Tag Archives: parental rights

State Department Promises Move Toward CRC Ratification

Posted on March 28, 2011 by | Leave a comment

On March 10, the Obama administration told the UN Human Rights Council that it supports the UNHRC’s recommendations that the United States should “ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child [CRC].” Moreover, the administration promised that it “intend[s] to review how we could move toward its ratification.”

In the meantime, SR 99 opposing ratification of the CRC is very close to its first major milestone. As of yesterday, Senator Jim DeMint’s resolution, which expresses the reasons Senators oppose the UN child rights treaty, has 32 cosponsors, with 2 more senators committed to sign next Monday.

This is great news – but it is not enough!

We need to recognize that the Obama administration and the UN will not give up so easily. Thirty-four senators signed a similar measure regarding the Panama Canal treaty a few years ago, and the administration twisted arms until enough changed their minds to ratify that controversial treaty.

We cannot be satisfied with 32 Senators, or even with 34. We need to aim for at least 40 co-sponsors of SR 99 to make sure that the CRC cannot move forward in this term of Congress.

Pro-CRC States?

Additionally, state legislators in both Illinois and Rhode Island have introduced resolutions calling for the ratification of the CRC. Amazingly, the Rhode Island resolution admits, “If enacted, the [CRC] would become superior to the laws of the states and their judicial systems, and would be subordinate only to the text of the [U.S.] Constitution.”

Any state legislator who wants a treaty to become superior to his or her own state’s law is confessing the inability to enact state laws that are sufficient to protect children. They should do the honorable thing and resign if they feel so incompetent.

[Note: A treaty is limited to the restrictions and limitations of the Constitution. They cannot violate as politicians regulary do the letter of the supreme law and doing is to break the law. Because the Constitution does not give the federal government any explicit or implicit rights over parents, families, and their children, the treaty violates the Constitution. Most state constitutions do not give such authority state governments either. It seems to me therefore that the CRC is an act approaching criminality in the name of protecting children from parents. Yet, at the same time, such politicians are willing to legitimate sexual perverse role models and justify pedophiles as non-traditional parent/familes in the name of equality. Isn’t that a crime against nature and humanity?]

Source: Parental Rights Organization, March 22, 2011.

Leave a comment

Posted in family, news, politics

Tagged , , ,

Ohio Bipartisan Committee Sends Parental Consent Bill To House Floor

Posted on March 10, 2011 by | Leave a comment

Last week, the Ohio House Health and Aging Committee voted to stand with Ohio Right to Life and protect parental rights and parental notification laws for minors seeking an abortion. By a 14 to 7 vote, the House Committee passed
H.B. 63, a bill to revise the process of judicial bypass under Ohio’s Parental Consent for Abortion statute.

Though Ohio law currently requires parental consent before a minor can obtain an abortion, a loophole exists which allows judges to by-pass parental involvement and allow a minor to obtain an abortion. H.B. 63, which is sponsored by Rep. RonYoung (R-Leroy) and Rep. Lynn Slaby (R-Copley), addresses the fact that some judges are giving virtual “rubber-stamp” approval to these minor’s requests.

In a 2008 Columbus Dispatch article on bypass hearings, one Franklin County judge indicated that she had never denied a bypass request and another judge stated that she had denied only one request. A 2003 Akron Beacon Journal survey found a bypass approval rate of either 86% or 92% (the latter when a county that lumped voluntary
dismissals with denials was excluded).

“We are pleased that the Committee has recognized that abortion can have serious life-changing effects on a young girl,” said Mike Gonidakis, Executive Director of Ohio Right to Life. “H.B. 63 requires that, before cutting a girl’s parents out of the abortion decision, a judge must make sure that the girl understands the possible negative effects of abortion. It would also require the judge to determine whether the girl’s testimony really reflected her maturity or the ‘coaching’ of others,” Gonidakis said.

The continued and overwhelming support of Ohio Right to Life’s initiatives demonstrates the impact that responsible and compassionate pro-life policies can have. Protecting women and the unborn continues to unite our elected officials and saves lives.

H.B. 63 now moves forward for a full vote by the Ohio House of Representatives.

Leave a comment

Posted in news, Ohio, politics

Tagged , , , , , ,

U.K. High Court Suggests Christian Beliefs Harmful to Children, Is the U.S. Next?

Posted on March 8, 2011 by | Leave a comment

In a landmark judgment, which will have a serious impact on the future of fostering and adoption in the UK, the High Court has suggested that Christians with traditional views on sexual ethics are unsuitable as foster carers, and that homosexual ‘rights’ trump freedom of conscience in the UK.The Judges stated that Christian beliefs on sexual ethics may be ‘inimical’ to children, and they implicitly upheld an Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) submission that children risk being ‘infected’ by Christian moral beliefs.

Lord Justice Munby and Mr Justice Beatson’s judgment, handed down this afternoon (28 Feb), flies in the face of a statement, made less than a week ago, by Government Minister Michael Gove, who pledged that the Coalition would change the “culture of political correctness” related to adoption and fostering, and claimed that the Government wanted to increase the number of people who could offer a loving home to a child.

Today’s ruling relates to the dispute between married couple Eunice and Owen Johns and Derby City Council. The Johns applied to the Council in 2007 to foster a child but the Council blocked their application because they objected that the Johns were not willing to promote the practise of homosexuality to a young child. In November 2010 both parties jointly asked the Court to rule on whether the Johns were able to foster children, or whether they could be excluded from doing so under equality law because of their Christian beliefs.

Today (28th February) that judgment has been released. The judges declined to make the statement that the Johns, wanting to re-establish their fostering application, had sought. Instead, the judgment strongly affirms homosexual rights over freedom of conscience and leaves the Johns currently unable to foster a child as desired, despite their proven track record as foster parents. There now appears to be nothing to stop the increasing bar on Christians who wish to adopt or foster children but who are not willing to compromise their beliefs by promoting the practise of homosexuality to small children.

The nature of the judgment means that Christians who hold orthodox Christian views on the family, marriage and sexuality will continue to face difficulties in the fostering and adoption process and the Courts will not intervene to stop this from happening. In fact, the summary contained in the judgment sends out the clear message that orthodox Christian ethical beliefs are potentially harmful to children and that Christian parents with mainstream Christian views are not suitable to be considered as potential foster parents.

In their judgment, the judges stated:

* That if children are placed with parents who have traditional Christian views like the Johns “there may well be a conflict with the local authority’s duty to safeguard and promote the welfare of looked-after children”,[1]

* That there is a tension between the equality provisions concerning religious discrimination and those concerning sexual orientation. Yet, as regards fostering, “the equality provisions concerning sexual orientation should take precedence”, [2]

* That a local authority can require positive attitudes to be demonstrated towards homosexuality, [3]

* That there is no religious discrimination against the Johns because they were being excluded from fostering due to their moral views on sexual ethics and not their Christian beliefs (This is incredible and very disingenuous as the Johns moral views cannot be separated from their religious beliefs), [4]and

* That “Article 9 [of the European Human Rights Act] only provides a ‘qualified’ right to manifest religious belief and … this will be particularly so where a person in whose care a child is placed wishes to manifest a belief that is inimical to the interests of children”. [5] [5]

Equality and Human Rights Commission

The tax payer funded EHRC played an important role in this judgment. They intervened in the Johns case, and they suggested to the Court thata child should not, in their own words,be ‘infected’ with Christian moral beliefs. Suggesting that Christian moral beliefs on sexual ethics could ‘infect’ children is an extraordinary position for a statutory body to take. It is also deeply insulting both to the Johns, who have a proven track record of successfully raising children, and to Christians in general.

THE HIGH COURT IMPLICITLY UPHELD THIS SUBMISSION BY THE EHRC.

Johns Reaction

The judgment was greeted with disbelief and sadness today by Eunice and Owen Johns. In a statement, the couple said:

“We wanted to offer a loving home to a child in need. But because of this ruling we are unsure how we can continue the application process. We have been excluded because we have moral opinions based on our faith, and a vulnerable child has probably now missed the chance of finding a safe and caring home. We do not believe that our ordinary Christian moral views are infectious, contrary to what the Equality and Human Rights Commission believes. Being a Christian is not a crime and should not stop us from raising children. Today, it looks as though a child has missed out on a home.”

Christian Legal Centre Reaction

Andrea Minichiello Williams, CEO of Christian Concern and the Christian Legal Centre said:

“The Johns are a mild mannered, ordinary Christian couple, yet they may never be able to foster children again. They were willing to love a child regardless of sexual orientation, but not willing to tell a young child that practising homosexuality was a positive thing. Now, a child has likely missed out on finding a home, at a time when there is a desperate shortage of willing parents.

“Eunice and Owen Johns have been humiliated and sidelined and told by a Government body (the EHRC) that their mainstream Christian views might “infect” children. They have also effectively been told by British Judges that their views may harm children.

“The Judges have claimed that there was no discrimination against the Johns as Christians because they were being excluded from fostering due to their sexual ethics and not their Christian beliefs. This claim that their moral beliefs on sex have nothing to do with their Christian faith is a clear falsehood made in order to justify their ruling. How can the Judges get away with this?

“What has happened to the Johns is part of a wider trend seen in recent years. The law has been increasingly interpreted by Judges in a way which favours homosexual rights over freedom of conscience. Significant areas of public life are now becoming out of bounds to Christians who do not want to compromise their beliefs. If Christian morals are harmful to children and unacceptable to the State, then how many years do we have before natural children start being taken away from Christians?

“At the Christian Legal Centre our clients have included, amongst many others, a nurse suspended for offering prayer; a Council worker suspended for talking about God to a client, a teacher suspended for offering prayer; a nurse forced off frontline nursing because she wouldn’t take off her cross. We have dealt with Civil Registrars who have been demoted because they did not want to officiate at civil partnerships, and a Christian counsellor who lost his job for not wanting to give sex therapy to homosexuals. In the last few years, several Catholic adoption agencies have been forced to close because they refused to place children with homosexual couples.

“There is a great imbalance in the law at the moment, resulting in ordinary people suffering. The situation must be addressed by Parliament as the Judiciary have failed to stand for civil liberties but have capitulated to the agenda of the homosexual rights lobby. We cannot have a society where you are excluded just because you don’t agree with the sexual ethics of the homosexual lobby. Britain is now leading Europe in intolerance against religious belief.”

Xenia Citizen Journal Reaction

The differences between the problem faced by John’s in the U.K. and American parents are only the extent to which secular values drives the assault perpetrated by law against the rights of parents and families for the benefit of special interest groups (gays in John’s case) and those groups wrong behaviors. Ultimately, at issue is the morality of individuals (Johns) and the stigmatism of groups (Christians) over against the immorality of individuals (gays) and wrong behavior of their larger affiliations.

The absence of marriage, parents, children, family from both federal and most original state constitutions demonstrates that the rights of husband (male) and wife (female), parents and children are more fundamental than those political and legal documents and the institutions created by them. Because the family institution is naturally a sexually-oriented one, the gay political agenda is at root hostile to both nature and the natural family.

The great imbalance experienced by many parents and children in America is being redressed through litigation like Alford v Greene and the efforts by the Parental Rights organization to bring a constitutional amendment to a national vote. Pro-family organization like Mass Resistance, Washington State Extended Family, American Family Association, and many more are also fighting for the preservation of the family and their once unalienable rights.

Endnotes:

[1] [6]Para 93 of Judgment

[2] [7]Para 93 of Judgment

[3] [8]Para 101 of Judgment

[4] [9]Para 99 of Judgment

[5] [9]Para 102 of Judgment

Leave a comment

Posted in family, news, politics, religion

Tagged

Alford v. Greene: A Case with Far-Reaching Implications for Parents’ Rights

Posted on March 7, 2011 by | Leave a comment

By John W. Whitehead

“The child is not the mere creature of the state.” — United States Supreme Court, Pierce v. Society of Sisters

On March 1, the United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Alford v. Greene, the first major case involving Child Protective Services to go before the United States Supreme Court in 21 years and one of the most important parents’ rights cases ever to reach the Court.

If it goes the right way—i.e., to bolster parents’ rights—it will mean that state agents will have to obtain a court order in order to question a child at school. If it goes the wrong way, which the Obama administration is advocating for, along with 40 state attorneys general, law enforcement agencies, social workers, prosecutors and defense attorneys, it will be a serious blow to parental rights as well as the rights of children in the public schools. And then there’s the possibility that the Court will either vacate the lower court opinion, leaving the police and other government agents free to question students at will, or sidestep the issue altogether and simply choose not to rule on it, declaring it moot because the young girl involved is no longer a child.

Yet this is not an issue that is going to go away. Indeed, Alford v. Greene could have far-reaching implications for the rights of parents and students across the nation. And while the particulars of the case are egregious, they pale in comparison to the government’s effrontery in insisting that parents essentially forfeit their rights when they send their children to a public school.

In February 2003, an armed, uniformed county sheriff and an Oregon Department of Human Services caseworker directed school officials at an elementary school to summon a 9-year-old girl (referred to in the court documents as S.G.) for questioning. Despite the absence of a court order or the involvement of a judge, school officials called S.G. out of her class, took her to an empty conference room, and left her alone with the sheriff, James Alford, and the social services investigator, Bob Camreta. Then, without notifying S.G.’s mother and in the absence of anyone who might otherwise have looked out for the little girl’s best interests, these two men proceeded to question her for two hours.

During the course of the interrogation, Camreta, the social worker, peppered S.G. with questions about whether her father had ever abused her or her little sister. According to S.G.’s attorneys, when Camreta asked the 9-year-old if her father touched her “all over [her] body,” she said “yes,” referring to affectionate hugs, kisses and piggy-back rides. Camreta then asked “over and over again” if “some of those were bad touches.” Over and over again, the little girl said “no.”

Obviously intimidated by the two men, one of whom was wearing a gun clearly visible to the little girl, S.G. was too frightened even to ask for a glass of water or tell the men that she felt ill. At no time was she told that she could refuse to answer their questions or that she was free to leave the room on her own volition. (Incredibly, the Obama administration in their Supreme Court brief chalks up such interrogations to being “at most a minor intrusion on the liberty of a child whose freedom of movement is already considerably restricted by virtue of her presence at school.”)

As the interrogation dragged on, S.G. continued to deny that her father had ever abused her. Yet once the school buses started arriving to take her classmates home, S.G. found herself overcome with fear that she would be left behind. At that point, S.G. says she decided to lie and say yes to whatever the men asked, “just to get out of the room.” Upon returning home, S.G. was further traumatized to find the same two men in her house, questioning her mother. These encounters left the little girl feeling so nauseous that she later vomited five times and was unable to eat dinner.

Despite the fact that Alford had a tape recorder with him, no recording or documentation of the questions asked of S.G. during the two-hour interrogation exist. Nevertheless, based on the accounting of the two men and despite S.G.’s repeated denials of any abuse by her father, S.G. and her sister were subsequently removed from her parents’ care and placed in foster care for three weeks. They were eventually returned to their mother’s care after physical examinations failed to uncover any evidence of sexual abuse. Charges levied against their father were subsequently dropped.

In 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of S.G., declaring that the government had violated her Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. However, in appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, the government is arguing that S.G.’s mere presence at school was sufficient to justify law enforcement officers seizing and interrogating her without her mother’s knowledge or consent—a position which, if upheld, will further undermine the rights of parents of public school students.

If Alford v. Greene were only about one family’s heart-wrenching ordeal, it would be bad enough. But it’s indicative of a more draconian mindset at work in the government, one that sees public school students as wards of the state, to do with as they will, in defiance of the children’s constitutional rights and those of their parents. This is far from the first time that government officials have usurped the rights of parents and arrogated authority and power over young people in the public schools. Hence, in recent years, students have found themselves subjected to invasive questioning and mass searches of their persons and property—often without their parents’ knowledge or consent.

Unfortunately, this effort to usurp parental authority and turn schools into virtual police states flies in the face of the Supreme Court’s 1968 admonition in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent School District that “neither teachers nor students shed their constitutional rights at the schoolhouse gate.” As attorney Tony LaCroix points out in “Student Drug Testing: The Blinding Appeal of In Loco Parentis and the Importance of State Protection of Student Privacy”: “The states, through a combination of compulsory attendance laws and in loco parentis-inspired policies, have ‘bootstrapped’ themselves into possessing a right to infringe on the personal liberties of students in a manner similar to a parent.” Moreover, as professor Susan Stuart recognizes in her article “In Loco Parentis in the Public Schools: Abused, Confused and in Need of Change”: “The consequences for students have been enormous, from increasing restrictions on student speech to loosening restrictions on how schools can conduct student searches. Schools have been given license to reach the outer boundaries of control by courts’ countenancing institutional and official behavior that is farther and farther from the reaches of professional conduct.”

Yet the harm caused by attitudes and policies that treat public school students as state vassals is not merely a short-term deprivation of individual rights. It also is a long-term inculcation of attitudes among our youth that civil liberties are luxuries that may be discarded at the whim and caprice of government officials if they deem doing so is for the so-called “greater good.” Rather than molding our young people into compliant citizens, the schools should be educating them for citizenship and in the scrupulous protection of our constitutional rights. Otherwise, as the Supreme Court has held, we “will strangle the free mind at its source and teach our youth to discount important principles of our government as mere platitudes.”

The public’s desire to stop and prevent child abuse cannot be gainsaid, but the government interest in investigating criminal activity has never been deemed sufficient to override fundamental rights such as the right to bodily freedom. As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis opined in one of his dissenting opinions in 1928, “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purposes are beneficent. . . . The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

To see John Whitehead’s video on the Alford v Greene case, go here.

————————

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org. Information about the Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.

Leave a comment

Posted in news, politics, schools

Tagged , , ,

Supreme Court Uses U.N. Convention on Rights of the Child to Justify Overriding American Law

Posted on May 19, 2010 by | Leave a comment

By Daniel Downs

The Supreme Court issued its ruling in the case of Graham v. Florida. Justice Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, based the decision on the 8th amendment clause, which prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment.” Florida law does not permit the possibility of parole for those sentenced to life in prison. To sentence a juvenile to life imprisonment without parole for non-homicide crimes does seem unusually cruel.

The controversy over the decision, however, is with the Court’s use of the U.N. Convention on Rights of the Child (CRC). According to the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute (C-FAM), the Kennedy opinion echoes his opinion issued in the 2005 Roper v. Simmons case.

“That case involved the imposition of the death penalty on juveniles, which the majority ruled was unconstitutional under the 8th Amendment under their ‘evolving standards of decency’ test. Roper was perhaps most noteworthy for its numerous citations of international law and foreign sources in helping to determine what modern standards of decency should be.”

In Graham v. Florida, the Court, the evolving standards of decency were also justified based on CRC and other foreign national law that also held the same alleged standard of decency. As cited by C-FAM, the dissenting opinion of Justice Scalia in Roper v. Simmons still applies.

“The Court thus proclaims itself sole arbiter of our Nation’s moral standards—and in the course of discharging that awesome responsibility purports to take guidance from the views of foreign courts and legislatures. Because I do not believe that the meaning of our Eighth Amendment, any more than the meaning of other provisions of our Constitution, should be determined by the subjective views of five Members of this Court and like-minded foreigners, I dissent.”

Michael Farris, President of Parental Rights, represented 16 members of Congress in the case. He sees the courts reliance on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child as first steps to the certain erosion of the sovereignty of American law over issues of parents and children.

http://parentalrights.org/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={F94AE58A-9D7E-44BA-A40A-5E3DF0D2D851}Farris also noted that along “with recent statements by groups dedicated to the ratification of the U.N. CRC, today’s ruling signals that we must stop the ratification of the CRC before it gains momentum in the Senate.” He urges all Americans to contact their representatives in Congress asking them to oppose the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by supporting both Senator DeMint’s bill S.R.519 and the Parental Rights Amendment.

Leave a comment

Posted in family, news, politics

Tagged , , , , , ,

Spanking is now a criminal act according to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child

Posted on July 18, 2009 by | 2 comments

Parents spanking their own children for breaking the rules and for other harmful behaviors may soon become illegal. According to the Parental Rights organization, [t]he United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), which was adopted by the UN in 1989. Since then, only two members nations, the United States and Somalia, have yet to ratify the treaty. This treaty is interpreted to mean parents’ corrective spanking of their children for bad behavior is a form of torture and abuse that must end. The result is that the Committee on the Rights of the Child – a panel of 18 UN “experts” gathered in Geneva, Switzerland – decided on their own that they should tell the entire world how to raise their kids. The CRC’s prohibition of spanking in the home will become the Supreme Law of the Land if Americans allow the U.S. Senate to ratify it. If ratified, spanking will be considered a criminal act. Every parent, who still practices the biblical injunction ‘to spare the rod spoils the child,” will become a criminal. Good parents will lose the freedom to raise their children as they deem best and they will loose their children. (Go to Parental Rights website to learn more.)

It is true other forms of punishment can be effective in correcting children’s bad behavior. Taking away the freedom to play, eat favorite foods, watch favorite programs, communicating with friends, using the car, and the like can be effective in enforcing the rules and moral laws. Those methods do not always work. And, the younger the child is the less likely they will be.

Spanking, in fact, produces more long-term benefits to both the child and society. Spanking is a form of punishment usually intended to teach children that bad behavior has painful consequences. People whose behavior lands them in prison know the meaning of painful consequences. Living in a society condoning bad behavior also results in painful consequences of at least two types. One is the result from doing wrongful behaviors. Bodily injuries, disease, guilt or shame, rejection or alienation, and the like are consequences of doing wrong in a permissive culture. Another is the reciprocation of others, which compounds the consequences. A recent example of this is the murder of the late term abortion practitioner George Tiller. The ultimate consequence of moral crimes (sin, unethical behavior, etc.), however, is death. Death is the separation of individuals from a mutually beneficial working relationship. A long healthy marriage exemplifies such relationships. Divorce is a form of death. Abortion often results in the death of unborn child and parent. Ultimately, as prison is hell on earth so is life after death for those whose moral crimes end in the eternal punishment biblical religion calls hell. Many a revived clinically dead patient have told practicing doctors about going beyond barred gates into a place the Bible calls hell.

I have heard men honor their fathers for what seemed at the time very cruel punishment. The benefits of those harsh spankings produced the fruit of self-discipline hat made it possible for them to achieve their goals and enjoy their lives. This simply means that the Biblical injunction is true: Withholding painful punishment for wrongs done spoils the child so he or she may never enjoy the benefits of a moral and productive life. It also supports the widely known problem with leaders of the UN and their legal conventions–moral corruption. Evil doing brats often grow up to be evil doing adults.

That is another reason why America does not need the secular left’s God and Christianity hating wisdom. Nor does America need them dictating to us about how to raise children, how to live, how to practice religion, or how to make and spend our money. As a matter of fact, America would be much better off without them attempting to spend all of our hard earned income on their global imperial agendas like universal health care, education, or economic development. They have ruined enough of the American culture and economy; we do not need them to destroy the family too.

2 Comments

Posted in family, news, politics, religion

Tagged , , ,

The FDA, Plan B, and Parental Rights

Posted on June 9, 2009 by | Leave a comment

A U.S. District Court Judge in March made news by ordering the FDA to make Plan B, dubbed “the Morning After Pill”, available without a prescription to minors. Citing “political considerations, delays, and implausible justifications for decision-making” on the part of the FDA, the judge ordered that the age at which the drug is available over the counter be lowered from 18 to 17 years. In a decision not to appeal the ruling, the FDA issued the required authorization to Barr Pharmaceuticals Inc. of Montvale, NJ, which markets the drug.

Several news stories at the time of the late-March ruling, and again when the FDA announced its authorization in late-April, addressed the debate over whether the pill promotes sexual promiscuity among teens, whether it amounts to early abortion, whether it protects a young woman’s reproductive rights, and so on.

What no one took into account, however, was the issue of parental rights. Prior to the ruling, the drug was available over the counter to women 18 and older, while those under 18 first had to first obtain a prescription. Although the court reversed this ruling based on data that the drug’s physical effects on 17-year-olds was no different than on adults, neither the judge nor the news reports seemed to consider the emotional vulnerability of minors, nor the role of parents in protecting them, when faced with so consequential a decision.

Even the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which we oppose for legal reasons, recognizes that persons under 18 should be accorded additional protections under the law. To make so controversial and significant a product available to minors without requiring medical or parental consent is a tremendous legal step that ought not to be ignored.

The decision over whether or not a minor should access such a drug is one which should include parents. We regret that the dialog regarding the FDA’s decision lacked this important consideration.

The proposed Parental Rights Amendment will uphold current state and federal laws which protect the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children in medical and other health-related areas. The Amendment is not expected to impact this court ruling in any way, but will continue to protect the ability of parents to speak into such major decisions in the lives of their teenaged daughters.

–by ParentalRights.org, March 28, 2009

SOURCES:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/Story?id=7404420
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WireStory?id=7151963
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090423/ap_on_he_me/us_morning_after_pill

Leave a comment

Posted in family, health, news, politics

Tagged , , ,

A Challenge to Fatherhood

Posted on June 6, 2009 by | Leave a comment

Fathers have the high privilege and solemn duty to raise their children to know and love God. While all parents desire that their grown children embrace their faith freely and enthusiastically, when children are young, it falls to parents to make decisions regarding their children’s religious upbringing, including:

* How often does your family attend your place of worship?
* What congregation have you chosen to attend?
* Can you teach your children that your religious views are absolutely true?
 

However, your freedom to determine the answers to these three questions will be undermined if the United States Senate ratifies the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

For example:

A Washington state court ruled that parents could not require their 13-yearold son to attend church with them on Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. The judge said that unless the family limited the boy’s church attendance to Sunday morning, he would remove custody. This Washington law (which has since changed) paralleled the UN children’s treaty.

The Scottish government, in an official publication produced to help their youth understand their rights under the UN treaty, says: “You have the right to choose your own religion and beliefs.” The role of parents? They “help you think about this.”

The American Bar Association, a strong supporter of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, acknowledges that religious schools that teach that Jesus is the only way to God “fly in the face” of the treaty. Thus, any who teach children that their religion is the truth are likewise in violation.

Under Article VI of the U.S. Constitution, all ratified treaties are superior to state constitutions and laws. Hence, this treaty will override virtually all current American laws on parents and children that conflict with it.

What can we do? Only a U.S. constitutional amendment will stop international law from interfering with parental rights. Over 90 members
of the U.S. House are co-sponsors of the Parental Rights Amendment. You can make a difference! Sign up as a supporter of American parental rights at www. parentalrights.org.

Leave a comment

Posted in family, Father's Day, news, politics

Tagged , , ,