Playwright Julie Pascal’s recent article decrying the teaching of religion to children offers a revealing glimpse into some of the dangerous potential found within the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Referring to teaching religion to children as a form of child abuse, author Julie Pascal cites the Convention’s wording on the importance of “respect for the views of the child.”
The UNCRC has been challenged because of it’s reliance on government definitions of the “best interest of the child” — rather than observance and respect for a parent’s concept of what is right for their child.
Read more about some of the dangers of the UNCRC.
From the November/December 2006 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
Human rights should not be viewed as being in conflict with the promotion of pluralism. At the core, any theory of human rights views the decisions of individuals for their own lives to be presumptively superior to governmental authority. Of course, there are limits to this theory, and not all things that are claimed to be a human right survive logical analysis. But there is something about the right of private judgment that is fundamental to the idea of human rights.
One of the most important applications of this right of private judgment, at least to the homeschooling community, is the right of parents to decide how their children should be educated. Parents should have a prior right to make such decisions that is superior to any claim of government.
Pluralism, properly defined, is a compatible goal with human rights. In an operational sense, pluralism means that people of different races, religions, and views should live together with mutual respect and as equal citizens.
A government may promote pluralism. But if pluralism and human rights are to mean anything, they must mean that a person may not be compelled to give up his or her individual views in the name of making a pluralistic society. In fact, coerced pluralism is a self-defeating objective. Read the rest of this entry »
From the March/April 2005 Court Report Cover Story
By Michael P. Farris
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is a threat that longtime homeschoolers know well. If ratified by the United States Senate, it would ban spanking in our country. Homeschooling would no longer be governed by state law, but by a 10-member committee of child welfare “experts” in Geneva. Even our right to teach our children that Jesus is the only way to God would be in jeopardy.
Aware of this threat, homeschoolers and other parental rights advocates have been ready for battle for some time. In fact, the reason that this treaty was never sent from the State Department to the Senate for ratification, after being signed by then President Bill Clinton on February 16, 1995, is that it faced certain defeat. As a friend of traditional families, President George W. Bush has simply not moved it at all.
However, a new challenge to American families and our constitutional republic has been launched by the federal judiciary. Under a legal doctrine sanctioned by the United States Supreme Court, the federal courts have begun to treat unratified treaties as binding on the United States. Already one federal district court has employed this doctrine to declare that the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC or CRC) is binding on the United States even though it has never been ratified by the Senate. Read the rest of this entry »
