The god of abuse
The thesis of this article has often crossed my mind and so I was happy to find this post at exChristian.net. I think Fuego is right on with the analysis he presents. Several conclusions flow from his argument. First off, people who have been trapped in religion and had their reason attenuated or destroyed deserve our understanding even as they infuriate us with their stubborn obtuse blindness. How do psychologists treat people with Stockholm syndrome? What works, what does not. If we are going to make a difference with people who are effected, need we all become clinical psychologists? There has to be a more modest approach than that, so we should be looking at the literature and developing guidelines for approaching our friends and family members. Simply trying to reason with them clearly does not work. Following up on this I searched for some advice and will publish a separate post that seems to have some sage advice.
By Fuego
I’ve been trying to figure out why it is so difficult to get believers to even listen to why we left Christianity. Even though some of us experienced decades of solid Christian belief, we are dismissed as having never believed, or never “truly” believed. No matter what evidence we bring, no matter if we are aggressive or kind, there always seems to be an invisible wall of condescending resistance to any criticism or evidence against Christianity.
This may not be a new concept to some of you, but it all fell together for me today. The pattern so clearly fits with another relationship pattern among humans that it startled me. Christianity is a form of abuser/victim codependency.
I know the word codependent seems way overused, but hear me out. Codependency is the perpetuation of an abusive relationship by two or more people, each of whom derives enough emotional support from the relationship that it outweighs the strife. In fact the strife itself fuels the emotional intensity of the relationship. Sure there are good times of singing, music, friends, and even an intense feeling of God’s presence. This is what kept us coming back and enduring the abusive side of the religion.
“Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?”Right away, I anticipate that believers reading this will say “Abuse? What abuse? My God is the Shepherd of my soul, the Lily of the Valley, the bright Morning Star. He doesn’t abuse me. He may discipline me, but he does that because he loves me.” Many of us felt the same way, and clung to God just as fervently as any believers do today. The abuse I speak of is sometimes physical, often verbal, and always mental/emotional.
Just like in a human-to-human relationship, a believer invests trust, time, money, and emotion into the faith until the religion itself defines normality, and that person becomes quite unwilling to believe anything negative about the religion. The abuse may come through fellow believers or authorities in the religion, as well as in self-abuse over by guilt imposed by the religion. But ultimately the abuse comes from the God of the Bible. The believer is conditioned to think that the abuse is deserved due to his or her inherent sinfulness. Some go so far as to mutilate their own flesh because their natural desires conflict with the religious ideal and therefore must be subjugated to prove loyalty to God. Jesus himself said, “If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.” (Matt 5:29)
But even if the believer becomes desperate enough to want to quit the relationship, the circle of codependency is sealed by the fear of what will happen if the believer leaves the “relationship” (damnation).
To read the remainder of this article go to exchristian.net:
http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2009/07/god-of-abuse.html
The people who promote the position that atheism is a belief system are no doubt confused between humanism and atheism or they lack fine control over their gun sights. Not all atheists are humanists, but probably the majority would majorly agree with the various humanist manifestos that are extant around the world. It is secular humanism that the theists are getting their wigs wound up over because that is a genuine world view that is anti-theist, organized, and humanists speak out. Humanists are thoughtful and kind and do leave room for freedom of consciousness, as all thinking people must. They just want religion to go back to being a private matter, like masturbation, gluttony, nudity and other self-gratifications that are best not paraded in public.
The very idea that mere lowly humans can somehow get along and thrive without god and have a systematic and enlightened way of presenting their views is perceived by theists as a threat, precisely because it is a threat. The only dogma atheists hold is “we hate cant, humbug, hypocricy, pretense, and dogma”. This again spins the believers up because all they know is dogma, humbug, pretense and hypocrisy. Unlike humanists, atheists do not have a manifesto or a creed or until very recently any popular way to be recognized as atheists. There is no baptism or confirmation or any of the other ways religion dreamed up to psychologically close the cage door.
That little scarlet letter “A” emblazoned on atheist shirts and boldly printed on their web sites is a defiant, provocative, in your face announcement that we are here among you. Be afraid. The scarlet letter “A” (who says atheists don’t appreciate irony?) serves to bring more and more atheists out of the closet. The symbol gives them an identity with their soul mates and creates a sense of solidarity of purpose in overcoming the unjust hatred directed towards atheists. Not to mention the fact that the red letter “A” is guaranteed to produce vapors, palpitations and vertigo in the likes of Pat Robertson and James “smack-them-again” Dobson.
It is a curious fact of human psychology that we humans attribute the way others think to our own way of thinking. Therefore, a person sitting in a church listening to the pastor spout dogma as “truth” will have an almost insurmountable task to believe that other humans have absolutely no need of, and in fact violently oppose dogma preached as truth.
The fact that Dawkins, Dennett, Harris and Hitchens identify as atheists has reignited the fire of opposition by religious people. Assuming the fire had ever really gone out. Now, in addition we must contend with the merging of religion and politics in the United States because the conservatives have brilliantly succeeded in a mashup of the worst qualities humans possess. And here I am talking about emotionalism, ignorance, fear, racism, bigotry, anachronism, and the worship of patriarchy.
Preparing children for death
- Image via Wikipedia
We think kids are mistreated by parents now, and they are, but it is encouraging to look back and see that we have made some progress. Little did I realize, until I started digging into the history and philosophy of childhood, just how bad it was for kids in the past. Feeding children superstition and dogma must end, imagine telling scary tales to children as a form of discipline. Again we note the ever present influence of clergy. Most people are probably not aware of the role of clergy, beyond the obvious admonitions they made to whip children.
My grandmother was born during the waning days of the Victorian period, and she of course directly influenced my mother who was born in 1917. However, my mother never told me frightening tales as punishment. All children seem to love to listen to stories and I was no different. Perhaps it is because even very young children recognize that this is quality time. Just you and a beloved parent and they are focused perhaps for the first time in the day when they sit down on your bedside, open a book and begin to read. If they are good at this, they also supply appropriate sound effects and voice characterizations as good as any actor on the big screen.
I was treated to many fairy tales, but I don’t recall being especially frightened by Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jack in the Bean Stalk, or Little Red Riding Hood. Perhaps some of our readers can comment on their childhood memories.
Alexander Bain is an interesting historical figure in the pantheon of humanists. We should celebrate his birthday and revive his memory. Perhaps hold an international day of protest against forcing faith on children and pick his birthday for holding the event.
Pass Grade in Passing On by Jacob Middleton examines how the Victorians’ obsession with death extended to terrifying their children in order to prepare them for the grave.
May 2007, Fortean Times
In 1880, the philosopher Alexander Bain complained about the way in which Victorian society disciplined its children. While he saw many methods as ineffectual, he reserved his greatest hostility to what he dubbed “spiritual, ghostly, or supernatural terrors”. 1 Bain was a rationalist, heavily influenced by the utilitarian philosophers of the early 19th century, and his hostility towards what he regarded as superstition is therefore hardly surprising. What disturbed him most, however, was not the nature of this means of disciplining children, but its ubiquity; in a society that wished to regard itself as rational and modern, most children were frightened into quiescence by the threat of supernatural terrors.
The period in which Bain was writing was one in which corporal punishment of children at school and home was habitual and the treatment to which many children was subjected was considered, even then, to be cruel and demeaning. Moreover, supernatural retribution had long been considered an acceptable means of disciplining children. In The History of the Fairchild Family, probably the most successful children’s book in Victorian Britain, death is painfully visited upon those who disobey parental authority. A child might find itself burnt to death for the sin of vanity, while illicitly consuming preserved fruit would “merely” result in a near-fatal fever. 2 Such punishments were regarded as natural consequences of disobedience, a divine retribution.
Cautionary tales, such as those in The History of the Fairchild Family, were made more believable by the ever-present threat of sudden death in an era of limited medical expertise, which was seeing the first discoveries of microbiology. Children were expected to be aware of their mortality from an early age, and there was even a literary genre devoted to teaching children how to die a ‘good death’. These works were invariably true stories, relating how particular children met their end with appropriate Christian fortitude when struck down by disease. 3
However, while such literature was heavily promoted by the clergy, and by middle-class parents keen to give their offspring a religious upbringing, it formed only one strand in a popular culture preparing children for death. Perhaps it is surprising to the modern reader, used to stereotypes of religious Victorians, to find how small a part Christianity played in their education. Although most Britons would have described themselves as Christian, it was found in 1851 that only a quarter of the population attended church. 4 Education about death, then, was provided for in other ways, often through popular literature and folk custom. From the mid-19th century, this was supplemented by Spiritualism, a movement that concerned itself with raising children with the ‘correct’ attitude to death and the afterlife. It is estimated that, by the end of the Victorian period, as many as 10,000 children were attending lyceums, the spiritualist equivalent of Sunday schools. 5 What we can be certain of is that the messages that the 19th-century child received about death and its spiritual implications were many and varied.
http://www.forteantimes.com/features/commentary/443/pass_grade_in_passing_on.html
Reconstruction Theology in Home Education – Mary McCarthy
- Image by Renegade98 via Flickr
In many posts I have attacked sham homeschools and the people behind them. It is not just that children are subjected to this abuse that is the problem, although that cries out for retribution. It is the fact that a powerful and wealthy lobby of fanatics has devised and is successfully implementing a plan to use children as instruments in the takeover and destruction of our free society. The danger is real and these people must be stopped. Meanwhile the country sleeps on, unaware of the danger and certainly not doing much to avert a looming catastrophe. It would be a serious mistake to discount these people as deluded buffoons. They managed to take over the Republican party because the leaders of that party discounted them, or stupidly threw in their lot with them. They have made startling inroads into the officer corps of our military and managed to engineer eight years of G. W. Bush as president. Who if not a dominonist himself is certainly a sympathizer.
The following article is a succinct overview of who the actors are and can serve as a reference for further research and study.
“The stranger in ancient Israel did not serve as a judge, although he received all the benefits of living in the land. The political question is this: By what biblical standard is the pagan to be granted the right to bring political sanctions against God’s people? We recognize that unbelievers are not to vote in Church elections. Why should they be allowed to vote in civil elections in a covenanted Christian nation? Which judicial standards will they impose? By what other standard than the Bible?”
- Gary North of Institute For Christian EconomicsIn order to more clearly understand the increasing divisiveness in homeschooling and the various leaders involvement in a political religion, it is necessary to become familiar with some of the facets of Christian theology and theocracy.
“Theocracy, the direct rule of a nation by God through divinely selected spokesmen, has many exemplars in the modern world. Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq are nations with obvious theocratic tendencies. Israel’s political parties exhibit growing theocratic patterns. In the United States, the Christian Reconstruction movement proposes the purest form of theocracy. Reconstructionism believes that the law given for the political and legal ordering of ancient Israel is intended for all people at all times; therefore American is duty bound to install a political system based entirely on biblical law.”
Reconstructionist theologian David Barton offered this definition: “The Christian goal for the world is the universal development of Biblical theocratic republics, in which every area of life is redeemed and placed under the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the rule of God’s law.”The term ‘dominion theology’ comes from Genesis 1:26-28 of the Bible where God’s purpose for man is stated: Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.” So God created man in his own image And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.” (RSV)
Sometimes termed ‘dominion’ or ‘kingdom’ theology, “dominionism revolves around the idea that Christians and Christians alone, are Biblically mandated to occupy all secular institutions until Christ returns. An earlier source of dominion theology was an evangelical philosopher named Francis Schaeffer Schaeffer’s 1981 book, A Christian Manifesto remained one of the Christian Right’s most important texts into the 1990′s.”
Many of the leaders of the so-called hard or Christian Right are followers of the teachings of Rousas John Rushdoony. R.J. Rushdoony is the spiritual leader of Chalcedon Foundation, a California organization dedicated to Christian Reconstruction. According to the Foundation, a Christian Reconstructionist is a Calvinist, holding to the principles that God, not man, is the center of the universe and beyond; a Theonomist, believing that God’s law is found in the Bible; a Presuppositionalist, believing that he holds to the Faith because the Bible says so and has no need to prove it; a Postmillennialist believing that Christ will return to earth only after the Holy Spirit has empowered the church to advance Christ’s kingdom in time and history and a Dominionist taking seriously the Bible’s commandment to the godly to take dominion in the earth. “The Christian Reconstructionist believes the earth and all it’s fullness is the Lord’s; that every area dominated by sin must be ‘reconstructed’ in terms of the Bible. This includes, first, the individual; second, the family; third, the church; and fourth, the wider society including the state.”
The Dominion theology movement places Judeo-Christian biblical law above any and all constitutional law, including the U.S. Constitution. “Postmillienialists believe that righteous human beings, essentially servants of Christ, must achieve positions of influence in societies in order to prepare the world for the Messiah’s return.”In his excellent 1996 book, With God on Our Side, William Martin used a sampling of the views of several noted Reconstructionists to give a sense of how a Reconstructed America would be: “The federal government would play no role in regulating business, public education, or welfare [S]ome government would be visible at the level of counties but citizens would be answerable to church authorities on most matters subject to regulation income taxes would not exceed ten percent – the biblical tithe – and social security would disappear [P]ublic schools would be abolished in favor of home-schooling arrangements, and families would operate on a strict patriarchal pattern. The only people permitted to vote would be members of ‘biblically correct’ churches. Most notably, a theonomic order would make homosexuality, adultery, blasphemy, propagation of false doctrine, and incorrigible behavior by disobedient children subject to the death penalty, preferably administered by stoning a reconstructed America would have little room for Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, Hindus, atheists, or even non-Reconstructionist Christians. ‘The Christian’, one Reconstructionist author has asserted, ‘must realize that pluralism is a myth R.J. Rushdoony, also regards pluralism as a heresy, since, in the name of toleration, the believer is asked to associate on a common level of total acceptance with the atheist, the pervert, the criminal, and the adherents of other religions.”
Other noted Reconstructionists include Greg Bahnson, David Barton of WallBuilders, Inc., David Chilton, Gary DeMar of American Vision and Worldview Magazine; Ted DeMoss of Christian Business Men’s Committee; Kenneth Gentry, Jay Grimstead of Coalition on Revival; James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church; Tim LaHaye of American Coalition for Traditional Values; Mrs. Connie Marshner of Free Congress Foundation; Rev. Joseph Morecraft; Gary North of Institute for Christian Economics; Mark Siljander of Global Strategies, Inc.; Randall Terry of Operation Rescue and Rev. Donald Wildmon of American Family Association. Dr. Kennedy, Rev. LaHaye, Mrs. Marshner, Mr. North, R.J. Rushdoony, and Rev. Wildmon are all members of the Council For National Policy.
“Whether it is acknowledged or not, Reconstructionism has profoundly influenced the Christian Right. Perhaps its most important role within the Christian Right can be traced to the formation in 1982 of the Coalition on Revival (COR) Founded and headed by Dr. Jay Grimstead, COR has sought in this way to create a transdenominational theology The COR leadership has significantly overlapped with the Christian Right, and has included: John Whitehead, Don Wildmon Tim LaHaye and D. James Kennedy, Randall Terry Steven Hotze, Rev. Glen Cole Michael Farris Robert Dugan Bill Dannemeyer Mark Siljander R.J. Rushdoony, Gary North, Joseph Moorecraft, David Chilton, Gary DeMar and Rus Walton.”It is difficult for secular homeschoolers to understand the apparent double standard when Christian homeschoolers are discriminatory against them at the local support group level, while at the same time, courting their efforts when it comes to state or national political causes. Understanding Reconstructionist Theology and Theocracy is important because it reflects understanding on the division in the homeschooling community between secular and religious members, and the theocratic motivations of politically manipulating the community.
Gary North declared, “All long-term social change comes from the successful efforts of one or another struggling organizations to capture the minds of a hard core of future leaders.” Reconstructionists believe that Christian schools and the homeschooling movement are the key to capturing those minds. Joseph Moorecraft said in 1987, that the Reconstruction movement was made up of a small number but expected a massive acceleration in 25 to 30 years ‘when those kids that are now in Christian schools have graduated and taken their places in American society, and moved into places of influence and power.’
When it comes to politics, the principles are simple: “The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the eternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church’s public marks of the covenant–baptism and holy communion–must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel.”
“Gary North claims that ‘the ideas of the Reconstructionists have penetrated into Protestant circles that for the most part are unaware of the original source of the theological ideas that are beginning to transform them.’ North describes the ‘three major legs of the Reconstructionist movement’ as ‘the Presbyterian oriented educators, the Baptist school headmasters and pastors, and the charismatic telecommunications system.’ What this means is that hundreds of thousands of Pentecostals and charismatic Christians, as well as many fundamentalist Baptists, have moved out of the apolitical camp. Many have thrown themselves into political work – not merely as voters, but as ideologically driven activists, bringing a reconstructed ‘Biblical world view’ to bear on their area of activism.”In his well researched 1995 book, Home Schooling: The Right Choice, Christopher Klicka frequently quotes Reconstructionst writers, notably Rushdoony and Barton. In addition to including Rushdoony’s “The Difference Between Christian Education and Humanistic Education”, the book’s forward was written by D. James Kennedy and many of the ideals expressed seem Reconstructionist, however, he does not state specifically that he is a Reconstructionist.
The relationship between Michael Farris of HSLDA and Tim and Beverly LaHaye goes back to the early 1980′s when Michael Farris was head of the legal department of Concerned Women for America. Tim LaHaye was attempting to start a television ministry which failed. In 1983 he started the American Coalition for Traditional Values which was similar to the now defunct Moral Majority, its goal being to mobilize Christians to register and vote. Some accounts indicate Michael Farris was deeply involved with ACTV while others do not mention his involvement. ACTV closed down shortly after the 1986 elections. However, Tim LaHaye withdrew from his television ministry when it was publicized that his church was funding an anti-Catholic group. In 1985 he further withdrew after it became known that CWA had accepted ‘generous help’ from the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church which teaches the divinity of the Rev. Moon in direct conflict with Christian teachings. In 1987 Rev. LaHaye was forced to resign as co-chair from Jack Kemp’s presidential campaign because newspapers printed divisive passages from his writings, which were anti-Catholic and anti-Semitic.
The New York Times profiled Michael Farris’ campaign for Lt. Governor of Virginia as part of a series of articles about Christians in politics. It is noted that Michael Farris’ name appeared as a co-author of a policy paper by Jay Grimstead’s “Coalition on Revival, which has called for the United States to reclaim itself as a ‘Christian nation.’ (Farris says that he only worked on an early draft of the document and that the organization included his name without his permission.)”
Michael Farris, in his 1992 book, Where Do I Draw The Line?, addressed Reconstructionism. He quotes Francis Shaeffer’s Christian Manifesto to explain our nation’s slide into its current cultural condition but he also takes an opportunity to note that, “there are those who advocate the idea that America should enact the Old Testament law right down to the rules for conducting trials. I am not one of those people but I do believe the moral principles of God apply to every age.”
However, when discussing classical education in The Future of Home Schooling, he recommends as “one of the best programs I have seen that offers a clearly Christian classical education is David Quine’s World Views of the Western World World Views is a three-year program that is built largely around the works of Francis Schaeffer. Students still read Homer, Socrates and Machiavelli. But these are balanced not only by Schaeffer’s works, but also by St. Augustine, Luther and Calvin.”As homeschoolers we should be very careful not to assign guilt by association. It is probable that some of the individuals involved in homeschooling and/or HSLDA are Reconstructionists, while others who associate with them are not. Prominent Reconstructionists are often given a forum to advance their cause at HSLDA conferences but it is unknown whether HSLDA itself is a Reconstructionist organization. HSLDA has ties to the Reconstructionist movement through former employees such as Doug Phillips, the son of prominent Reconstructionist Howard Phillips, founder of the U.S. Taxpayers Party and HSLDA founder James Carden who was instrumental in introducing the concept of home schooling to Bill Gothard, himself a prominent Reconstructionist. Carden was among the 100 families who piloted the Advanced Training Institute of America (ATIA) program in 1984/85. Board member Jeff Ethell may have been influenced by Reconstruction ideas while a student at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, where noted Reconstructionist Cornelius Van Til taught for nearly 50 years. In his 1959 book, R.J. Rushdoony lavishly praised Van Til’s philosophy and the influence it had on him.
Christopher Klicka attended Regent University where ‘longtime Dean of the Law School, Herb Titus used Rushoony’s book in his introductory law course “Christopher Klicka, who has been deeply influenced by R. J. Rushdoony, writes: ‘Sending our children to the public school violates nearly every Biblical principle It is tantamount to sending our children to be trained by the enemy’ Klicka also advocates religious selfsegregation and advises Christians not to affiliate with non-Christian homeschoolers in any way. ‘The differences I am talking about have resulted in wars and martyrdom in the not too distant past.’ According to Klicka, who is an attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, ‘as an organization, and as individuals, we are committed to promote the cause of Christ and his Kingdom.”
Former HSLDA employee Inge Cannon was previously employed by Bill Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles where she was involved with the development of ATIA’s homeschool curriculum. Several of HSLDA’s interns come from or plan to attend Oak Brook College of Law and Government Policy which is part of Bill Gothard’s ATIA. Also, Tim LaHaye, considered to be a prominent Reconstructionist, is associated with Michael Farris’ Madison Project as well as having ties to him through Concerned Women for America. Many of the ideals, particularly exclusivism and selfsegregation as promoted by prominent Christian homeschooling leaders like Christopher Klicka and Gregg Harris, are Reconstructionist in nature. As homeschoolers we must be careful when examining the religious motivations of our fellow homeschoolers not to attach labels which may not be appropriate. However, it would be more honest of HSLDA and others to define their belief status when placing themselves in positions of moral authority over homeschoolers, who are perhaps of other, contrary, beliefs.
http://a2zhomeschool.com/homeschool/tag/dominion-theology/
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- Richard says: The history of childhood is a tale of superstition and ignorance (endhereditaryreligion.com)
Children have the right to information
- Image by Emmanuel Frezzotti via Flickr
Childhood
The following introduction is to a paper that was written following an international meeting of librarians held to discuss the impact of the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child.
The idea that children have rights is of relatively recent origin and related to the concept of childhood and the notion of a child. `The question: What is a child? is one answered by adults. Adults impose their conceptions of childishness on beings they consider to be children. There have been different conceptions of the nature of childhood at different periods of history. Childhood is a social construct, a man-made phenomenon.’(3)
In general, children have been silenced in history because they have an insignificant position in social life. In a world, which is dominated by the interests of adults, who also have the power to define, children are considered to become autonomous, not to be autonomous.
Children have human rights, and they do not have to deserve them, they do not need to be given rights.(4) `The fact that children are not yet grown up is used as an excuse by parents, social workers, teachers, judges and many other adults to follow their own interpretation of the child’s interest and to set demands and make decisions that may have far-reaching consequences for children which no one can foresee. (…) Why are adults, who are in a much stronger position in many respects, so afraid to take children seriously and to grant them a large degree of autonomy?’ (5)
The child has to be regarded as an individual with rights of his own as a human being. Due to his situation, he also needs rights for protection and to guarantee access to services. Legal protection includes having rights and being informed about them; having the possibility to exercise these rights effectively; protecting one’s interests; and, eventually being able to enforce these rights.
Convention on the Rights of the Child
During the International Year of the Child, 1979, an Open-Ended Working Group was set up on the Question of a Convention on the Rights of the Child. The drafting process took ten years and ended in a UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted unanimously on 20 November 1989.(6). All states in the world (191) have ratified the Convention with the exception of the USA and Somalia. So one can really speak of an international standard.
The right to self-determination stating that children have the right to express their views freely in all matters affecting them, and must be heard in any judicial and administrative proceeding affecting them (article 12) is crucial, as it contains a general principle characteristic of the underlying approach of the Convention: `that children are not only objects but also subjects of rights, and that a determination of the child’s best interests should be based not only on what adults think, but also on what the child thinks.’(7)
Evidence is given that in the field of children’s rights there are not only obligations for the state, parents and other adults, but also possibilities, and opportunities for children to participate in daily life and at least have a say in their own lives. This points to a child’s right to information, which will be considered in more detail.
To continue reading the rest of this article:
http://www.ifla.org.sg/IV/ifla64/042-113e.htm
For supporters of ratification:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2255835030
http://childrightscampaign.org/crcindex.php
For ratification arguments (rebuttals to ParentalRights.org propaganda)
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/hrj/iss19/rutkow.shtml#fnB158
For more on the general subject of children’s rights:
http://www.amazon.com/Children-Equals-Exploring-Rights-Child/dp/076182300X/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top
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- Children’s Bill of Religious Rights (endhereditaryreligion.com)
- ‘Child’s Rights’ Forces Mobilize (deaconforlife.blogspot.com)
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