World Congress of Families, an international conservative group that opposes homosexuality is planning its first worldwide conference in the United States next year including a four-day gathering in Utah, which has become a focal point in the gay marriage movement, according to The Associated Press.
The Rockford, Illinois-based World Congress of Families has about 40 partner organizations, including the Focus on the Family and Concerned Women for America, the AP reported. The group brings together people of different religions and ethnicities to promote the "natural human family," which its website says consists of a man and woman raising children with love and discipline.
The group chose Salt Lake City for its October 2015 gathering over St. Louis and Atlanta because it is an international city with experience hosting the Olympics, said Larry Jacobs, the group's managing director, according to the AP. The conference is expected to draw about 3,000 people.
Utah became one of the focal points for the same-sex marriage movement after a federal judge threw out its ban in December, the AP reported. An appeals court recently upheld that ruling, and the state plans to appeal.
The Sutherland Institute, a public policy think tank in Utah that advocates for conservative values, put in the bid and is leading the event planning, Jacobs said, the AP reported. The World Congress of Families also will hold a smaller, regional conference in Salt Lake City this fall.
The World Congress of Families opposes homosexuality and abortion, and is on the Southern Poverty Law Center's list of hate groups for its anti-LGBT views, according to the AP.
"Same-sex marriage is just the most recent issue that's come out of the sexual revolution and the radical sexual left, which would like to focus on individual sexual pleasure as the ultimate human goal," Jacobs said, according to the AP.
The Human Rights Campaign, which supports gay rights and gay marriage, is an outspoken critic of the group, the AP reported.
Ty Cobb, the campaign's director of global engagement, said the World Congress of Families is a network of extremist groups that has been working to promote anti-LGBT rhetoric and legislation abroad, including in Russia and several African countries, according to the AP.
Gay rights activists have won 18 cases in federal and state courts across the country since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal Defense of Marriage Act last summer, according to the AP.
"Whatever the World Congress of Families may believe in their head about the values of people of Salt Lake City, they are wrong," Cobb said, the AP reported. "The values of the people of Salt Lake City are ones that promote inclusivity."
