(LifeSiteNews) — Henk Jan van Schothorst, candidate for the European Parliament and leader of Christian Council International, joins Jonathon on this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show to discuss the fight against the international left from inside the European Union.
Van Schothorst began his fight against the international left after working as a staffer for a member of the European Parliament for seven years beginning in 2000. During his time in Brussels, van Schothorst became acquainted with the “enormous power of the unelected bureaucratic elite,” especially the European Commission. According to van Schothorst, the Commission has the ability to “initiate” policies and is “insufficiently” controlled by the European Parliament. The power used by those in Brussels, he contends, is usually used “from a very progressive, liberal left perspective.”
He recalls one instance when a Catholic Italian candidate for the European Department of Interior was proposed for the Commission, two Dutch Members of the European Parliament (MEP) pressed him on his stance on abortion. Relenting after repeated questions, the Italian said that he was a faithful Catholic and pro-life. The Dutch MEPs then managed to organize a group of Greens, Socialists, and Liberals, to successfully block his appointment – something van Schothorst says was the first instance of the kind.
“If this is the case, that on a personal opinion on abortion, someone like this is sent home, then there is really something very wrong,” he recalls thinking.
After moving on from his work in the European Parliament, van Schothorst began working at The Hague and helping African nations in the midst of transitioning from uniparty states to democracies. He noticed the influence that the United Nations and its agencies had in Dutch politics. From what he saw, they were not helping member states but rather serving their own “progressive ideologies.” Seeing that no one was fighting the liberal agenda of the U.N., van Schothorst thought through what he wanted to see accomplished and decided to establish the Transatlantic Christian Council in 2013.
Describing the difficulty with the Council, however, van Schothorst tells Jonathon that the issue with labeling anything Christian was that one “should not expect open arms” but “resistance,” recounting that the tax authority in the Netherlands told him that he would never get tax exempt status, claiming that a Christian organization would not serve the common good but only Christian interests.
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He got involved in a court case with the tax authority, a fight lasting two-and-a-half years and ending with a legal battle before the Dutch Supreme Court. Van Schothorst tells Jonathon that he saw the need to appeal the tax authority’s decision for fear that it would treat other Christian organizations in a similar manner. The tax authority filed an appeal after he won the initial case, leading the case to the Supreme Court through appeals.
All the while, van Schothorst began applying for consultative status internationally, seeing that the only way to win the court cases was by implementing his objectives. Once he received consultative status, he could enter the U.N. headquarters in New York and the premises of other international institutions to lobby and promote his objectives. He obtained consultative status shortly after winning his case.
Offering an example of one of the things that his organization contends with, van Schothorst says that the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and the E.U. seek to make sexual orientation and gender identity an “international non-discriminatory category.”
Van Schothorst recalls that the push for LGBT ideology from the U.N. and other organizations began almost a decade ago with a resolution at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland. He says that that organization was chosen because it was smaller, having only 47 member states and the members “rotating” every three years.
“When you achieve something in Geneva on the so-called human rights level, then after it, it goes to the 193 [U.N.] member states in New York to be dealt with,” states van Schorthorst. After failing to stop the resolution in Geneva, van Schorthorst went to New York to try and convince U.N. member states to vote against the resolution, warning that the adaptation of LGBT issues in law is a Western phenomenon and that they should look to their own laws and constitutions regarding the issue.
The final vote resulted in 84 countries in favor, 77 against, and 16 abstentions. Recalling a conversation with the Indian ambassador to the U.N., van Schorthorst attempted to convince him to look at his own country’s legislation and vote against the resolution. India abstained, however, and he was told that the resolution was already agreed upon in Geneva and therefore he could not vote against it.
“[T]hat’s how these kinds of positions come into existence sometimes, and sometimes we’re able to break the consensus,” van Schorthorst tells Jonathon. “The look is that these kinds of positions do not have an international legislative implication, but they apply to the U.N. system. And when there is a treaty referring to the U.N. system, then you have to implement it.”
Van Schorthorst maintains that there has been an attempted push for gender ideology on the part of international institutions for some time. Looking to the proposed treaty between the E.U. and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific (ACP) countries, something he has been working on for the past several years, van Schothorst says that the treaty was drafted by the E.U. and that the ACP’s secretariat is itself in Brussels and is paid by Brussels to represent those countries. While the E.U. attempted to clandestinely push LGBT issues, comprehensive sexual education, and abortion on ACP countries with the treaty, van Schothorst spoke with those countries’ leaders to warn them of the treaty.
“That is the way how the E.U., I have to say, is constantly trying, then via the Human Rights Council, then via the New York United Nations, or then with Brussels, or other ways, they try to push, push, push this liberal agenda,” states van Schothorst. “And they have the money, and that makes it very difficult for African politicians and countries to resist.”
Recalling something a southern African diplomat told him, van Schothorst says that if an African country is offered $50 billion in education subsidies, $500,000 of which is for comprehensive sexual education, the country will take it since it cannot afford not to.
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When the treaty was signed last November, 35 out of the 79 ACP countries did not sign it – something van Schothorst saw as a sign of his organization’s work. At the time of the episode’s recording, van Schothorst believes about 60 ACP countries have signed the treaty, with the E.U. claiming it can go into effect once two-thirds of the ACP member states sign it.
Later in the episode, van Schothorst speaks about the irony of how non-Western countries are upholding Christian values while the places directly formed by Christian civilization are not. For van Schothorst, the Bible is a “standard” that “applies to everyone and for every policy.” To look at the scriptural commandments, van Schothorst notes, is to know right from wrong, good from evil, and that we can use this lens to examine resolutions and treaties.
What we see happening in the West, he continues, is the attempted removal of God while men themselves become as gods. If truth only exists in the heart of man, someone can claim his own truth as opposed to an objective one. And if truth is a personal matter, one can choose his own gender and sexual orientation and expect everyone to celebrate the decision, lest one be guilty of “hate speech.”
“If you have that standard and you apply that on the documents, then you have to be on the side … most times … of the developing countries, who stand strong for family, for life, and for freedoms, and also to respect national sovereignty,” says van Schothorst, noting that the E.U. is not about democracy but the imposition of its own ideology on developing countries.
For more from Henk Jan van Schothorst, tune into this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.
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