The Home School Legal Defense Association says that even though the US has never ratified the UN's Convention on the Rights of the Child, the fact that US judges are now citing international law as precedent could lead the convention's provisions becoming binding.
According to a new "interpretation" of what is known as "customary international law," some U.S. judges have ruled that, even though the U.S. Senate and President have never ratified the Convention, it is still binding on American parents. "In the 2002 case of Beharry v. Reno, one federal court said that even though the Convention was never ratified, it still has an 'impact on American law'," Farris explained. "The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence."
And what does the convention say that could threaten parents' rights? Plenty, and it's not just home schooling being threatened.
Article 14 of the convention guarantees children "freedom of thought, conscience and religion," which means they have a legal right to object to all religious instruction or indoctrination. Article 15 gives them a "freedom of association," which could mean that parents are not allowed to forbid them from associating with bad influences. With regard to home schooling, the UK was deemed "out of compliance" with the convention for allowing parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child."
The Supreme Court's precedent
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politics, homeschooling, courts, precedent, United Nations, Supreme Court
This is the beginning of the end of American democracy, such as it is. Until now judges have at least pretended to be judging the law and not creating it. Although we know better. But now, citing international law as precedents for making law, they are explicitly saying that they don’t care what the people say, so long as they can find some precedent that they agree with, they will impose it on us. As if democracy in an un-virtuous state weren’t bad enough, soon we will have de facto an oligarchy of the legal elitists.
We should remember these days, because when it start to get really bad, i.e. in fifty years when the Church is persecuted for hate crimes and parents are forced to send their children to (re)education camps, read public schools, we will know it is because no one was willing to stand up to the judges and whisper in their ears “remember you are only a man.”
I wonder if this is a red herring, because there might be more local threats from state regulation of education. In my state, I’ve read, homeschoolers are required to take some of the same standardized tests that other students take.
My busybody state senator has been trying to make homeschoolers and private schools take the No Child Left Behind tests too, despite the NCLB’s own purpose was to figure out whether taxpayers were getting their money’s worth. Likewise, she’s trying to get these non-governmental schools to teach the same things as the public ones.
Geez, if only Mike Farris (founder of the Home School Legal Defense Ass’n) hadn’t gone off track with that whole Patrick Henry College thing . . . time to pray!
And this is the same U.N. that is earnestly attempting to require that we in the U.S. surrender our right to own weapons whether for hunting, self-defense or for sport.
This is no joke and it’s not some wild-eyed black helicopter conspiracy.
If we roll over on this we are doomed as RPF has alluded to. This trend toward recognition of “international law” without the approval of the citizens of this country and the US Senate is taking us down a very dangerous path.
Ah yes, the ad hominem in which you don’t actually debate the point, you just your opponent a moron. Notice that jpe doesn’t actually advance a position, he just insults. Is it any wonder he’s so convincing?