© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
A U.N. treaty conferring
rights to children could make homeschooling illegal in
the U.S. even though the Senate has not
ratified it, a homeschooling association warns.
Michael Farris, chairman and general counsel of the
Home
School Legal Defense Association, or HSLDA,
believes the United
Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
could be binding on U.S. citizens because of activist
judges, reports LifeSite
News.
Farris said that according to a new interpretation
of "customary international law," some U.S.
judges have ruled the convention applies to 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, according to LifeSiteNews.
"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."
The convention places severe
limitations on a parent's right to direct and train
their children, Farris contends.
The HSLDA produced a report
in 1993 showing that under Article 13, parents
could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to
prevent their children from interacting with material
they deem unacceptable.
Under Article 14, children are guaranteed
"freedom of thought, conscience and
religion," which suggests they have a legal right
to object to all religious training. Further, under
Article 15, the child has a right to "freedom of
association."
"If this measure were to be taken seriously,
parents could be prevented from forbidding their child
to associate with people deemed to be objectionable
companions," the HSLDA report explained.
Farris pointed out that in 1995
the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance with
the convention "because it allowed parents to
remove their children from public school sex-education
classes without consulting the child."
Farris argues, according to LifeSiteNews, that
"by the same reasoning, parents
would be denied the ability to homeschool their
children unless the government first talked with their
children and the government decided what was best.
This committee would even have the right to determine
what religious teaching, if any, served the child's
best interest."
Offering solutions, Farris suggests Congress use
its power to define customary law and modify the
jurisdiction of federal courts.
"Congress needs to address this issue of
judicial tyranny by enacting legislation that limits
the definition of customary international law to
include only provisions of treaties that Congress has
ratified," he said.
Farris also suggested Congress could pass a
constitutional amendment stating explicitly that no
provision of any international agreement can supersede
the constitutional rights of an American citizen.
He pointed out two such amendments have been
proposed in Congress.
Finally, he says specific threats to parental
rights can be solved by "putting a clear parents'
rights amendment into the black and white text of the
United States Constitution."
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