Parents of special needs children beware!

From ParentalRights.org

ALERT: CRC End-Around Now in the Senate!


We have sounded the alarm about the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would take away parental rights if it were ratified. With your support we have secured 37 cosponsors on SR99 to make sure that ratification never takes place.
But the current administration has introduced an end-around called the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). President Obama sent this treaty to the Senate for ratification on May 18, 2012. Like the CRC, the CRPD would seriously curtail the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, though under CRPD it is mostly the parents of special needs children who would be affected.

CRPD calls for numerous protections for people with disabilities. Many of these protections are included in U.S. law as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). However, CRPD also includes numerous provisions drafted by the United Nations which would concern many U.S. citizens. Like the CRC and CEDAW, if ratified, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities would become the supreme law of the land under the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause in Article VI, would trump state laws, and would be used as binding precedent by state and federal judges. Since it is a treaty, the U.S. Constitution requires that it must be ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. senators present at the time of the vote, or 67 senators if all 100 U.S. senators were present.


Ten Specific Problems with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

1. Any remaining state sovereignty on the issue of disability law will be entirely eliminated by the ratification of this treaty. The rule of international law is that the nation-state that ratifies the treaty has the obligation to ensure compliance. This gives Congress total authority to legislate on all matters regarding disability law—a power that is substantially limited today. Article 4(5) makes this explicit.

2. Article 4(1)(a) demands that all American law on this subject be conformed to the standards of the UN.

3. Article 4(1)(e) remands that “every person, organization, or private enterprise” must eliminate discrimination on the basis of disability. On its face, this means that every home owner would have to make their own home fully accessible to those with disabilities. If the UN wants to make exceptions, perhaps they could. But, on its face this is the meaning of the treaty.

4. Article 4(1)(e) also means that the legal standard for the number of handicapped spaces required for parking at your church will be established by the UN—not your local government or your church.

5. Article 4(2) requires the United States to use its maximum resources for compliance with these standards. The UN has interpreted similar provisions in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to criticize nations who spend too much on military issues and not enough on social programs. There is every reason to believe that the UN would interpret these provisions in a similar fashion. The UN believes that it has the power to determine the legitimacy and lawfulness of the budget of the United States to assess compliance with such treaties.

6. Article 6(2) is a backdoor method of requiring the United States to comply with the general provisions of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This treaty enshrines abortion rights, homosexual rights, and demands the complete disarmament of all people.

7. Article 7(2) advances the identical standard for the control of children with disabilities as is contained in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. This means that the government—acting under UN directives—gets to determine for all children with disabilities what the government thinks is best.
Additionally, under current American law, federal law requires public schools to offer special assistance to children with disabilities. However, no parent is required to accept such assistance. Under this section the government—and not the parent—would have the ultimate authority to determine if a child with special needs will be homeschooled, attend a private school, or be required to accept the program offered by the public school.

8. The United States, as a wealthy nation, would be obligated to fund disability programs in nations that could not afford their own programs under the dictates of Article 4(2). This is what “the framework of international cooperation” means.

9. Article 15’s call for a ban on “inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” is the exact same language used in the UN CRC which has been authoritatively interpreted to ban any spanking by parents. It should be noted that Article 15 is not limited to persons with disabilities. It says “no one shall be subjected to ….” This means that spanking will be banned entirely in the United States.

10. Article 25 on Education does not repeat the parental rights rules of earlier human rights treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights or the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. This is an important omission. Coupling this omission with the direct declaration of “the best interest of the child” standard in Article 7(2), this convention is nothing less than the complete eradication of parental rights regarding the education of children with disabilities.

In light of this threat to parental rights, we implore you to contact your U.S. senators and urge them to oppose this dangerous treaty. You can call the Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask for them by name, or you can find their direct DC number by clicking on your state at ParentalRights.org/States.

Michael Farris
President
ParentalRights.org

P.S. - Between the imminent introduction of the Parental Rights Amendment in Congress and this immediate threat being raised in the Senate, our resources are being stretched. Please take a moment now to make a generous donation to support our continuing efforts as we protect your parental rights. We cannot win this struggle without you!

Thomas Merton on this site, really?

I am always hesitant to put Thomas Merton on this blog due to the fact that he ended up causing great scandal to his Order and to the Catholic Church, but I do believe that he did write some marvelous works before his fall, so please forgive me for this.
These 2 snippets are from his book "No Man Is an Island" and I find them as relevant today as they were back in 1955 when the book was written.

The Church understands human love far better and more profoundly than modern man, who thinks he knows all about it. The Church knows well that to frustrate the creative purpose of human generation is to confess a love that is insincere. It is insincere because it is less than human, even less than animal. Love that seeks only to enjoy and not to create is not even a shadow of love. It has no power. The psychological impotence of our enraged generation must be traced to the overwhelming accusation of insincerity which ever man and woman has to confront, in the depths of his own soul, when he seeks to love merely for his own pleasure. A love that fears to have children for any motive whatever is a love that fears love. It is divided against itself. It is a lie and contradiction. The very nature of love demands that it's own creative fulfillment should be sought in spite of every obstacle. Love, even human love, is stronger than death.
Therefore, it is even more obvious that true love is stronger than poverty or hunger or anguish. And yet the men of our time do not love with enough courage to risk even discomfort or inconvenience.
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How is it that our comfortable society has lost its sense of the value of truthfulness?
Life has become so easy that we think we can get along without telling the truth.....
.......If  living were a little more precarious, and if a person who could not be trusted found it more difficult to get along with other men, we would not deceive ourselves and one another so carelessly.
But the whole world has learned to deride veracity or to ignore it. Half the civilized world makes a living by telling lies. Advertising, propaganda, and all the other forms of publicity that have taken the place of truth have taught men to take it for granted that they can tell other people whatever they like provided that it sounds plausible and evokes some kind of shallow emotional response.

Blessed are the pure in heart

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God….

I have always placed this, the 6th Beatitude, in the context of more at the end of our lives, even more so after we have died.

After watching my 2 girls as babies and toddlers, I am convinced that it can also be applied to the beginning of our lives. Not that it can’t be placed at anytime in our lives, but the middle years, with all that we become inundated with in life, makes being pure hearted very difficult.

Ever since the girls were old enough to be able to notice the world around them, there have been moments when they just look into the sky and smile and have a peaceful presence about them. They point, they laugh but I never see what they see.

They have always had a joy at seeing a statue or picture of Jesus, Mary or any of the saints.

Even now, no matter how much our 9 month old may be crying and upset, I can walk over by our statue of the Divine Child Jesus and she will calm down and even laugh with joy….it is truly amazing.

I have always thought that babies and toddlers can see the invisible world, the world that the rest of us cannot see, glimpses of Heaven. I believe that truly the pure in heart can see God, not only when we get to Heaven, but here on this earth.