HSLDA alert

Senate to Vote on UN Disabilities Treaty on Wednesday: Calls Needed Immediately

Dear HSLDA Members and Friends,

Yesterday afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (NV) announced that the Senate will vote to ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) treaty on Wednesday. We need you to call your two senators immediately, and urge them to oppose the CRPD.

If the U.S. Senate were to ratify the CRPD, this would give the United Nations the power to influence and change domestic law and threaten parental rights and homeschool freedom.

Thirty-six senators have signed a letter stating that they “respectfully request that no treaties be brought to the Senate floor for advice and consent during the lame-duck session of the 112th Congress.” These senators have promised in the letter that they “will oppose efforts to consider a treaty during this time.”

Senator Reid has purposefully ignored this letter by promising to file cloture by Wednesday (if 60 senators vote to invoke cloture, a filibuster will be ended) and will make every attempt to proceed to the CRPD for ratification this week. Ratification of the CRPD will take a two-thirds vote of the Senate, or 67 senators to vote in favor of the CRPD if all 100 are present.

We need you to call both of your U.S. senators right now and ask them to oppose the CRPD. 202-224-3121.

Please give them some or all of this message:

“I urge you to oppose the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This treaty surrenders U.S. sovereignty to unelected UN bureaucrats and will threaten parental care of children with disabilities. Our nation already has laws to protect disabled Americans. This treaty is unnecessary and will hurt families. If the Senate ratifies this treaty, it would be the first time ever that the U.S. has ratified a treaty that obligates us to recognize economic, social, and cultural entitlements as rights under domestic law.”

Then, please forward this email to your friends and family and urge them to call, as well. Please also post this information on social media to help get the word out to every parent and freedom-loving person in America.

For more information on the dangers of this treaty please visit our CRPD page. http://www.hslda.org/crpd

Thank you for standing with us for freedom.
Sincerely,

J. Michael Smith, Esq.
President, HSLDA

Parental rights documentary airing March 7!

From HSLDA:

As you know, HSLDA cares deeply about protecting parental rights, since these rights are crucial to the right to homeschool. That’s why we urge you to take advantage of a vital opportunity to learn more about this issue!

On Monday, March 7, the parental rights documentary The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation will be airing on the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) network at 8:00 p.m. ET/5:00 p.m. PT and again four hours later at 12:00 a.m. ET/9:00 p.m. PT. Catch the broadcast on DirecTV channel 378, Sky Angel channel 126, or live streaming media on computers and mobile devices here.

We also ask you to let friends and family know about this broadcast. (Follow this link to spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, or another network.) Together, we can alert America to the pressing need to preserve parental rights in the text of the U.S. Constitution!

About The Child:
The future of our children is the future of humanity. But what happens if our children’s future is taken into the hands of the government?

Watchman Cinema’s 85-minute documentary The Child: America’s Battle for the Next Generation unveils a pervasive attack against the deep bond between parent and child in American law and culture. Parents have traditionally been recognized as having the insight and responsibility to make the right decisions for their children. But a new wave is gathering force among lawmakers, judges, government authorities, and international activists: the belief that parents should not have the final say in the upbringing and education of their children.

What does this mean for America? It means that parents’ rights and responsibilities on behalf of their children are gradually being taken over by the government. It means that parents have less and less freedom to opt their children out of sexual education in public school, make medical decisions for their children, or teach their children their most deeply held religious beliefs. It means that parents are being prosecuted and even arrested when their choices conflict with what government authorities think is in the best interests of their children. It also means that children can no longer trust that their interests and security will be represented by their parents, who know and love them.

But a growing group of parents, legislators, legal experts, doctors, and child and family advocates are fighting back. To defend the child-parent bond, they are lobbying for something unprecedented: a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. This diverse coalition of concerned citizens crosses party and religious lines.

The Child presents a sweeping and sobering picture of the threats against the child-parent bond in America, along with what we can do to protect this fundamental relationship. Weaving together in-depth interviews of judges, lawyers, pediatricians, and legislators with firsthand accounts from families who have been devastatingly impacted by the anti-parent trend, this important film makes the case for a Parental Rights Amendment. In the words of parenting expert John Rosemond, this is “a cause that protects the liberty of every American.”

To purchase your own copy of The Child or set up a screening, click here.

Would you like to learn more about ParentalRights.org or donate to the cause? Click here.

Parental Rights

A parent’s right to raise their children as they see fit is a time-honored American tradition, but today it is being threatened. The Supreme Court’s Troxel v. Granville decision in 2000 undermined a 75-year heritage of Constitutionally-protected, fundamental parental rights, which 8 of the 9 justices abandoned. At the same time, a growing body of international law fuels activist judges to legislate foreign standards from the American bench, while treaties such as the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child would subject parental decisions to government oversight and international review.
Rep. Pete Hoekstra (MI-2) has proposed HJR-42, the Parental Rights Amendment, to stop the erosion of parental rights in American courts while simultaneously defending our laws from international invasion. Please, visit parentalrights.org to learn more about the Amendment, and to join their email network by signing the petition to protect parental rights.