'Obama Knows Best'
Elitism Threatens Parental Rights
By Michael Farris
Contact: David Halbrook, 540-338-8727
MEDIA ADVISORY, May 13 /Christian Newswire/ -- In his May 12 column entitled "McCain's Christian Problem," (The Washington Post) Robert Novak used a single, unnamed source to insinuate that I somehow favor an Obama presidency because it would somehow be a biblical judgment for the country's sins.
Nothing, of course, could be further from the truth. Mr. Novak's unnamed source is flatly wrong. I have never said nor do I believe that an Obama presidency is a good idea for any reason, biblical or otherwise.
On the contrary, I have every reason to believe that an Obama presidency would be incredibly and particularly harmful to the American family and homeschool community.
For starters, Obama supports the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, a treaty that would have disastrous consequences for the American family. This treaty would be, according to our Constitution, part of the Supreme law of the land. And in the U.S. international treaties override state law.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is the official UN tribunal granted the authority to interpret and enforce the Children's Convention, which sets forth an exhaustive index of children's rights, many at odds with the rights of parents. The tribunal has held, for instance, that the United Kingdom violated children's rights in Wales by allowing parents to withdraw their children from public school programs without first considering the child's wishes.
What this means in plain English is that the UN has determined that the government will decide for all what is best for our children. The government has authority to intervene in decisions regarding a child's education. The government will choose whether the child's wishes or the parent's wishes are the best for children.
This is the ultimate dream of elitists: they get to decide for all of us what is best for our own children.
Obama has clearly demonstrated his elitist core values. He has recently stated that people who believe in the Bible and who exercise their Second Amendment rights are driven by bitterness. It is not their fault, he says in a paternal voice, that they hold such regressive attitudes; an unjust society has led them to this unfortunate set of views and practices.
This very brand of elitist, statist thinking lies at the heart of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. No parent can be trusted to make decisions for their children without the government having the power to intervene in every case.
And not only do the UN experts believe that they need to control parents who might make misguided choices, they must control our state legislatures as well. We cannot trust American elected officials to make our public policy choices relative to parents and children. We must impose upon them an elaborate set of enforceable UN mandates that control the economic, social, cultural, civil, and political rights of children and their parents.
State legislatures have many legitimate complaints about federal mandates. Just wait until the UN mandates that Obama wishes to impose take effect.
Obama's wants to turn every family and every state legislature over to the supervision of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. They will condescendingly tell us why our traditional desires for our children are not acceptable in this day and age. They will explain us to ourselves and to others while usurping control of our family and utterly destroying the principle of American self-government.
In light of this, is it credible for Robert Novak or anyone to suggest, with a straight face, that I secretly desire an Obama presidency? It is the last thing I would wish for American families, and I propose that Novak and his unnamed source have ignited little more than uninformed, petty gossip.
For McCain's part, I do wish he would speak out more about issues that concern many of us. I really appreciated it when he denounced the February decision of the California Court of Appeal to ban homeschooling in that state, and would love to hear more from McCain along these lines.
Novak, however, seems to like secrets. So why doesn't he spend more time digging into the undisclosed policy implications of Obama's elitist desires to grant the UN -- rather than state legislatures or American parents – power to decide what's best for our families? That would be journalism worth reading.
Michael Farris is the Chancellor of Patrick Henry College where he teaches constitutional law. He is also the co-founder, Chairman and General Counsel of Home School Legal Defense Association. He is one of the nation's leading advocates for homeschool education.
