FAMILY COUNCIL OF VICTORIA - AGM
President's Report
August 1, 2006

This year I believe it is time that we should review the world today and lay out the challenges that confront those organizations that labour for the future of the natural family.

The Family Council of Victoria was formed in late 1994, towards the end of the International Year of the Family. It was a time when The United Nations began a series of International Conferences on the family that were dominated by the radical feminists who controlled the planning committees. Strong pressure was mounted against the concept of the Natural Family and assertive demands were trumpeted for Reproductive Rights, a euphemism for abortion on demand and population controls. And they have not gone away. Moreover they have been strengthened by the relentless pressure from the homosexual lobby for so-called Gay Rights and the existence of anti-discrimination legislation adjudicated by unelected judges. These have been world-wide phenomena but have been more advanced in the democratic societies of Western culture. There have been constitutional challenges against the institutions of marriage and the family, to extend their meaning and their social privileges, particularly in the USA but also in Canada, Australia and Europe.

Over the last 40-50 years, the world has experienced a catastrophic decline in population growth, with the western and industrialised nations being the most affected. In the last 5 years, the ominous warnings of many demographers have impacted on politicians and on many social scientists who are now beginning to show apprehension about the ageing of our diminishing populations and the future of our economic and social systems.
With the exception of the radical environmentalists, with their penchant for advocacy of avant garde "sustainable development," often based on dubious modeling constructs and disputed premises, this shift in the population pyramid has aroused the deep concern of many reputable governing bodies. How to reverse this trend, how to determine how this all came about and what measures we should adopt and for what reasons, are in the cauldron of policy development. And this means that we must determine what is the ultimate philosophy of living in a human society.

In Australia, we are seeing the fruits of our secularised society and the rejection of what are erroneously called 'imposed religious values." This is patently obvious in the document that appears on the website for the Australian Democrats in its survey on God and Government. It is the same tune played by those who decry the growth of the "religious right" in modern democratic systems.

For decades the philosophy of Secular Humanism with its manifesto, first articulated in 1933, gradually gained the ascendancy in the second half of the 20th Century. Its protagonists in the field of tertiary education grew in number and so too did the graduates of these institutions. Increasingly they came to dominate the media, the print industry, film and TV productions so that the creed of this movement not only dominated the information and education systems but began to voice strident claims for rights and to vilify the Judeo-Christian of the western democracies. Their main target has been Christianity and its emphasis on a personal God to Whom we will, at the end of time, have to give an account of our stewardship.
It was and still remains a clash of opposing philosophies. The simple fact remains. One's basic beliefs or creed, whether they derive from a belief in God or a rejection of a life after death, are not separable from how we live and behave from day to day nor are they divorced from the normative education of our children. It is within the family, the social mediating institution par excellence, that values, social skills and social identity are transmitted to succeeding generations and this is an intensely intimate domestic society.

However In 1990, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child came into force and dealt a severe blow to the rights of parents and gravely eroded the traditional roles of fathers and mothers. The provisions of the Convention were aided and abetted by some of the welfare organizations of the major religions and their power overrode the misgivings of those concerned with the integrity of the natural family and its mediating structures. At the time, we knew little about the use of compassion as a weapon against the concept of the Common Good nor did we realize how important a weapon it would become in the field of bioethics and the development of the anti-life movement.
As these secularist forces grew and threatened our basic institutions, the judicial system bred a new breed of judge who often usurped the role of the legislative arm of social governance. This has occurred in relation to family law, induced abortion, homosexual claims, vilification legislation, and anti-discrimination laws.

This form of social manipulation has extended into the field of scientific research, especially in reproductive technology, genetic manipulation, drug abuse and the social sciences. Much research occurs in fields of medicine that have become politicized, such as embryonic stem cells, artificial reproductive technology and the promotion of a drug policy. Evidence based medicine can serve an ideological purpose, when the evidence is selectively chosen and other evidence is suppressed or summarily dismissed. Some research is not research at all but hypotheses or declarations that are proposed to win public or political support. Other claims are published in popular magazines or through the media, often with the use of clever expressions formulated by public relations experts hired by medical or research centres. This is particularly evident in the field of reproductive technology. Other research reveals deep conflicts of interest as some research scientists stand to make fortunes from certain new but ethically dubious experimental procedures. Ideological positions, often based on personal autonomy or distorted liberalism, are strongly to the fore in the field of drug use, especially when dogmatic claims are made about the harms associated with a restrictive drug policy. Uncomfortable evidence is often deliberately ignored and slogans are presented as if certain claims are incontestable. Meta-analysis and Ecological studies are widely used to assert the success of harm minimisation measures and economic estimates of positive gains rest on doubtful premises and inferences.

. As you can see, since we formed the FCV in 1994, we have had to take on board a complex set of issues that impact on the life of the natural family. Where once we worked as discrete organizations, often with circumscribed platforms of relevant issues, today we must learn to work together and expand our horizons of deep concern. We are in a world where we must engage in strategic battles, where we do not hold the reigns of power nor do we possess the material resources to fight a fair fight. But we do possess an ultimate weapon, based on the truth of our human existence and the philosophy of life that underpins our endeavours. For the Christian, it is the message of the Risen Christ, the redeemer of Mankind. It is based on the power of prayer and our own willingness to proclaim and defend our beliefs. It will require a thorough knowledge of the Christian message and it will require courage and the power to articulate the evidence on which we base our beliefs. For the non deist, our case rests upon the concept of the Common Good, the preservation of those institutions which we claim to be part of the natural order - the institution of marriage and that of the family, as has been known from time immemorial.
We must not descend to the use of ridicule and unadulterated rhetoric as a form of debate but we must study closely our own evidence and that of our opponents. But above all, we must manifest our concern for all human beings, both friend and foe alike.

Joe Santamaria August 1, 2006