Jan Gregor. Posters read from left to right “Save the Family!”, “Mum and Dad, not Parent 1 and Parent 2!”and “I’m for Life!” Photo Petr Zewlakk Vrabec / Alarm

Jan Gregor, Vice-Chairman of the ultra-conservative Alliance for the Family, signed a contract with the Ministry of Justice in January this year for 290,000 crowns (€12,000). It is supposedly for “consultation advisory services”. He received similar amounts for similar tasks in 2023 and 2024. We asked the Ministry about the nature of this legal consultancy. We also questioned whether it is appropriate to collaborate with a person whose involvement in state structures has repeatedly been opposed by citizens and politicians. The Ministry has not responded to Alarm’s questions even after a week.

The majority of society, as well as most SPOLU voters, do not align with ultra-conservative views or the moral panic that the organisation repeatedly attempts to provoke.

As we discovered with Eliška Koldová and Jan Kašpárek while writing the investigative series Between God and the Far Right, Gregor’s position at the Ministry of Justice was secured by the conservative wing of ODS. One of our sources specifically mentioned the head of the ODS parliamentary group, Marek Benda. He has long supported ultra-conservative groups such as Alliance for the Family, but he also did not respond to our questions.

In addition to Jan Gregor, the ODS also maintains cooperation with Jana Jochová, the chairwoman of Alliance for the Family. She has made her mark in Czech public debate through statements such as that she would prefer her son to be alone rather than live in a queer marriage, or that she wouldn’t mind giving up her voting rights if her husband could vote for her. The same Jana Jochová is an assistant to ODS MP Václav Král, which allows her to freely enter the premises of the Chamber of Deputies and lobby for ultra-conservative interests. Alliance for the Family was also represented in the working group on the Family Policy Concept under Marian Jurečka’s Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs.

Christian views?

To understand why such involvement of Alliance for the Family is dangerous, one needs to look at their history as well as their international connections. Alliance for the Family was established in 2017 from the Committee for the Defence of Parental Rights (VORP), which had been fighting against sex education in schools since the 1990s. Since then, however, the Alliance has shifted and today primarily focuses on “protecting families”. Such “protection” includes, for example, opposition to queer marriage, trans rights, or surrogate motherhood.

The moral panic that Alliance for the Family has long been trying to provoke is epitomised by a contribution in the Teachers’ Gazette: “Children are becoming commodities, mothers are becoming incubators for fulfilled wishes of homosexual couples.” Alliance for the Family also constantly warns of a vaguely specified “gender ideology”, or spreads manipulative and false information regarding the transition process.

It was for these reasons that in 2023, the evangelical pastor and YouTuber duo Pastoral Brothers decided to write a petition against the involvement of Alliance for the Family in state structures. This petition was signed by seventeen thousand people. According to Pastoral Brothers, these are mainly from the Christian community. “We disagree with the goals of Alliance for the Family because they not only go against the meaning and values of our religions, but are also against the principles of a free, democratic state as we understand it as citizens of our country,” the petition states. However, the petition remained without response, and people from Alliance for the Family remained in their positions.

The outcome was similar when ANO MP Lenka Knechtová interpellated Prime Minister Petr Fiala in 2023 with a question about “the actual involvement of Alliance for the Family in state structures and bodies”. She received a simple explanation in response: “The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs lists the Alliance as one of many internal commenting bodies. In the past, it was also a member of the working group for the preparation of the Family Policy Strategy. No other ministerial advisory bodies use the Alliance’s services.” However, they do use the services of its leading representatives and lobbyists Jana Jochová and Jan Gregor, which Fiala strategically chose to conceal.

Money first and foremost

The current government is trying to cover up cooperation with the leading representatives of Alliance for the Family for good reasons. The majority of society, as well as most SPOLU voters, do not align with ultra-conservative views or the moral panic that the organisation repeatedly attempts to provoke. The government is well aware that the mainstream they are trying to address is significantly more liberal and that associating with such people could cost them precious votes. The question remains why, despite the reputational risk, they continue to pay Gregor and Jochová.

When we tried to find an answer to this question two years ago, the threads led us to the influence of the aforementioned Marek Benda. However, Benda did not answer our questions. Neither did Justice Minister Pavel Blažek or Václav Král. Today, another factor can complete the puzzle, and that is the influence of money.

As Deník N discovered, one of the wealthiest Czechs – co-owner of Parlamentní listy and majority owner of Echo Media, Marek Španěl – has repeatedly sent hundreds of thousands to Alliance for the Family. Meanwhile, the Alliance boasts that they are supported by “small donors”. Another supporter of the conservative organisation is coal baron Pavel Tykač, who also supports the Václav Klaus Institute, CEVRO University, and the Civic Institute summer school. Tykač refused to specify the form of his assistance.

Where there is money, there is power. If CEVRO, which has long been associated with the ODS, is sponsored by someone who also supports Alliance for the Family, we cannot be too surprised that conservative ODS politicians keep Jochová and Gregor close. In the end, all these people met, for example, at last year’s conservative camp of the Society for the Defence of Freedom of Expression.

Magdalena Dušková is an editor at Alarm.cz and a student of political theories and cultural anthropology at Charles University, Prague. She mainly writes about politics, feminism, and also monitors the conservative and clerofascist scene. Together with Karolína Ježková, she creates the Hysterie podcast. | magdalena.duskova denikalarm.cz