US official snubs MEPs over ‘extremist’ meeting

A member of the US government has said she will go to Warsaw for a controversial conference on the family despite a warning from 19 MEPs, who branded the views of the participants as "extremist and intolerant".

The Socialist and Liberal MEPs wrote to Ellen Sauerbrey, the US assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, warning that the views of some of the participants of the conference "include prejudiced attitudes toward foreigners, people from other religions, homosexuals and the inclusive vision of what represents a family unit".

The World Congress of Families, to be held in Warsaw on 11-13 May, is being organised by the Howard Center, a US-based group which lobbies on behalf of traditional family values. The President of Poland Lech Kaczyn´ski will open the conference which includes sessions entitled ‘Beyond the contraceptive mentality’ and ‘The mother in the home and the new home-economics’.

Sauerbrey, an outspoken supporter of the anti-abortion pro-life movement, rejected the appeal during a visit last week to Brussels. "This is a characterisation that has been placed by a small number of members of the European Parliament. The fact that many members of the European Parliament are themselves participating in the congress says that this is not a mainstream position," she said.

The MEPs in their letter to Sauerbrey, dated 28 March, give examples of the views of some speakers at the conference, including the president of Human Life International, Father Thomas Euteneuer, who "represents an organisation that has continuously courted controversy through extremist actions and statements, such as publicly accusing Jews of controlling the abortion-rights movement and calling sniper attacks on doctors who perform abortions ‘a superb tactic’".

Another speaker, Steven W. Mosher, is president of the Population Research Institute, which "discusses the alleged ‘demographic destruction’ in Europe by claiming that Muslims are to blame", the letter states.

Sauerbrey defended the participants, saying that some of the people who were cited in the letter were "highly respected".

She added: "The focus of the congress is on the concerns that people feel all over the world about the breakdown of the family."

Prionsias de Rossa, an Irish Socialist MEP and one of the signatories to the letter, said that Sauerbrey’s attendance would give support to other participants whose views were "questionable".

"It could be argued that some of it is incitement to hatred and lending the respectability of a high-ranking member of the Bush administration adds credence to this kind of thinking," he said.

A member of the US government has said she will go to Warsaw for a controversial conference on the family despite a warning from 19 MEPs, who branded the views of the participants as "extremist and intolerant".