ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the normative vision of the natural family held by several conservative Christian organizations in the United States and how that vision shapes their critique of the human rights projects. The natural family, as envisioned by the groups this chapter examines, has theological significance. It first explicates the missions and normative visions of family elaborated by Concerned Women for America (CWA), the Heritage Foundation, and the Family Research Council (FRC), The Howard Center and its affiliated World Congress of Families (WCF). And the chapter also examines these group's objections to the CRC and CEDAW. Including how their normative vision of child, family, and state and of proper gender ordering shapes these objections and clashes with contemporary political and constitutional values of sex equality. It also offers a preliminary comparison of the viewpoints these groups have on the natural family and on the human rights project with those of the Conference.