July 29 will go down as a red letter day for parents in Honduras and, indeed, throughout the Spanish-speaking world.
That’s the day that the Honduran President Xiomara Castro vetoed an “integral education” law that would have turned schools into gender re-education camps for small children, telling them that their biological sex doesn’t matter. It’s how they feel that counts.
The veto marked a stunning victory of parents over the concerted, well-funded attacks of the international abortion syndicate, the Biden administration, and their sexually depraved allies.
How was the victory won?
First and foremost, with the help and encouragement of PRI, parents got organized. They set up an organization called “For Our Children,” and took to the streets in protest. In mid-July, 50,000 parents held marches in seven of the most important cities of this pro-life Central American country.
Parents also enlisted the help of Catholic bishops, priests and religious, and evangelical pastors. These vocally supported the massive public protest, in contrast to the silence of religious leaders in other countries when pro-family movements have asked for their help.
It wasn’t easy to convince President Xiomara Castro. She is not pro-life. In fact, her husband, former president Manuel Zelaya, had been ousted in 2009 amid a political crisis that spawned countless corruption investigations.
Moreover, both Zamoras have enjoyed the support of leftist and communist presidents from China’s Xi Jinping to Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to Argentina’s Kirchner clan.
But Xiomara Castro can count ballots. The massive crowds convinced her that, for her political survival, she’d better stand with parents.
The Biden administration is probably not very happy with her at the moment. U.S. foreign aid to Honduras and other countries is being used to promote sexual license, abortion, and gender theory. Xiomara Castro herself was romanced by the administration from the moment she was sworn in. Cackling Kamala Harris, famous for her support of abortion and the “Gender Agenda,” actually attended her inauguration in January 2022.
President Castro’s veto was all the more surprising because, in casting it, she had gone against her own ruling party, most of the members of which voted in favor of the law when it passed the legislature on March 8.
From the day it was first proposed in the Congress, the “Law of Integral Education for the Prevention of Adolescent Pregnancy” as it is called, faced serious opposition throughout the country.
The law is a textbook case of the attempts in countries throughout Latin America to promote “integral sexual education,” a harmless-sounding label for a program of forced indoctrination in gender ideology.
The law would have mandated that, from their first day in school, children would be taught that their biological sex is no longer important. They would be told that they can be anything they want—male, female, bisexual—the list is endless. They would be taught that sex is only important as a source of pleasure.
The children would have been told the same old lies – that they can have sex whenever they want and with whomever they want, so long as they are safe from pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases.
This program—like all such programs—was deliberately designed to alienate children from their parents, insisting that a fundamental ingredient of “their sexual and reproductive rights” is access to contraceptives, and even to abortion, without the knowledge or consent of their parents.
In Honduras, the UN Population Fund had been working for years to market the theme of “sex education for the prevention of teenage pregnancy” by, paradoxical as it sounds, promoting sexual activity at an early age. Other UN agencies, pro-government parliamentarians and local NGOs sang the same tune.
The law was called an “urgent measure to protect Honduran girls” but it wasn’t Honduran at all. The international abortion syndicate brought it into the country, used its millions and its influence to sponsor events and propaganda to create the appearance of a social consensus. They even recruited “religious” activists to add moral credibility to their efforts.
And they lied. The law was advertised as addressing the problem of teen pregnancy, but its real purpose was to inject “destructive gender ideology promoted by international organizations” into the schools—and into the impressionable minds of minor children.
The Promoters Of The Culture Of Death Work Hard. But So Do Pro-Lifers.
From my PRI office in Lima, Peru, I follow events in Honduras closely. Our closest allies in the country are Leonardo and Martha Lorena Casco, founders of the Comité Provida. Since 1989 we have fought shoulder to shoulder in the culture wars, empowering organizations and professionals, with a special focus on bringing young people into the battle. Over the years we have educated and trained many new leaders.
Our recent victory in Honduras was the result of these decades-long efforts.
Our “March In Favor Of Children And The Family” was the most massive public demonstration in the history of Honduras. On Saturday July 23, families filled the streets of the capital of Tegucigalpa and six other cities with colors, music and youthful joy in a celebration of life that will be remembered for years. Local and international media carried countless news reports of this historic march.
The message to Xiomara Castro was loud and clear: Parents were not going to tolerate their children being indoctrinated with a foreign ideology that violated their beliefs and values.
With the help of the Population Research Institute, Honduran pro-lifers scored a great victory over the international machinery of gender indoctrination.
In the months and years to come, we will be working hard to export “The Honduran Model” to other countries within the region, and to countries around the world.
