The United Nations is redefining the family out of existence, according to a speaker addressing the John Birch Society.
William Norman Grigg, senior editor of the John Birch Society publication the New American and author of Freedom on the Altar, addressed two gatherings drawing about 400 people in Salt Lake Friday and in Provo Saturday, according to Gregg R. Smith, coordinator for the John Birch Society in Utah.Grigg said Salt Lake City was chosen by the U.N. as the site for the conference celebrating the International Year of the Family this week because of its "human shield of gullibility and opportunism."
"I'm sure at least 90 percent of the people are animated by truly commendable motives. If they were actually aware of how the U.N. defines families, they would be properly appalled," Grigg said.
The U.N. defines a family as a child and an adult responsible for that child's upbringing, said Grigg. This definition becomes "any configuration that can be imagined by social engineers," Grigg said.
The U.N. is pushing for a totalitarian world government, according to Grigg. The treaty drafted at the International Convention on the Child makes the state the custodian of the child.
"A treaty regulates the actions of our government with other governments, the U.N. intends to use it to govern the home," Grigg said.
The treaty states that every child has the right to live with their parents unless it is deemed that "such separation is necessary for the best interest of the child."
Grigg said this means children who are not raised according to the values of the U.N. could be taken from their parents.
"There is an ongoing battle between the state and the family," Grigg said. "Because the family is eternal, the state cannot be eternal. The family must be destroyed as a rival to the state."
Grigg identified the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services as one of the enemies of the family.
"The spinsters that run the department of social services for the Clinton administration don't know how to raise children. They don't want to raise their own children, they want to raise your children," Grigg said.
"When you have to get help from the state you are not your own person," one audience member agreed. "I have a friend who gets help from Social Services. They completely control her life," said Cera Bellum of American Fork. Bellum says she is not a member of the society but she buys their books and subscribes to their magazine.
Utah was chosen as the first engagement for Grigg's nationwide speaking tour in order to coincide with the International Conference on the Family.
The John Birch Society is an ultraconservative, anticommunist organization in the United States. Founded in 1958 by Robert Welch Jr., the organization is named for a Baptist missionary and U.S. Army intelligence officer who was killed by Chinese Communists in 1945. Society members honor Birch as the first American casualty of the Cold War.