World Congress of Families International Secretary Allan Carlson said Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints – who died on Sunday -- was “a great champion of the natural family.”
“Under President Hinckley’s guidance, the LDS Church was resolute in its defense of family values, including traditional marriage,” Carlson noted. “LDS leaders have been active in the World Congress of Families. Church representatives and lay scholars participated in World Congress of Families I (Prague, 1997), WCF II (Geneva, 1999),WCF III (Mexico City, 2004) and World Congress of Families IV (Warsaw, 2007).”
In his book, “Standing for Something,” President Hinckley observed: “We go to great lengths to preserve historical buildings and sites in our cities. We need to apply the same fervor to preserving the most ancient and sacred of institutions – the family.”
In 1995, under Hinckley’s leadership, the LDS Church issued “The Family: A Proclamation to the World,” which included the following:
• Gender is an essential part of human identity.
• Sex is sacred and must be confined to marital relations between a man and a woman.
• Parents have a responsibility “to love and care for each other and their children.”
• “Fathers and mothers are obligated to help each other as equal partners.”
The LDS Church has been active in supporting the defense of marriage amendments in various states.
Wayne A. Tew, a board member of the Howard Center for Family Religion & Society (parent organization of World Congress of Families), commented: “The passing of Gordon B. Hinckley is a loss of a strong moral compass in a troubled world. His legacy as a defender of virtue and family values will long be remembered.”
For more information on World Congress of Families, go to
www.worldcongress.org, or contact World Congress of Families Managing Director, Larry Jacobs at 1-800-461-3113.
The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60 countries that seeks to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the ‘seedbed’ of civil society. The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org). To date, there have been four World Congresses of Families – Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007).