HSLDA: Mandatory Tolerance vs. A Prior Right to Choose

Whether you homeschool or not ~ this is for ANY parent or grandparent. Here is a transcript of today's "Homeschool Heartbeat" radio broadcast:

Daily Transcript

Program Audio--Click here to Listen Online.

Mandatory Tolerance vs. A Prior Right to Choose

Can the UN dictate what you teach to your children? Some of the liberal elite argue that it can—and should. Today on Home School Heartbeat, Mike Farris explains why they’re wrong.

Mike Farris:
Article 29 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child mandates certain values that must be taught to all children. This mandate applies to public schools, private schools, homeschools, Sunday schools, parents talking to their own kids at dinner, and even the content of television programs.

The American Bar Association argued years ago that Article 29 effectively prohibits you from teaching your own children that Jesus is the only way to God.

Let me explain by quoting Professor Kimberly Yuracko of Northwestern University. She says that “parental control over children’s basic education flows from the state . . .. States delegate power over children’s . . . education to parents” and not the other way around.¹

While these self-appointed advocates of children’s rights love to wrap themselves in the mantle of international human rights, they actually ignore the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948 by the UN General Assembly. Considered to be the grand foundation of all international human rights documents, Article 26 of this Declaration contains this provision that was written in direct response to the educational brainwashing of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. And I quote: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”²

Parents should get the right to choose the religious and moral education of their children in conformity with their own conviction. Even fundamentalist Christians are included in this declaration.

I’m Mike Farris.

Footnotes

¹Kimberly A. Yuracko, “Education Off the Grid: Constitutional Constraints on Homeschooling,” California Law Review 96 (February 2008): 132.

²UN General Assembly, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/.