Contact: Don Feder, 508-405-1337, dfeder@rcn.com; Carol Griesbach, 815-222-2490, media@worldcongress.org; both with World Congress of Families 

MEDIA ADVISORY, Aug. 10 /Standard Newswire/ -- World Congress of Families International Secretary Dr. Allan C. Carlson will be the Keynote Speaker at the National Marriage Day Dinner sponsored by the Australian Family Association on August 12th, in Sydney.  National Marriage Day is officially recognized on August 13th and marks the passage of the Marriage Amendment Act of 2004, by which the Australian Parliament defined marriage as "a union between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, voluntarily entered into for life."

The 2010 National Marriage Day Dinner will be held at the York Conference & Function Centre in Sydney, starting at 6:45pm on August 12th.

The leading historian of the family, Dr. Carlson will speak on "Why Australia Needs a Renewed Culture of Marriage." Carlson maintains that the natural family, not the individual, is the "source of ordered liberty, the fountain of real democracy and the seedbed of virtue."

The Australian Family Association, sponsor of National Marriage Day, has just concluded a national petition drive to retain the traditional definition of marriage. Results will be announced shortly.

In conjunction with National Marriage Day, AFA is selling gold rosettes (rose pins) symbolizing marriage.  Its goal is to have 100,000 rosettes worn across the country on August 13.

WCF Managing Director Larry Jacobs announced that the Australian Family Association has just become the newest World Congress of Families Partner.  Other WCF Partners include REAL Women of Canada, Red Familia (the Family Network, Mexico), the Latin American Alliance for the Family, HatzeOir.org (Spain), The Fr. Peter Skarga Institute (Poland), Associazione per la Difesa Del Valori  Cristiani -- Luci sull'Est (The Association for the Defense of Christian Values, Italy) and the Parents Forum (Switzerland), as well as over 20 of the leading pro-life and pro-family groups in the United States.  Click here for a complete list of World Congress of Families Partners.

The Australian Family Association is nationally organized with local chapters in every state in Australia. Its objectives include cultivating "within society an appreciation that the integrity and well-being of the family is essential to the stability, morale, security and prosperity of the Australian nation."  AFA publishes the Australian Family Journal (3 times a year) and the Family Update newsletter (6 issues a year).  Click here for the website of the Australian Family Association.

Jacobs observed: "It's great to be able to partner with the Australian Family Association.  We're delighted that World Congress of Families will have an opportunity to work with AFA to build a truly international pro-family movement."  Click here for more information on the World Congress of Families Partner Program.  To schedule an interview with Larry Jacobs or Allan Carlson, call Don Feder at 508-405-1337 or dfeder@rcn.com.

The World Congress of Families (WCF) is an international network of pro-family organizations, scholars, leaders and people of goodwill from more than 60  countries that seek to restore the natural family as the fundamental social unit and the 'seedbed' of civil society (as found in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948).  The WCF was founded in 1997 by Allan Carlson and is a project of The Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society in Rockford, Illinois (www.profam.org).  To date, there have been five World Congresses of Families -- Prague (1997), Geneva (1999), Mexico City (2004) and Warsaw, Poland (2007).  The fifth World Congress of Families was held in Amsterdam, Netherlands, August 10-12, 2009 (www.worldcongress.org and www.worldcongress.nl).