r very much, generate poverty and marginalization. There is a contrast between the recognized primary and decisive role of the family (very significant in many surveys), and the neglect and hostility to which the family institution is subjected and the erosion the family is suffering in some regions and nations.
73. What is worse is that under the impulse of international public organizations, presumably "new models" of the family are being put forth which include single parent homes and even homosexual unions. Some international UN agencies, supported by powerful lobbies, wish to impose "new human rights" on sovereign nations, such as "reproductive rights", which include access to abortion, sterilization, easy divorce, a "lifestyle" for young persons that favors the trivialization of sex, and the weakening of parents' lawful authority in their children's education.65
74. While an exacerbated liberal individualism is exalted together with a subjectivist ethic that encourages the unbridled search for pleasure, the family also suffers the resurgence of new expressions of Marxist socialism. One tendency which appeared at the Beijing Conference (1995), presumes to introduce the "gender ideology" into the culture of peoples. This ideology affirms, among other things, that the greatest form of oppression is man's oppression of woman, and that this is institutionalized in monogamous marriage.66 The ideologists then conclude that in order to end this oppression, it is advisable to put an end to the family based on monogamous marriage. Marriage and the family, rooted in the heterosexual union, are allegedly the products of a culture that appeared at a precise moment in history but which ought to disappear so that women can be freed and occupy their rightful place in productive society.
75. We are aware that the Holy Father, and in following his footsteps the Pontifical Council for the Family, have already spoken out many times about these ideologies which are not only anti-life and anti-family but also destructive of nations. On the threshold of the third millennium, the pastoral care of life, that is received and transmitted generously in the family, stands out as a priority need for the Jubilee Year: "Each family, in some way, should be involved in the preparation for the Great Jubilee. Was it not through a family, the family of Nazareth, that the Son of God chose to enter into human history?".67
76. The various rights of individuals and communities mutually reinforce a culture of freedom in which human beings can contribute to the common good. In fact, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirms in many ways that human beings are perfected through individual initiative, private associations and political engagement for the sake of the common good. The Declaration, for example, recognizes the right to intellectual property,68 whereby the invention, distribution and use of knowledge are not merely or solely achievements of the State. As John Paul II observed, "man's principal resource is man himself".69 The Universal Declaration wisely recognizes that an essential part of the freedom of association 70—which includes freedom to associate in labor unions 71—is the right whereby individuals cannot be compelled by the State to join an association.72 All these rights, which individuals and private associations enjoy, are vital for the development of "civil society". They constitute a safeguard against totalitarianism.
77. The practical recognition of the rights of the institution of the family in the framework of the development of human rights cannot ignore the original words, the end and the spirit of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Declaration recognizes in the natural institution of marriage a mutual self-giving in love between a man and a woman—which constitutes a stable union open to the procreation and education of their offspring—as the principal foundation of the family. We call upon all peoples and nations to give careful attention to the norms of the Universal Declaration and not to curtail their 