Pro-Life Petition Continues To Add Names

From United Families International

On December 10, 2008 a Pro-Life coalition including United Families International gathered at the UN to present a Pro-Life petition. The reason for the petition was two fold:

1. To celebrate the 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
2. In response to a Pro-Abortion petition presented by Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International

The Pro-Life petition contained over 340,000 names gathered over a 60 day period, while the opposition petition claimed 651 names in nearly a year of work. Due to the relatively short amount of time that the Pro-Life petition was available, United Families International and the Pro-Life coalition have decided to keep the petition open until September 2009 when it will be re-presented to the UN. We invite all who believe in the sanctity of life to add their names to the International Petition to Protect Life.

The petition requests that all member nations and states interpret the UNDHR to mean that:

The right to life, liberty and security is for every person; that each child born or unborn, has the right to birth and a full, natural life. That a child has the right to a mother and a father, of full age, within the bonds of marriage defined as between a man and a woman. And, that the parents have the right to raise and educate their children without any limitation due to race, religion, culture or nationality.

CLICK HERE to add your name to the petition and join Pro-Lifers around the globe in protecting life.

Attack on Parental Rights

Picture from SurlyGirl

Attack on Parental Rights

from ParentalRights.Org

The right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children has been recognized and upheld for centuries. But there are dark clouds on the horizon.

Today parental rights are coming under assault from federal judges who deny or refuse to recognize these rights. Adding further danger to the child-parent relationship, international law seeking to undermine the parental role is advancing on the horizon. Together, these threats are converging to create a "perfect storm" that looms over the child-parent relationship.

In the early 1980s, a landmark parental rights case reached the Washington State Supreme Court. The case involved 13-year-old Sheila Marie Sumey, whose parents were alarmed when they found evidence of their daughter's participation in illegal drug activity and escalating sexual involvement. Their response was to act immediately to cut off the negative influences in their daughter's life by grounding her.
But when Sheila went to her school counselors complaining about her parent's actions, she was advised that she could be liberated from her parents because there was "conflict between parent and child." Listening to the advice she had received, Sheila notified Child Protective Services (CPS) about her situation. She was subsequently removed from her home and placed in foster care.
Her parents, desperate to get their daughter back, challenged the actions of the social workers in court. They lost. Even though the judge found that Sheila's parents had enforced reasonable rules in a proper manner, the state law nevertheless gave CPS the authority to split apart the Sumey family and take Sheila away.

DANGEROUS PRECEDENT

Parental rights are under attack in our nation, with the first threat originating from within the federal court system. As this story illustrates, a growing disregard for parental rights has been spreading within the courts of our nation.
Across the country, many judges are beginning to deny the vital role of parents in the lives of their children, instead inserting the government into a "parental" role in a child's life. This dangerous assertion is leading to the severance of the child-parent relationship in numerous instances across the nation—removals that cause unnecessary pain to both children and their parents.

A thirteen-year-old boy in Washington State was removed from his parents after he complained to school counselors that his parents took him to church too often. His school counselors had encouraged him to call Child Protective Services with his complaint, which led to his subsequent removal and placement in foster care. It was only after the parents agreed to a judge's requirement of less-frequent church attendance that they were able to recover their son.

HANGING BY A THREAD

Not all judges hold a low view of parental rights. Some, like Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, believe that parental rights are among the "inalienable rights" of Americans enumerated in the Declaration of Independence but they are finding it increasingly difficult to rule in favor of parental rights when it is not explicitly included in the language of the Constitution.

Read the entire article here

The website has a lot of good resources (articles, information, etc.).

Why is Gay Marriage a 'Right' That is Being Denied?

Opinions submitted to The Wall Street Journal.

In regard to the Dec. 2 Letters to the Editor "Gays Are Fighting the Tyranny of the Majority," responding to William McGurn's Nov. 25 column "Main Street: Gay Marriage and the California Courts":

The correspondents obscure the absence of rational justifications for "gay marriage." Even if substantial majorities in many states are not fooled by phony argumentation and create laws that do not recognize "gay marriage," this does not provide any evidence that a right has been denied. Just because someone claims something as a right does not make it so.

The union of a man and a woman is the natural means by which procreation occurs, and it provides the opportunity for the optimal environment for delivering offspring to maturity with the interplay of male and female perspective. It does not take religion or even a belief in God to come to such a conclusion. And civilized societies free of confused and misplaced guilt recognize this.

Marriage does not discriminate. Whether people choose to marry or opt for an alternative lifestyle is their choice. Californians have been quite tolerant and have made substantial provisions in their laws for gay unions. Other systems (e.g., health insurance, Social Security, etc.) could be easily modified to facilitate the well-being of gay people without corrupting the primary unit of society. But this is not what advocates for "gay marriage" are pursuing. The debate is not about civil rights; it is an attempt to obtain total public acceptance through the pressure of political correctness and ultimately through the force of law.

Dan Pisenti
Mill Valley, Calif.

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