UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

Clicking on the title link above will take you directly to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and you can then read it for yourself.

Parents in America, we don't face a single threat today that is greater than this piece of legislation. The US is one of the few members of the UN that has not ratified this convention, and it is vitally important that we never do so.

First, a point of law in America. Foreign treaties trump all US federal and state law, once we become party to the treaty. So regardless of any rights you have as a parent currently, once the Convention is ratified you will have what that document says you have, and no more. Why does this matter? Because of the legal precedents that have already been set in other countries, and international law.

The problem with this Convention is not so much in the specific language of the actual document, but the fact that it is very vague and open to interpretation. Several countries have considered it to say that your child has a right to a state education, such as Germany, where homeschooling is illegal. Parents have been interfered with by the state for 'forcing' their children to go to church; or 'forcing' their religious views on their children (again, versus those views taught in government schools). Discipline can also become very dangerous for parents, in that this document shifts all the concern in discipline to the child's 'self-esteem' and 'emotional well-being.' Any focus on correcting wrongful and immoral behavior is lost, and so tough discipline is seen as abusive once the mindset behind this Convention is embraced.

I would encourage you to go to www.parentalrights.org and sign up for their informational emails. Also, please call or email your Congressmen to ask them to vote against the Convention.

My last thoughts on this are some questions to ask yourself:
*If the UN is truly concerned with the rights of children, why is it the largest supporter of abortion in the world? Wouldn't the right to be born in the first place have to be adequately addressed, before we can speak to these other rights of children?
*If the goal of the Convention is to defend the individual liberties of children, why is it so important that America sign? We have always led the world in the cause of individual liberty (for better or worse). If this Convention does not change anything for American families - which is the main argument from it's proponents - then why is the Convention necessary here in America? Are we not then passing a law just to have a law?

I would submit to you that there is an agenda at work here, and the issue, as always, is power. This Convention places power into the hands of the State at the cost of power from the hands of parents. Biblically, we are called as children to honor our father and our mother, not the village it took to raise us (Exodus 20:12, Ephesians 6:1-3). I do not believe that the order God placed into society from the beginning needs to be changed - raising children is, and should remain, the responsibility of the parent.