000 people marched through the streets of Madrid to protest Zapatero's abortion law, which allows abortion on demand up to the 14th week of gestation, up to 22 weeks in cases of rape, fetal abnormality and risk to the mother's health, and up until the moment of birth if the unborn child has a serious or incurable illness, as determined by a committee.
In a February interview with the newspaper El Mundo, Spain's incoming prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, promised that if his Popular Party constituted the next government, it would repeal the new measure and return to the previous law -- which allowed abortion only in cases of rape, fetal deformity and danger to the mother's health. Rajoy also pledged repeal of Spain's controversial "Education for Citizenship and Human Rights Program" which indoctrinates students in the worldview of homosexual activists.
Spain will be the site of World Congress of Families VI, at Madrid's Palacio de Congresos, May 25-27, 2012. Themes will include: The Case for Marriage, Strengthening the Family (including fatherhood and motherhood), The Culture of Life Versus the Culture of Death (including abortion and euthanasia), Demographic Winter, Sexual Revolution and the Family (divorce, co-habitation and pornography), Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Education (parent's rights), Engaging the Culture (including the impact of the news and entertainment media on the family), The Homosexual Lobby and International Family Law and Policy (UN, EU, and other international bodies). Go to www.worldcongress.es to register to attend or exhibit at WCF VI. Early registration discounts are available until January 15th.
The organizing committee for World Congress of Families VI is spearheaded by WCF Partner HazteOir.org, and its president and founder, Ignacio Arsuaga, who also helped to organize the pro-life demonstrations in Madrid and over 80 other Spanish cities last March. Arsuaga is the co-author with M. Vidal Santos of a book detailing the anti-family policies of the Zapatero government, "The Zapatero Project: Chronicle of an Attack on Society." Go to proyectozapatero.org/wp-content/uploads/HazteOir.-Proyecto-Zapatero-INGLES-REDUCIDO.pdf to read a copy of the book in English.
It's been eight years in which we lived with attacks aimed at destroying our society. Imposition, prohibition, manipulation and indoctrination have been the characteristics of the last two [Zapatero-led] legislatures. That is why we celebrate this newest election," said Ignacio.
Jacobs added, "We hope the revolution which started in Madrid on Sunday will spread to other Western European nations. Their economic woes are rooted in anti-family policies, resulting in some of the lowest birthrates in history. World Congress of Families VI in Madrid (May 25-27, 2012) will map strategies for a renaissance of the natural family and help educate the new leaders in Spain and throughout the world."
Information on World Congress of Families visit www.worldcongress.org. To schedule an interview with WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs, contact Communications Director Don Feder at 508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com or Judy Hodge 815-964-5819, media@worldcongress.org.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and inter-faith people of goodwill from more than 80 countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948). The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois. To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families -- Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004), Warsaw, Poland (2007) and Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2009).
World Congress of Families VI will be held in Madrid, Spain in May 25-27, 2012.
