Part 25: More Reasons to Support the Parental Rights Amendment

There are several other reasons why "only" the Parental Rights Amendment is sufficient to protect our children. Saying "no" to the UN CRC only postpones the trickle of international law already invading. Many of our nation's leaders already hold to the above described philosophies (that government knows what is best for your children and should impose it on your family), and therefore cannot be trusted in the area. The Parental Rights Amendment sets an enduring boundary of protection like other amendments have done for all future generations. Then we are able to and must stand up for our rights in the legislative and judicial arena with the sure footing of a constitutional right. Ideally we should be able to stand on our God ordained rights, but our government no longer recognizes the Bible as a standard of law and ethics. (We must work to change this also, but until we do so, we must approach parental rights with an amendment). Even the conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonio Scalia says that unwritten rights cannot be protected in the courts when he was discussing parental rights in the 2000 Supreme Court case of Troxel v. Granville. He bases this on a strict, literal interpretation of the constitution. This is in contrast to the "living constitution" theory of interpretation. With our new Supreme Court justices, we are likely in even greater danger. Therefore we have a multitude of reasons to support the Parental Rights Amendment to the US Constitution. We cannot wait until we lost any more influence in our government or it may be too late.

The Opposition's Trumpet Call

I occasionally channel surf before bed, just to remind myself of the vacous content of today's programming. If I had a nickel for every crime show, I would retire very soon. However, last week, something struck me as different as I clicked from one crime scene to another. A commercial caused me to backpedal and watch with much greater horror than any of the murders on CSI. What could overcome such numbness to violence that our TVs produce?......

The 30 seconds of fear were words spoken in the language of human rights for children. These words to the untrained ear tweak the heartstrings like a St. Jude Children's Hospital commercial. To my ears, trained to discern the deception inherent in the words, "child rights", horror resounded as I realized the propaganda was beginning in earnest. This commercial if left unchallenged would convince millions of Americans, even parents, that we must join a false battle for children's futures. The need for the message of parental freedoms and the need for their defense echoed like a rumbling earthquake in my soul.

Trumpets are sounding for our opponents, calling others to join their fight. Will you join me in blowing our own call to arms?

To see the website procaiming the commerical's deception, go HERE. You will find the same rights that the UN CRC unabashedly promotes. They are not rights... They are definitely not freedoms... THEY ARE SLAVERY to the STATE!

Part 16: Foundational Articles of UN CRC

Leaving behind generalities of treaties, let’s look at the CRC itself. It has 3 foundational articles that you should be aware of. Article 3 binds the federal government to always seek the “best interest of the child”. Surely I wouldn’t argue with that. Article 18 says that governments should recognize parental responsibilities to seek the best interest of the children. It also says that governments should provide appropriate assistance to families in their parental responsibilities. So we have responsibilities and they have responsibilities to recognize those responsibilities, is that good or bad? Article 12 says that a child has a right to express his or her own views freely in all matters affecting them whether judicial or administrative. Everyone gets a say, what is so bad about that?

While these seem relatively safe MAYBE even good, a few questions must be addressed. For article 3, who decides what is “best”? – There has to be a gold standard by which to measure? Their answer is that the government and their experts decide, not you as the parents. For article 18, when does the government decide to intervene? -- when they decide the parent is not carrying out their definition of the best interest of the child. The parent is logically guilty until proven innocent. The burden of proof is on the parents rather than the government. For article 12, who decides when child and parents disagree on what is best? Government. As I said earlier, the children will simply have an unfeeling master. It is not actually the child who gains freedom to decide, but the government replaces the parents in the name of children’s freedom. Whenever the government promises benefit in the same breath as asking us to give up a right, we should stand firm against such tyranny.

Part 4 of Many: Nothing New Under the Sun

A little research will quickly reveal how this trend has been growing for decades, even centuries. However, after years of incrementally slow changes, political forces are now moving faster and attempting to solidify a legal foundation for their philosophy of parenting. This is done in the name of “we’re from the government and we are here to help”. They claim to be championing the cause of abused and oppressed children across the globe. Many are even brazen enough to champion protection from parents by claiming exaggerated statistics about child abuse.
In order to combat this intrusion and thus defend our children, you must understand each of the following aspects of this issue. First, you must understand the Biblical basis of your parental calling and duty. This is not simply a “be a parent because it benefits you” situation. You have a command from God to bear direct responsibility for your children throughout their formative years. Next, you must understand your constitutional rights and the legal history of our country’s family law. This provides confidence in your legal standing and weapons for the battle at hand. From there, a necessary ingredient is a clear vision of the worldview behind this push to remove parental influence. You must know your adversary, their motives, their methods, their logic, their fears, and their weaknesses. Along with this understanding, you must read and know the details of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This treaty, in all its proclaimed good will, is the tangible manifestation of the worldview above. It is one of their most dangerous weapons. With all this information in your head, you must then press a little further into the issue to understand the political situation which makes this worldview potentially implementable. Finally, with such wisdom of the adversary, you must do more than respond with a reflexive cry of frustration or anger. Parental Rights.Org has formulated a response that requires mass participation by parents through both a concerted voice of opposition and individual behaviors that will synergize to stop this attack on our children in its tracks. You must understand the logic of the response and your necessary involvement. Then you must fulfill your calling as a parent with these weapons of knowledge and wisdom in an epic battle for the hearts, souls, and minds of your children

Part 2 of Many, A Little Parental Rights Quiz

PART 2
We often need a significant jolt of fear, a rather sour taste of anxiety to recognize danger which has stealthily approached us in our blind spots. Parents across America are now sporadically receiving such jolts and developing such anxiety as they are personally faced with governmental attempts to intrude into family decisions. Our national office has pieced together a little quiz for those needing their own jolt of reality.

1. True or False: A mother in Minnesota was told that she could not access the medical records of any of her children 11 years old or older, or discuss her child's health with the physician, without obtaining her child's permission.

2. True or False: A mother in Illinois was twice refused her request to opt her daughter out of sexual education lectures that she found objectionable.

3. True or False: A mother was refused her 13-year-old daughter's grades when she enrolled her in an algebra class.

4. True or False: In most states, you will be denied access to library information about your children, including the titles of books which are accumulating late fees.
For the answers to this quiz and even more questions that will rattle your false sense of security, go HERE.

(Return soon for part 3....)

Part 1 of Many, Transcript of Recent Lecture on Parental Rights

On August 7th I delivered an hour’s worth of education on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to a group of homeschoolers here in Tennessee. I want to share that talk with you in bite sized portions over the coming weeks in order to deepen your understanding of this crucial issue, to challenge you to join our effort, and to equip you in many ways for this battle. Below is part 1 of that talk.

For those of you unfamiliar with me or my involvement in this issue, permit me to introduce myself and to provide some credibility for what follows. I am a physician in Tennessee who trained in both adult and pediatric medicine. After practicing both areas of medicine for 5 years, I moved into adult medicine alone for the sake of being a father to 2 wonderful children whom we are homeschooling. It is through homeschooling connections that I learned of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in February of 2009. A fateful e-mail alert, which I will never forget, led me down a trail of research that even today continues to startle me. In this process, I have strategically researched the issue from multiple angles and debated others from the variety of perspectives weighing in on this issue. As a final ingredient, I have begun studying the Biblical responsibility of parents to direct the care and upbringing of their children.

I offer the accumulation of the past year and a half of study to you with the sincere hope that you will arouse as parents from your slumber with a clear call to gather into an army for the sake of your children and mine.

Botswana Homeschoolers Threatened

The Future of Homeschooling?

A few Botswanna Homeschooling families are in legal limbo as they await a judge's response after their refusal to send their children to public schools. These families from Seventh Day Adventist churches in Botswanna were ordered to surrender their home school materials and enroll their children in public schools or face an undefined penalty. Police later raided the homes and confiscated their school materials. All of this has happened despite the children expressing a desire to continue home schooling and no evidence of any harm to the children.

The reasoning for this legal action is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Are we seeing the future for our country? Please read more at HSDLA's site.

Senator Alexander Agrees with President Obama's Education Plan

I want to mention a recent blog posting in the Tennessean online that quotes Senator Alexander as praising President Obama's educational plan as well as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan's "big heart" and his working in a bipartisan way. I am appalled at our Senator's support of government control of schooling. Please study the Obama / Duncan plan to see how they plan to take freedom from parents and give power over our children to beaurocrats.

Please call him this week to express your frustration with his delay in co-sponsoring SR 519 and his unbelievable praise for President Obama's planned government takeover of education.

Sen. Alexander 202-224-4944
CLICK here for local offices

Parents, The First Educators

While this article does not directly address the UNCRC, it serves as great pragmatic evidence for parent's role in children's upbringing. The main theme of the article is:

"Married, biological parents are the gold standard for raising children successfully."

Should you run across someone who argues for greater governmental control of parenting, consider this article as a little morsel of truth that they can either digest or choke on. If they are seeking truth, it will be nourishing to them. If they are unwilling to listen, they will cough, sputter, and gag trying to ignore the clear evidence. Either way, feed it to them gently, but don't hide it from them.

Hot, Sexy, and Safer for your High Schoolers ?

Forgive the racy title, but you must read this court case (synopsis -- full court decision) in which a "Massachusetts public high school hosted a mandatory, school-wide assembly conducted by Hot, Sexy, and Safer Productions. This assembly was characterized as an AIDS awareness and sexual education program." Parents sued as there was no notification nor any opt-out opportunity, but the parents LOST the suit.

Some of the quotes from the decision are below:

"...the Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the right to direct the upbringing and education of one's children is among those fundamental rights whose infringement merits heightened scrutiny."

"We do not think, however, that this freedom encompasses a fundamental constitutional right to dictate the curriculum at the public school to which they have chosen to send their children."

"We ... find that the rights of parents as described by Meyer and Pierce do not encompass a broad-based right to restrict the flow of information in the public schools."

Those of us who homeschool currently feel a little safer from such legal insanity as this, but we must remember two things. First, this insanity will find its way into our homes one day if we don't stop it dead in its tracks now. Second, our friends next door, next to us on the church pew, and our relatives with school age children need to know about this. Only if we all band together will our voices have any chance of being heard. You must begin raising your voice now by forwarding this e-mail, by inviting one of us to speak to your groups, by sharing your concerns with everyone you. Please, don't wait any longer.

Some Thoughts from my Heart

The opening of my latest e-newsletter which I wish to share with you also...

Good Evening,
I am working late tonight, but wanted to send out an update on Parental Rights Issues facing American Parents. First, a few thoughts weighing on my heart.
God's providence has kept my mind and my hands busy with many tasks over the past month, mostly unrelated to parental rights, but necessary to the well being of my own family. I have left many activism ideas simmering, undone, or even opportunities lost in the midst of flood repairs and life's recent challenges. I apologize if I have dropped the ball with any of you. I have been forced to trust God with circumstances beyond my control, to trust that He is working to preserve His people through parents passing a Christian heritage on to their children despite the increasing pressure opposing that inheritance. I have had to pray for co-laborers in this fight and have had some prayers answered.
Today, I again renew my prayers for each recipient of this e-mail to pause long enough to consider how you can participate in this watershed moment of history. Will Christian parents continue to possess the freedom of passing a Christian heritage to their next generation? Or will loving parents sit back, idly watching government strip away layer after layer of freedom until nothing is left but baby-sitting? God will determine the outcome, but we as the parents are the means of victory in this battle. If we forsake this God ordained duty, our children and our society will suffer irreparable harm.

Silent, but Urgent Threat to Parental Rights

Very few recognize the slow, yet continual erosion of parent’s rights by many forces in our government at local, state, and federal levels. The erosion has occurred without fanfare and, what little media attention it garners, usually casts the parents in a negative light or takes only the most egregious examples of bad parents to make the point against all parents. Even when parental rights were restored in some cases, the media often still accused the parents of wrongdoing. Often the media would lament that the child protective workers just couldn’t get enough evidence to prove the parent’s guilt. The media never assumes that maybe the “protective” workers were not so innocent and the accused parents were not so “guilty”. Besides such individual cases and the overgeneralizations, dangerous court precedents are being set one case at a time, usually disregarded by the media as unimportant. If that is not enough, bills are working their way into laws which erode parental control over education, healthcare, religion, and other important areas. Slowly the heat is being turned up on parents wading in the waters of our nation’s culture. Those simmering parents must realize the urgency of the next few degrees of heat that will bring the legal waters to a boiling point and will mean the end of parenting in America as we know it.

Why do the supporters of government-controlled parenting enjoy the silence and stealth? In the quiet, they can slowly turn up the heat one degree at a time without anyone taking much notice. American parents just learn to accept the warmer water as being natural since they trust the government to do what is best. The supporters set up law after law, one court precedent after another, until, with a simple tweak of one more degree, everything boils and American parents are stunned to find themselves in boiling water, unable to escape. If parents saw the final goal held by these forces or read the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN CRC) with open eyes of understanding, they would protest with outrage. The UN CRC aids our understanding because it is the most tangible manifestation of the philosophy that government knows what is best for children and should overrule parents in their decisions for their own children. As it is now, if no parent reads the recipe in that treaty, we will all suffer a common demise of our parental rights in this legal environment.

Why is it urgent? The US State Department is processing this treaty as fast as Senator Barbara Boxer can push them. She wanted to present it to the US Senate for a 2/3’s ratification vote in April of this year. The State Department thankfully wanted time to process it properly. Senator Boxer and others such as our Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, believe that their long awaited dream of ratifying this treaty by 67 Senate “yes” votes is ripe for the picking. Furthermore, our president and many in his chosen administration believe that it is a disgrace that America has not yet signed this treaty. Even though this treaty hands over state and national sovereignty unconstitutionally, they will do so and act “as if” it is constitutionally allowed. Meanwhile, outside Washington D.C., many groups are building momentum to help push this through the Senate. They have held conferences, raised funding, and started grassroots campaigns. No punches are being pulled in this battle for who controls the future of our children.

In summary, supporters enjoy the relative silence compared to the roar surrounding other government issues facing Americans and their fading liberties right now. They benefit from American parent’s deafness and ignorance towards this crucial issue. Yet the situation is growing more and more urgent as each day passes without American parents awakening to this threat, a threat that is ready to boil over at any minute.

(Return soon for part 3 of the series which discusses the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child itself.)

Seeing More Clearly Now

I have struggled to listen many times as well intentioned and bright individuals argue that a Parental Rights Amendment would just open the door to federal control of our families instead of closing it. Often, the evidence that seemed so clear to me, only led them further down their line of reasoning and further away from agreeing with my stance. Then over the course of two or three days, several clarifying points hit me, allowing me to understand how we could see the same evidence and yet come to such polar opposite conclusions. From that illuminating point onward, I looked backward and began to see clearly where the divergences occurred.
A most significant discovery was that to some, most if not all laws are “bad”. Their automatic presupposition was that a new law inherently by its nature either creates limits on liberty or forces actions undesired by the affected citizen. Liberty to them has a great value, and I agree with them on that point. However, while recognizing the great worth of liberty, I recognize the wisdom of our nation’s founders as they understood that liberty does not reside securely in chaos, but in order. The chaos of anarchy, or absence of some degree of governmentally imposed order, offers no guarantee of liberty except to the strongest and wealthiest. They would respond that liberty neither resides in the shadow of a tyrannical government. I agree quite wholeheartedly. Are we then at an impasse?
While liberty finds no security in anarchy nor tyranny, it finds its most secure home in an ordered society where a limited government safeguards the rights of minorities while granting freedom to the majorities. If this is so, then laws are not inherently evil as their perspective proclaims. Yes, laws can be bad, but they are not inherently evil by nature. Laws are only as good as the people that make up the government which creates them. If those of the “all law is bad” persuasion can move past their above revealed presuppositions, they might see some value in an amendment protecting parental rights. While they may still not agree with the exact wording, they could see some value, at least enough to provide constructive input into creating an even better amendment (if such exists) rather than simply dismissing its potential benefit. Then rather than struggling against those such as myself who also seek to protect our parental rights, we could combine our efforts, wisdom, insight, and creativity to fight our real foe, those who want to steal that parental right from us.

Parental Rights in Jeopardy

Welcome to my inaugral entry into blog moderation.

In the past four months, I have undergone a transformation which I recommend for all parents that cherish their freedoms. The quiet, yet fretful, father-physician, that I once was, has metamorphosized into a unquenchably passionate activist, addicted to defending our right to parent. Every effect requires a cause, and such a powerful effect requires an equally great cause.

With that introduction, I come to my point, "What was the cause of my metamorphosis?" In February, I learned of a threat to the American way of life so great that I could no longer linger in my intentional denial of the changes taking place in our country. That was when I learned of the forces gathering to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. I will not provide the details now, but I will strip away those layers of flesh to reveal the heart of this issue that provides me with such passion and motivation.

The heart of the issue is bound up in the consequences of ideas. All ideas have consequences; they do not happen in a vaccum, devoid of impact. The idea here is the philosophy that government, its officials, its experts, its bureaucracy, and all their trappings know what is best for the individual citizen and furthermore should force it upon them. Despite the antithetical nature of this philosophy to the foundations of America's republican form of government, many Americans are promoting this philosophy in the form of this United Nations treaty. They sincerely believe that they, in their roles of government leadership and expert opinion, know better than a child's own parents what is best for the individual child. They reach beyond claiming knowledge of the best common good and intrude into decisions for the individual good of families, particularly the children.

By claiming this superior wisdom and seeking the power of this treaty to implement it in our great nation, they will strip parents of the very right to pass values, tradition, and beliefs to their next generation. They claim high motives of protecting against child abuse, protecting from unhealthy influences by parents, assuring the proper education of all children, and so much more. They practically claim that they will provide salvation of all that is bad in the world for children. This mostly means salvation from parents and parental influence.

There I find myself, engulfed in the flames of passion, hearing forces claiming that we as parents do not possess the wisdom nor the intention to provide what they deem "best" for our own children. I will give up many privileges, many perks, many luxuries, but I will never, ever, give up the right to raise my children and direct the provision of all that is good for their growth into mature citizens of our great nation.

Therefore, I work against this United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child and for a Parental Rights Amendment which I believe after much research is our best hope against the gathering forces for the treaty.

Please refer to www.parentalrights.org for further background on this treaty. If you live in Tennessee, search Tennessee on that website for our Tennessee webpage.