I suppose this is as good as any a place to put this...

What do you think of the proposed parental rights amendment? As the UN seems to want America to adopt the "Rights of a Child" document, several conservative organizations(one major player is the HSLDA(Homeschool Legal Defense Association), which is an organization that helps legally defend the rights of homeschoolers) have proposed to add a "Parental Rights Amendment" that would limit the power of this document.

Personally, I'm all for it. I am everything that most people dislike, admittedly. I am a Christian conservative. I am a capitalist. I don't believe in separation of church and state(though I most emphatically believe that the church and state should NOT actually share power), and I was homeschooled. Now, I know those are all reasons that many of you will be inclined to dislike me, but let's bear with each other. =P

Let me start out by saying that as a fundamentalist Christian, I believe in applying the Bible to EVERYTHING. I do not believe in being "neutral," that would be a case of sta ex veritas(Latin for: "Standing outside the truth), which is a term that I have coined to describe people who first start out with their own reasoning and try to work from there to find "truth." If there is absolute truth, all our reasoning comes from it. Therefore, as a Christian, I use the Bible as a guide for everything.

Therefore, I believe parents have a right to govern their children. They have the right to use discipline(including corporal discipline, though to a limited extent), and to raise their children the way THEY want to, not the way the government wants them to. Therefore, I am highly opposed to any government mandate that gives government authority in "helping" to raise children. I am not saying there should be no government power in this issue. Sometimes child abuse and neglect(both evil things) take place, and the offenders should be punished. Severely. Therefore you need at least some authority to take custody of the children IF it can be shown that the parents are unfit. But from the Rights of the Child document, each parent would be automatically under the obligation of proving they are fit.

This is unfair and unlawful. I think you all know that, "Everyone is innocent until proven guilty." This would completely reverse that to, "Parents are guilty(when investigated by the government over anything regarding childrearing) until they prove themselves innocent."

Therefore, I support the Parental Rights Amendment, which would protect America from this terrible thing. I will add that without this amendment and with the Rights of the Child in place, the government would have the right to come and take any child into custody who they thought was not being raised right.

-Jeremiah Lamech

The only limitations placed on parental rights are those that interfere with the rights of the child.
The concept of the movement to define children's rights is to identify exactly where this line is.
Otherwise how do you determine what "neglect" and "abuse" are? The Bible as a precedent sets a pretty low bar, considering that stoning disobedient children to death is considered fine punishment... so I doubt its sufficiency in setting the bar.

Is not getting a kid the kind of education that will ensure success in life a parental right, a type of neglect, or a societal failure? Homeschooling is allowed. Standards are set to prevent the kind of education that leaves kids handicapped in the society.

Does a parent have the right to ruin a kid's life... or the responsibility to make sure that the kid grows up productive, responsible, literate, and capable of critical thought?
Do parents have a right to shut out the entire world from their children and thus limit their ability to deal with it and succeed later?

And besides it is a complete impracticality for the state to actually micromanage parenting. The state will only practically go so far as to limit parental behaviors that are abusive and neglectful (and it doesn't really accomplish that well, so even those parents are safe).

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"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

For one thing, the Bible didn't just say to stone children whenever they misbehaved. It said that if a young man cursed or struck his mother or father, he was to be stoned. This more likely referred to someone 14 or 15 to about 23 striking them-hard-or cursing them, which was a more serious crime in that society. By that time people were not really considered children at that age, but adults(though young). Also, that, as far as I know, is no longer in effect. I am going by what the Bible generally says about RAISING children.

The question is, is it the government's RIGHT to set certain rules like that? And besides that, the Rights of a Child document is not just setting rules against abuse and neglect, which should definitely be punished. But it's giving government power to define and decide when it can step in and take custody of a child, which it should not have. In extreme cases, yes, the government should take custody of a child who is being abused or neglected. But just letting it decide to do it whenever parents are "unfit," is ridiculous.

I am usually loath to side with fundamentalists but in this case I do. I have a feeling that short of outright abuse and neglect - parents have a right to raise their children as they wish. Once the government starts interfering and setting standards then...at what point do they stop? Who's to say they are right and the parents wrong? Certain minimum standards are already mandated - including standards of education.

In real life one of my occupations is dog training. There has been some discussion of attempting to regulate dog training practices and bring them in line with modern ideas of "humane training" as per PETA and HSUS. The problem is that yes, there are some very abusive practices and some very ignorant ones. But many people who are trying to legislate training methods are ideologues who have no realistic idea of what a dog is, how to train one, or what is really "humane" for the dog's ability to live in a human world. They've been indoctrinated by Disney.

Parenting is similar.

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I'm a leftwing fascist, disease spreading, devil worshipper!

That's not to say I believe in a parental rights amendment. Nor do I believe in a children's rights amendment.

Keep the constitution clean and simple and we'll be well served.

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I'm a leftwing fascist, disease spreading, devil worshipper!

Correct me if I am wrong but I like to believe that if the bible says to stone a child for any reason it was more of a metaphor. Meaning if the child did the parents wrong punish them. Not literally pick up a stone and throw it at the child. It is the same as the passage that reads "spare the child and spoil the rod"

Now I need to address what you said here I am everything that most people dislike, admittedly. I am a Christian conservative. I am a capitalist. I don't believe in separation of church and state(though I most emphatically believe that the church and state should NOT actually share power), and I was homeschooled. Now, I know those are all reasons that many of you will be inclined to dislike me, but let's bear with each other First of all I am not going to dislike you because of your beliefs. Your beliefs are yours and you are welcome to them. I do not dislike people because of their beliefs but how they treat me and my loved ones, so you will not be judge by be on your beliefs.

Now, I think there comes a time when the government needs to step in on the behalf of the child. I am a parent who thinks that the child needs to mind the parents at all costs. I allow my kids to have their own opinion yes, but if that goes against what I believe as an adult who has more experience then what I say in my house stands tall. I will let my children know I respect their opinion but at this time it does not apply. There are also times when I say " you know what? you are right and I will apply your opinion"

But there are a lot of parents out there, Christian or not who abuse their kids or that take the bible to literal and they are the ones who need to be helped by the government. Like I said someone needs to be their for the child.

I think you mean, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." The rod can't well be spoiled or spared. =P

Well, in the regard to what you said about my beliefs, you're a shot ahead of several other people I've debated on other sites. =P

I agree with that, and of course parents should raise their children according to their values. The trouble comes in when the government does things like the case in California where a 17 year old autistic boy was removed from his home against the parents' will, given a medication they didn't want him to have(which, as they feared, worsened his condition) and then threw him in a mental hospital. That sort of thing is growing in amount, and it is a real problem. So I think that we need to have parental rights down in black and white, otherwise people are going to find loopholes and bend the rules.

A government like the United States government can only function if it is occupied by moral people, otherwise it falls apart. As immorality and relativism are increasing, provisions need to be made to make sure they can't do damage to a parent's right to raise his/her child the way he/she sees fit. While abuse does happen and the government needs to step in then, it needs to be written down pretty clearly what abuse is. Some might define it as merely, of course, sexual abuse or the deliberate infliction of pain, that is either a. for discipline but too extreme or b. not for discipline but out of cruelty. In these cases the children should be removed from the home, and the punishment against the parents should be steep.

So are the individual parents doing the abuse and neglect the ones to decide?
It makes more sense to have a societal decision. That would mean government.

Should individuals have the right to determine when a killing is a murder or when fighting becomes assault?
We need societal definitions of these things.

__________________
"It's never over... BOY!"
The Tall Man, Phantasm III

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parents dont nee d righjts.children ar e not gouverned b y parents there ar e governed by société.
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