UNITED NATIONS — Pro-family groups were alarmed when an April 22 Washington Times story claimed that the Bush administration was going to join European countries in recognizing homosexual partnerships in a document to be adopted at the U.N. Special Session on Children scheduled for May 8-10.

The controversy stems over the phrase “various forms of families,” which homosexual lobbyists and many European countries interpret to include homosexual couples.

“The pro-family groups are very upset that this could go wrong and they are looking for a fix,” said Austin Ruse, president of the New York-based Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a pro-life and pro-family U.N. watchdog.

The U.N. negotiations on children, known informally as the Child Summit, have been under way for more than a year and will conclude with this month's special session of the U.N. General Assembly. The special session was originally scheduled for last September, but was canceled after the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The special session is expected to ratify a document that formulates international objectives in issues affecting children. As in other recent U.N. negotiations, homosexual and feminist activists have pushed for substitution of the phrase “various forms of the family” in place of references to “the family,” a term that has long been recognized in international human rights law as referring only to the heterosexual family.

Ruse noted that if the White House backpedaled now, after adopting a staunchly pro-family stance in earlier Child Summit negotiations, it could seriously injure President Bush's standing with pro-family organizations.

“This paragraph is going to be looked at by very important constituencies of the president,” said Ruse.

Thomas Jacobson, who handles U.N. issues for Focus on the Family, agrees.

“We think that [various forms of the family] is a problem because some delegations think that includes two men and two women, or homosexual partnerships,” Jacobson said.

He added that his organization had been in “direct contact” with the Bush administration over this issue, and has received an encouraging response.

“The Bush administration wants to renew the language” referring to “the family,” Jacobson said. “If they fail to do that, they will put in a reservation.”

A reservation is an addendum to the text of a U.N. document, entered by a country to state its formal disagreement with a certain portion of the document's language. It can also include an explanation of what that country interprets the disputed language to mean.

“We are very pleased that the administration has come out against this language,” said Jacobson.

Fence-Straddling?

Jacobson said that the Washington Times story missed the mark, but he placed some fault on the White House for the controversy.

“The Bush administration could be partially at fault for that because they are straddling the fence on the homosexual issue,” said Jacobson. “We have to encourage the Bush administration to stay strongly pro-family.”

That concern was echoed by Wendy Wright, spokeswoman for Concerned Women for America.

“On a broader scale the Bush administration has not been good at fending off the homosexual agenda,” said Wright, citing especially the State Department, which is responsible for foreign affairs.

She noted that before leaving office, Bill Clinton's Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conferred benefits to domestic partnerships. The Bush administration didn't reverse the policy, Wright noted.

Bush, like Clinton, recommended an openly homosexual man to become an ambassador. Michael Guest serves as Bush's ambassador to Romania, while Clinton nominated James Hormel as ambassador to Luxembourg.

But the Bush administration actually went a step further than Clinton, Wright said. “At least [under Clinton] there was an agreement that his partner would not go,” said Wright.

Not so with Michael Guest and his “partner.” “[Secretary of State Colin] Powell recognized them as if they were a married couple,” Wright said.

Given the administration's mixed record on homosexual issues and the constant push by other U.N. delegations from developed countries for pro-homosexual and pro-abortion agendas, it is understandable that pro-family groups are concerned about the Bush administration's diplomatic efforts.

But Wright remained confident that the Bush diplomats would not turn their backs on America's families.

Bush's Family Man

“We expect that any problems are going to be fixed,” said Wright. “We expect that the United States will be consistent with our laws, with the Defense of Marriage Act.”

Wayne Besen, spokesman for the pro-homosexual Human Rights Campaign, admitted that he hadn't read the Washington Times article, but maintained that a shift in the U.S. policy was unlikely.

“I don't think there has been any monumental changes,” Besen said, adding that sounding the alarm “may be a fund-raising ploy” by pro-family groups.

“I don't think there's some gigantic change in the family language,” he said.

Bill Saunders, who works at the Family Research Council and serves on the administration's delegation to the Child Summit negotiations, remained confident that the United States would not endorse language that supports homosexual “marriage.”

“The administration is not supporting, in conjunction with the European Union, a change in the definition of the family to promote gay marriage,” Saunders said.

“It's important to link family to marriage,” he added. “It's been in all the UN documents since the [1947 Universal Declaration of Human Rights] and it needs to continue to be upheld.”

Saunders said that while he could not reveal the exact diplomatic strategies that the United States has planned, he insisted that the Bush administration remains in close consultations with pro-family groups.

Said Saunders: “The administration is aware of, and takes seriously, the concerns of pro-family groups.”

Joshua Mercer writes from Washington, D.C.