Ever since it first appeared in the Romanian public sphere last year, we have been warning anybody who will listen that the Coalitia pentru familie (Coalition for the Family) is a misogynistic wolf in a homophobic sheep’s clothing.

The coalition is best known as the initiator of a proposed amendment to the Romanian constitution that would redefine a family as being comprised of ‘a man and a woman’ (it currently defines a family as being made up merely of ‘two spouses’).

With the institutional help of the Romanian Orthodox Church the coalition collected almost three million signatures earlier this year in order to force a constitutional referendum on the issue. The referendum will probably take place next spring. The coalition had originally wanted it to take place concurrently with the parliamentary election on December 11th, but almost all of Romania’s political parties – for differing reasons – were opposed to the idea. For the referendum to be valid, turnout needs to be above 30 per cent. It is unlikely that a standalone referendum will get anything near that.

Despite not wanting to hold the referendum at the same time as the election, most of Romania’s political parties have – with an eye on the votes of those who support it – embraced the coalition over the past few weeks.

The country’s two largest parties, the PSD and the PNL, have both signed protocols of collaboration with the coalition. A number of lesser parties (including the extremist ANR and PRU) have also signed up to the coalition’s manifesto. Indeed, the only major party which has not entered into an agreement with the coalition is, to its credit, the USR. (A prominent member of the USR, Clotilde Armand, has however said that the referendum should be held. If it does, a boycott should ensure that it is not validated).

Perversely however, the agreements that the coalition has signed with the political parties have meant that the organisation has in recent weeks finally, belatedly, come under much fiercer scrutiny than before. And at last, people are beginning to realise that the coalition’s target is not gays at all: it’s women.

We’ve written before about how Romania is a comfortably anti-gay marriage country. If ever there were a campaign guaranteed to get millions of Romanians onside, then one directed against gay marriage is it. A campaign directed from the outset against women would be less likely to succeed (not that it would be totally without support).

No, bash the gays for a bit, sign up millions of people and then get the political parties on board. And only then reveal what we’re really about. That has been the coalition’s tactic, and – credit where it’s due – it has worked a treat.

Are we making all this up?

No. It’s all there in black and white, on the coalition’s website: read between the lines and it becomes clear rather quickly that its goal is, in our opinion, to create in Romania some kind of male-dominated society which resembles Saudi Arabia or Iran far more than a modern European state.

Below are just a few of the choicer parts of the coalition’s ’12 reasons why the Romanian family is in decline.’ Few of them have had any place in contemporary political debate in the civilised world since the 1960s.

1. Since 1989 Romanians have been free to have abortions and use contraception.

Abortion was banned in Romania from 1966-1989. The consequences were horrific. Tens of thousands of women suffered shocking injuries, and many others died, during back-street terminations. Families unable to feed themselves were forced to have children they could not care for. Hundreds of thousands – an entire generation – ended up in the appalling orphanages which remain the most vivid legacy of Nicolae Ceausescu’s regime. It is unfortunate perhaps that many people in western Europe and North America still associate Romania with those half-starved, mistreated orphans, yet the memory of those poor children chained to beds and left for days on end should at least serve as insurance that we will never be confronted with their like again. (Gail Kligman’s endlessly grim yet outstanding The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania is the definitive work on the subject).

As for contraception… What’s the problem? Surely if the coalition wants to see fewer abortions (as, I suspect, we all do: Romania has one of the highest rates in the EU) then it should be heavily promoting the use of contraception. A coherent programme of sex education in classes seven and eight, combined with the free distribution of condoms and the pill in every high school and on every university campus in Romania would see the number of abortions fall overnight.

We can only assume that the coalition opposes contraception because if offers girls and women the chance to take control of their sex lives and reproductive rights.

2. The increased presence of women in the workplace has boosted their economic independence but reduced the amount of time they spend at home.

Because what? A woman’s place is in the home?

What is wrong with independent women? As we have been drumming into our ten-year-old daughter since before she could listen: education, career, independence. Only then should she start thinking about marriage and/or kids. Not before. (We hasten to add that whatever she does will be her choice of course, not ours. We just offer advice).

3. The standard of living for most people in Romania was better before 1989.

We find this statement genuinely shocking. Do the great minds at the coalition really think that life was better when Romania resembled one giant prison camp? When Romanians had to spend hours queuing up for basic foodstuffs? When there was nothing in the shops, petrol was rationed and freedom of expression did not exist? When foreign travel was forbidden? When women faced obligatory gynaecological examinations and all young men were condemned to carry out two years of slave labour?

Honestly, anyone who really thinks that life was better in Romania before 1989 has already lost the argument (any argument).

5. Couples are getting married later in life, reducing the amount of time they have to reproduce.

We believe that this is the key statement which betrays, above all others, exactly what the coalition is all about. It makes it clear that the primary (and perhaps only) role of marriage is to reproduce. Does the coalition seek to condemn women to a life of reproductive slavery, becoming baby machines at an early age with no purpose in life other than churning out as many children as possible?

7. Alternative ways of life have become acceptable, especially unmarried couples living together.

An unmarried couple living together still constitute a family. An unmarried couple who live together and have children can be (and usually are) exemplary parents. Single parents raising children are usually exemplary parents. (Meantime, plenty of married couples can be bad parents). Is the coalition’s real concern here that women are having sex without being married?

If so, let he who is without sin etc.

11. Unnatural methods of procreation.

Besides misogyny and prejudice, there’s also much inconsistency in the coalition’s argument.

The coalition exists – it claims – to defend and strengthen the Romanian family. It wants more families producing more children. And yet it opposes artificial insemination and surrogacy: the same technology that has enabled tens of thousands of couples to have children. What kind of mental gymnastics do these people have to perform in order to justify their arguments?

(Note: In the interests of objectivity we would point out that point 12 on the coalition’s list: ‘Bureaucracy prevents many childless couples from adopting’ is entirely well-founded. We have a Romanian friend who right now is trying to adopt a child. It’s a Kafka-esque nightmare).

Both the PSD and PNL are members of EU-wide political groupings (the European Socialists and European Liberals respectively) which should, in theory, make any kind of alliance with a sexist, retrograde movement as the Coalitia pentru familie impossible. We can only assume that nobody has told them.

It may well be that after the election the parties distance themselves from the coalition. We doubt that, however. The coalition has well and truly hoodwinked the PSD and PNL into signing up to its agenda. Like any Faustian pact, once you’ve signed up it’s difficult to ever get your soul back.

So when a grand PSD-PNL-ALDE-PRU-ANR coalition bans abortion, contraception and starts throwing women into prison for having miscarriages, don’t say we didn’t warn you. When artificial insemination and surrogacy are outlawed, don’t say we didn’t warn you. When women start being denied jobs or places at university on the grounds that they are women, don’t say we didn’t warn you. When unmarried parents have their child allowance cut, don’t say we didn’t warn you. When foreign travel becomes a privilege and not a right: don’t say we didn’t warn you.

In other words: don’t let the fact that you oppose gay marriage lead you to believe that the Coalitia pentru familia are on your side. They are not. In our opinion they are little more than old fashioned misogynists.