The Traditional Family Versus Equal Rights Supporters Rhetoric In Romania
The Traditional Family Versus Equal Rights Supporters Rhetoric In Romania

Summary/Abstract: This paper clarifies some of the less known aspects of the origin, the development and the success of global Christian and Religious Right movements in Romania. Since 1995 global Religious Right started to offer comprehensive support for transnational moral campaigns over same-sex marriage, abortion, family life or gun control, sharing their (mostly)American expertise shaped in the battle with the secular state. One of the most important fronts in this battle was the discussion over traditional values in family life and the motivations and legal provisions that make it the only legitimate form of cohabitation. In Romania the Christian Right relies on conservatism, nationalism and religious tradition to foment popular support against same-sex marriage while at the same time touting the imminent homosexual attack on traditional family values, described as presently declining in importance in comparison to a prestigious past. Building on Romania’s new social realities but also revitalizing and hybridizing some of the more extreme versions of nationalism and palingenetic ideology, one of Christian Right’s offsprings, the Coalition for the Family’s relative success signals the coagulation of a moral alliance affecting both lived and institutionalized religion. In short this paper argues that the emergence of a typical Christian Right coalition formed by various groups that are not necessarily of Orthodox faith, is part of an interreligious alliance against the separation of church and state, and reveals Romania’s momentous role in the “clashing networks of global politics.”

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