<p>now THAT is whack.</p>
<p>I kind of doubt it will happen though, but still... interesting.</p>
<p>Exactly why we need a Bricker</a> Amendment to limit the treaty power.<br>
I disagree about the need for a parent's right's admendment. Such issues are the inherent domain of the states.</p>
<p>This came up on another board. People actually read what was involved and found no such banning. Sounds like a bunch of scaremongering ... I can't get your link to work so I can't read the article myself, or assess the general credibility of worldnetdaily.</p>
<p>Also, even if something is banned (and I highly doubt the UN even has homeschooling on its radar), there has to be an enforcement mechanism. Lots of things are theoretically banned and yet continue to happen in the real world.</p>
<p>These periodic scares seem to go through the ranks with some frequency. They die down until the next one comes along.</p>
<p>I couldn't get the link to work either.</p>
<p>here is the article, copied and pasted.</p>
<p>
[quote]
</p>
<p>WND THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
U.N. making homeschooling illegal?
Threat seen from U.S. judges who bow to child-rights treaty
Posted: May 27, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern</p>
<p>© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. </p>
<p>WND THE NEW WORLD DISORDER
U.N. making homeschooling illegal?
Threat seen from U.S. judges who bow to child-rights treaty
Posted: May 27, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern</p>
<p>© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>Farris said that according to a new interpretation of "customary international law," some U.S. judges have ruled the convention applies to American parents.</p>
<p>"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."</p>
<p>The convention places severe limitations on a parent's right to direct and train their children, Farris contends.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>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."</p>
<p>Offering solutions, Farris suggests Congress use its power to define customary law and modify the jurisdiction of federal courts.</p>
<p>"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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>He pointed out two such amendments have been proposed in Congress.</p>
<p>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."
[/quote]
</p>
<p><<i can't="" get="" your="" link="" to="" work="" so="" i="" read="" the="" article="" myself,="" or="" assess="" general="" credibility="" of="" worldnetdaily.="">></i></p><i can't="" get="" your="" link="" to="" work="" so="" i="" read="" the="" article="" myself,="" or="" assess="" general="" credibility="" of="" worldnetdaily.="">
<p>I'll be generous in my assessment: questionable at best.</p>
</i>
<p>World Net Daily is owned by an organization that wants the US to stop funding the UN. Nothing they post can be trusted--it's almost all nonsense.</p>
<p>Since I disagree with about every piece of Michael Farris' legal analysis I've ever seen, I hardly think this is a credible threat!</p>
<p>I just read the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. It takes a strained and paranoid reading to come up with a prohibition of homeschooling from its terms. Nothing in it prohibits parental religious instruction; the rights of parents are mentioned repeatedly. (Not that religious instruction and homeschooling are necessarily the same thing -- something Farris and his crew have problems understanding.) The education section says nothing about prohibiting parents from doing it themselves.</p>
<p>I also just read Beharry v. Reno, as well as the case overturning it on appeal. The latter decision turned on other grounds (a failure to exhaust administrative remedies). So what we have in the former is simply dicta. And the dicta is not at all alarming! I guess Farris isn't interested in noting what is in there about the rights of parents and the importance of family.</p>
<p>Anyway, the doctrine espoused is that in cases of statutory construction, a court may look at customary international law. Big whoop. In cases of statutory interpretation a court may look at lots of things because the legislature hasn't made itself clear and unambiguous. In our country, national, state, and local governments have all recognized the right to homeschool. There is nothing to interpret.</p>
<p>Were some entity to try to eliminate homeschooling due to this Convention (which hasn't happened anywhere in the world, probably because this would be a very silly interpretation IMHO) -- or do something else we don't like -- all it takes is a legislative clarification that we don't want this. Customary international law does not override explicit statutory law, according to the analysis in Beharry v. Reno.</p>
<p>I think it unnecessary and unadvisable to muck around with the Constitution absent a clear need and an explicit understanding of what any amendment would do.</p>
<p>BTW, Michael Farris is the President of Patrick Henry College-- right-wing Christian College for Homeschooled students--70% of current White House interns are graduates of PHC. He is supposedly an expert on consitutional law.</p>
<p>I know who Michael Farris is. I don't consider him an expert on constitutional law. (I am a lawyer myself.) Besides, his analysis has nothing to do with constitutional law, but rather international law and its effect.</p>
<p>Good grief, that is the most convoluted argument for trying to link the UN info to "banning homeschooling". Who are they trying to kid? Totally misleading.</p>
<p>I hate the UN and think the building should be padlocked and fumigated. However, WorldNetDaily is not even NEWS.</p>
<p>Hey, neverborn! Were you homeschooled, by the way?</p>
<p>Nope. Don't really even like the idea (I know too many whacko homeschooling parents.) But when I get bored, not even Parent Cafe and Homeschool Forum are safe.</p>
<p>Neverborn,
I hope you don't think I am "wacky"! Actually, I understand where you are coming from, though I must say that I am not Amish and have ten siblings. . . I took a course at the U. of C. last summer, and one of the TAs later told me that she had been worried when told that a homeschooler would be taking the class. She thought I would be a social misfit and wouldn't be able to work when taught be a teacher. She told me that things were quite the contrary, and she would have even known I was homeschooled based on how I looked and acted. So, not all homeschoolers fit the stereotype. I consider myself pretty "normal." :)</p>
<p>Katharos: It's the wacky Christian fundamentalists who homeschool their kids and teach them junk science like creationism that scare the hell out of me. The kids going to Bob Jones University and Liberty University. They're the ones that I mean. You've redeemed homeschooling to me a little bit.</p>
<p>^Not all homeschoolers are like that, neverborn. I agree, however, that those who fit that criteria are a tad "strange". Many homeschoolers do so for educational reasons, not just for religious purposes. A vast majority are very intelligent and dedicated with their education regardless of the criticism they receive.</p>
<pre><code> In any respect, most if not all of our first sixteen presidents were educated at home; in consequence, they turned out fine so it seems.
</code></pre>
<p>neverborn,</p>
<p>I understand what you mean, and I think Justinian responded well in his last post. I must say that I do not homeschool for religious purposes, though; I attend church every week, yes, but I also attend church more than the rest if my family. We simply decided to homeschool because my parents thought I would receive a better education at home, as I could follow my passions (both school subjects and extracurricular) and be able to study things kids who attend regular schools can't (for me, Greek at the U. of C.). One could argue that I did not receive a better education than kids at regular schools, and this might well be the case, especially if we consider my classmates next year at UChicago. But I think things worked out, and I was accepted to my first choice college, so I do not regret homeschooling.</p>
<p>I do agree that Bob Jones University and the like are quite odd, though, I am sure you have heard of the Dugger family with their 15 or so children - who are homeschooled. I swear not all of us are like that, though. :)</p>
<p>lol, we are definitely not all like that. I know that the "wacky christian fundamentalists" pretty much are what a lot of people think about when they hear of homeschoolers, but most of us aren't like that. I was homeschooled mainly for educational purposes (definitely not religious), and I also consider myseld fairly "normal". Actually when I was takng community college classes no one knew that I was homeschooled until I said something about it class towards the end of the semester. and I was at least two years younger than everyone else!
I am glad I've been homeschooled, even if it does make some people assume I must be a "wacky fundamentalist" learning creationism as science!</p>
<p>I think it is the presence of folks like Michael Farris who get a lot of press and who purport to speak for all homeschoolers (to the consternation and objection of many) that create the false public perception of what homeschoolers are like.</p>
<p>The only survey I know showed that only a minority of people homeschooled for religious reasons (and this was where folks could list more than one reason). I don't know of anything that has ever showed that there are more fundamentalist Christians percentage-wise in the homeschool population than in the US population as a whole. Yes, there are areas where a majority of homeschoolers are in this category, but it seems to be in those locations where a majority of everyone is.</p>
<p>I've run across homeschoolers of every religious persuasion and of none.</p>
<p>It is bizarre about the "not teaching evolution" assumption. Public schools do a very bad job overall in teaching the subject. My son and daughter, in the years of public school they had, never had one word on the subject. The teachers always "ran out of time." My son ended up in a private school where he took AP Biology, again with a teacher who "ran out of time." He knew of evolution because of what he learned at home.</p>