Garlands and Pendants:
How and Why the Religious Right has Prevented America from Ratifying the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child
“Here, my son, your father’s instruction, and forsake not
your mother’s teaching, for they are a graceful garland
for your head and pendants for your neck.”
Proverbs, 1:8-9
Introduction
In 1989, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a revolutionary new human rights treaty, becoming the first legally binding international instrument to apply the full range of human rights to the world’s children. Recalling language from the earlier Universal Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenants on Human Rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child proclaims that childhood is entitled to “special care and assistance,” and is the only treaty ever to have been unanimously adopted by the General Assembly. Although the United States was actively involved in the drafting of the Convention during the Reagan administration of 1980-1988, the U.S. and Somalia are the only two U.N. member States to have failed to ratify the Convention to this day.
At the time the Convention was being drafted, most member States regarded the declarations as not only well-meaning and protective of children’s rights, but beneficial to the wellbeing of the child and supportive of the family as a whole. But in the United States, a small yet vocal religiously conservative minority took issue with the Convention, its language, and its intent. When it was endorsed in 1995 by then-First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, this vocal minority transformed the issue of ratification into political fodder for the newly-minted “culture wars” that pitted conservative, politically-active Americans as the “persecuted religious right” against the perceived evils of the secular, humanist, and liberal tendencies of the rest of the country and, indeed, the rest of the world. The effect was to halt ratification of the Convention and to cast dispersions upon it and the United Nations itself as threats against “traditional American values.” All throughout conservative America, leaders began jumping on the bandwagon of anti-secular, anti-socialist, and anti-international sentiments that played upon the fears and prejudices of religious Americans wary of post-Cold War foreign influence, portraying the Convention as a direct assault on American families, parental authority, and national sovereignty. A Senate resolution was even proposed by North Carolina’s Jesse Helms that attempted to prevent President Clinton from signing the treaty, and an alternative piece of legislation known as the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act was introduced in 1995 specifically to block any further efforts at ratification of the Convention.
Arguments against the Convention ranged from its perceived threat to parental rights to guide a child’s development, education, discipline and religious training, to the myth that children would be able to sue their parents for not allowing them to view pornography or obtain an abortion. The arguments were consistent and cohesive, largely because they originated within a central and organized movement. To understand the fears and concerns of the Convention’s opponents, it is necessary to consider the emergence and influence of a particular religious doctrine that arose in a uniquely American environment in the decades prior to the end of the Cold War, and continues to exert a tremendous political influence disproportionate to its size. Known as “Dominionism,” this ideology grew out of the Christian Reconstruction movement, a form of Protestant Christianity and radical Calvinism that advocates for theonomy, or the establishment of Old Testament and biblical law to govern all aspects of society, from family to civil government.
At the time the Convention was up for ratification, primary opposition came from specific politically conservative organizations – the Heritage Foundation, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women of America, the Home School Legal Defense Association, and the Eagle Forum. These groups share a common denominator in their adherence to a biblically-based world view regarding all social problems, and their despiciency of international law and the United Nations in particular. As one expert on family issues at the supposedly secular Heritage Foundation put it, “The United Nations has become the tool of a powerful feminist-socialist alliance that has worked deliberately to promote a radical restructuring of society.” But they share another common belief system – the perceived mandate of influencing and reshaping American politics along the lines of a religiously-based theonomy, one even more restrictive than that of a traditional theocracy. It is against this agenda that proposals such as those contained in the Convention regarding the empowerment and protection of children are cast as anti-American and anti-family.
Previous analyses of these groups’ successful opposition to ratification of the Convention focused on their distrust of international law and suspiciousness of government in general. This paper will focus on the specific religious and political beliefs and motivations that have both informed these movements, and inspired their opposition to international law and legislation such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
What is the Convention on the Rights of the Child?
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international treaty developed in 1989 which incorporates a variety of legal systems and cultural traditions and includes a universally agreed upon set of non-negotiable standards and obligations, as they relate to the protection of children’s rights.[1] These basic standards set out a definition of “human rights” for children that include civil, economic, political, cultural and social rights. The standards in the Convention were negotiated by and between governments, non-governmental organizations, human rights advocates, lawyers, health specialists, social workers, educators, child development experts and religious leaders from all over the world, over a 10-year period. The result is a consensus document that takes into account the importance of tradition and cultural values for the protection and harmonious development of the child. It reflects the principal legal systems of the world and acknowledges the specific needs of developing countries.
The Convention consists of 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. The first Optional Protocol restricts the involvement of children in military conflicts, and the Second Optional Protocol places prohibitions on the sale of children, child pornography, and child prostitution. These Optional Protocols were ratified separately by the United States in 2002.[2] The Convention enumerates the basic human rights that every child is entitled to: the right to survival; to develop their full potential; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life. The four core principles of the Convention are 1) survival, 2) protection, 3) development, and 3) participation.
Survival includes the right to life (Art. 6), the rights to appropriate health care, safe drinking water, nutritious food, adequate sanitation, healthy environmental conditions, a standard of living that ensures children’s physical and emotional needs, and adequate treatment and care for children with disabilities or victims of abuse and neglect (Arts. 24, 27, 39). The principle of “protection” encompasses non-discrimination, abduction, abuse and neglect, exploitation and trafficking, drugs, armed conflict, child labor, capital punishment, attacks on privacy, family and home, and unlawful arrest, detention, and imprisonment (Arts. 2, 22-23, 30, 11, 35, 19, 34-36, 33, 38, 32, 16, 37&40).
The development of the child is addressed through the right to obtain age-appropriate information that enhances overall wellbeing and facilitates human rights, the right to social assistance programs, such as Head and Healthy Start, Medicaid, SCHIP, TANF, free and compulsory primary education and increased access to secondary and vocational education. The Convention proposes that a child’s best interest is ensured by the guarantee of an education that assists children in reaching their fullest potential and prepares them for adulthood (Arts. 17, 26, 28, & 29).
Participation is defined as a principal that includes freedom of opinion and expression, freedom of religion, of thought and conscience, and of association and peaceful assembly (Arts. 12, 14 & 15).
Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child, and those interests are protected by setting standards in health care, education, and legal, civil and social services. Those member States which agreed to undertake the obligations of the Convention committed themselves to protecting and ensuring the rights of their country’s children, and to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community. States parties to the Convention are obliged to develop and undertake all actions and policies in the light of the best interests of the child.
The Convention was adopted unanimously by the U.N. General Assembly on November 29, 1989, and within a year nearly all countries of the world had ratified it, making it the most universally admired and least controversial human rights convention that had ever been drafted or adopted. To date, only two countries have failed to ratify the Convention: the government-less Somalia, and the United States.[3]
Although the U.S. was a major player in the development of the 1948 Universal Declaration on Human Rights and other key principles that changed the nature of human rights legislation, it has nevertheless failed to ratify several international agreements, besides the Convention on the Rights of the Child, that were designed to enhance civil and human rights including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Kyoto Protocol, the International Criminal Court, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), among others. In fact, other than the two Optional Protocols to the Convention, no key human rights treaty has been ratified by the United States under the guidelines by which it was adopted and enforced by the U.N. General Assembly.[4]
A Concerted Opposition
Although the U.S. State Department played an active role in influencing and shaping the language of the Convention under the Reagan administration, it was completed during the first year of the subsequent Bush administration. President Bush, however, took no interest in either signing it or forwarding it to the Senate for its advice or consent.[5] It languished on the list of presidential priorities until the Clinton administration undertook to revive and push for its ratification. It was undoubtedly in response to the advocacy of First Lady Hillary Clinton, and her campaign to champion the rights of children (among other liberal pursuits), that caused conservative Christian groups quickly mobilized to launch a “grass-roots” opposition to the Convention through action alerts, letter-writing campaigns, and phone calls to Senators and members of Congress expressing their outrage at the possibility of ratifying an international treaty that impacted the rights of American children.[6]
In response, Republican leaders like Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole, Sen. Charles Grassley, and Rep. Steve Largent began reassuring the public that they were sympathetic to their concerns and that the Convention would receive a serious and careful review. Senator Jesse Helms went one step further by promising that it would receive no review at all. As chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Helms proclaimed that the treaty would not even be given a hearing.[7] He thereafter introduced a resolution in June 1995 designed to preempt any action by the Senate to move forward on ratification of the treaty. The resolution was intended to stop President Clinton from signing the Convention, and "expressing the sense of the Senate . . . that, because the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child could undermine the rights of the family, the President should not sign and transmit it to the Senate."[8] Senators Grassley and Largent then introduced the Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act of 1995 (PRRA), a preemptive piece of legislation designed to ensure that "no Federal, State, or local government, or any official of such a government acting under color of law, shall interfere with or usurp the right of a parent to direct the upbringing of the child of the parent." The threat was clear, but so was the response – national and international government forces were seeking to infringe upon what should be a constitutionally-protected and inalienable right of parental authority under the 14th Amendment, as specified in Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925).[9]
The appeal of anti-internationalism and fear of the specter of global influence threatening to diminish American parental autonomy was not limited to Congress or the Senate. Parental rights legislation was soon introduced in 28 states, including Colorado, which defeated a proposed amendment to the state constitution in November, 1996.[10] Colorado’s “Parental Rights Amendment” (PRA) proposed to give parents the “inalienable right to direct and control the upbringing, education, values, and discipline of their children.”[11] Citing concerns identical to those in the PRRA, Colorado’s parental rights amendment was part of a broader, national campaign undertaken by conservative groups as part of the Christian Coalition’s “Contract for America’s Families” of 1995.[12] Colorado’s campaign was financed almost exclusively by a group called “Of The People,” a Virginia-based conservative, non-profit advocacy group that spearheaded similar proposals in several other states.[13] Though early funding for Colorado’s amendment came from local, conservative religious groups such as the Christian Coalition, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Home Educators of Colorado, their financial support was minimal and subsequently eclipsed by the hundreds of thousands of dollars contributed by Of The People.[14]
Chief among the concerns voice by these groups was the notion that external forces were conspiring to threaten the sanctity of the American family through unwarranted governmental interference. Citing cases where children had been provided with condoms without parental consent or removed from the parent’s custody based on false charges, concerned parents argued the need for constitutionally-augmented protections of a parent’s sovereign authority to exert control over their children, particularly in the face of contradictory case law. [See, Alfonso v. Fernandez, 635 N.Y.S.2d 932 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1995), distribution of condoms without parental consent violated parents right to direct their children, and, conversely, Curtis v. Falmouth, 652 N.E.2d 580 (Mass. 1995), overruling objections of parents to the distribution of condoms without their consent.] But as opponents of Colorado’s PRA amendment argued, such parental protections could also serve to create a legal defense for child abuse, complicate adoption procedures, and turn public schools into ideological battlegrounds.[15] Yet, in spite of the fact that Colorado’s PRA was defeated by its opponents’ organized and successful attempt to convey this message to the voters and raising the issue of child abuse, the amendment’s opponents failed to acknowledge a central fact about the parental rights movement – it did, in fact, advocate for corporal punishment based upon a central tenet of their Christian belief system, namely, the complete submission of the family to the authority of the father, and no other.
Notably, a major proponent of Colorado’s PRA was James Dobson, leader of the Colorado Springs-based Focus on the Family and a conservative Christian therapist with a PhD in child development from the University of Southern California. Ostensibly, Dr. Dobson is an expert on child rearing and was even head of pediatrics during his time at USC, yet in his book Dare to Discipline, Dobson encourages parents to spank their children with “sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.”[16] In another writing, Dobson compares the need to employ physical violence against children with the need to threaten a dog with complete and literal “destruction” for failing to obey its master. His disturbing account of beating the family dog in this manner is recounted in his book The Strong Willed Child, and casts light on two of the fundamental principles of Dominionist ideology – the need to control through fear, and the necessity of absolute obedience to authority.[17]
The extent to which these goal of Dominionism, among others, collide with the objectives set forth in the Convention can perhaps illuminate the nature of the opposition, and partly explain the longevity of the campaign against its ratification within the United States.
Addressing the Myths
Critics of the Convention have developed a unified and generally misleading array of central arguments that follow a fairly consistent theme. For example, Douglas Phillips of the National Association for Home Education has claimed that the Convention poses threats to the family which generally fall into three categories: (1) the transfer of God-given parental rights and responsibilities to the State; (2) the institutionalization of rebellion by vesting children with various fundamental rights which advance notions of the child's autonomy and freedom from parental guidance; and (3) the establishment of bureaucracies and institutions of a national and international nature designed to promote "the ideas proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations" and to investigate and prosecute parents who violate their children's rights.[18]
These assertions assume that the Convention is intended as a restraint on the actions of parents, rather than as a policy framework to limit a government’s ability to infringe on the rights of children and as a guide to the development of appropriate child welfare programs. The Convention imposes obligations on government State Parties, but does not create new rights or powers of enforcement. Additionally, under the Supremacy Clause, any provision of the Convention that conflicts with a fundamental constitutional right would not supersede the authority of the Constitution – a fact that Phillips, a constitutional attorney, might reasonably be expected to know. However, Phillips was not only a legislative attorney and director for the Home School Legal Defense Association; he was also active in congressional politics, editor of the Capitol Chronicles, and a presidential appointee to the Department of Housing and Urban Development under the second Bush administration. His father, Howard Phillips, was chairman of the Conservative Caucus, founder of the Constitution Party, and a former presidential candidate. As founder of Vision Forum Ministries, Phillips advocates for a subservient role for women, the elimination of notions of “equality” between the sexes, the rejection of public education for all children, and the restoration of a biblically-based, patriarchal society.[19] Drawing heavily from the works of Christian Reconstructionist founder R.J. Rushdoony, Phillips embraces the historical revisionism of Rushdoony’s Biblical Philosophy of History, the cornerstone of Dominionist theology.[20] It is against these religiously-extremist aspirations that “secular” goals such as equality, human rights, and individual freedom as articulated in the Convention can be interpreted as a threat to children and the “traditional” family structure.
Like Dobson, Phillips couches his criticisms of the Convention in language designed to sound reasoned and rational, yet simultaneously provocative and inflammatory. Additionally, other critics of the Convention employ consistently similar “talking points,” indicating that the arguments were being circulated internally among the organizations.[21] Misleading, vague, and even demonstrably false statements were utilized to taint the public’s perception of what the Convention would allow, and to exploit parents’ fears over improbable and outrageous hypotheticals.
In a 1995 fundraising letter from Phyllis Schlafly of Concerned Women of America, parents were warned that they could be investigated and prosecuted by a U.N.-appointed “committee of 10 experts” for violating their children’s rights under Article 43, as well as loss of their right to determine their children’s religious training.[22] No such provision or phrase appears in Article 43 or anywhere else in the Convention. Similarly, fears over compulsory sex education, secret abortions, and unauthorized access to contraceptives were exploited through rhetoric that described the Convention as “entirely statist” and “thoroughly secularist and devoted to humanist values.”[23] These labels are “code words” within the Dominionist and Reconstructionist movements, and refer to their rejection of human-developed laws and rights in favor of an interpretation that places Christians alone with a biblically-mandated right to occupy all secular and political institutions until Christ returns.[24]
Likewise, the dreaded “global education,” “multiculturalism,” and “equality for the sexes” are words used to portray aspects of the Convention as an evil government plot to subvert American youth.[25] But the dangers of adopting an international treaty were brought into the sphere of conservative politics most effectively by Pat Buchanan during his speech to the Republican convention in 1992, during which he cited abortion, homosexual rights, pornography, prayer in schools, marriage, Judeo-Christian values, and the threat of “12-year-olds suing their parents” as indicators of the steep decline and precarious position of America moral stability.[26]
While the connection between ratification of the Convention and the “culture wars” promoted by Buchanan may have appeared to be attenuated at first, the theme of danger from abroad and assaults on the family structure resonated with conservative evangelical voters and activists who were, by then, accustomed and even strongly attracted to the dominionist arguments being furthered by Buchanan and influential think tanks like the Heritage Foundation. Within the evangelical world, speakers such as David Barton of Wallbuilders, Inc. enjoy phenomenal popularity and commercial success through mass marketing a version of dominionist theology via stadium lectures, books, CD-courses and television appearances where his interpretation of American history includes the assertion that the Founding Fathers intended only Christians to rule the country.[27]
The relevance of such evangelists and their impact on the political stage could easily be dismissed as minor, if it were not for their tremendous success at influencing important legislation and political campaigns, as well as revising the platforms of entire political parties such as the GOP and Tea Party. Barton, for instance, is a former vice chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and has acted as a political consultant to the Republican National Committee.[28] He serves on the board of advisors for the National Council on Bible Curriculum in Public Schools and the Providence Foundation, a non-profit Christian educational organization that has been described as “a Christian Reconstructionist group that promotes the idea that biblical law should be instituted in America.”[29] In fact, Barton – who does not hold a theology, history, or law degree – has submitted amicus curiae briefs through his own “Specialty Research Associates” organization, in cases ranging from the constitutionality of taxes on religious entities (see, Warren v. Commission of Internal Revenue, 302 F.3d 1012 (9th Cir. 2002)) to bans on Christian student groups (see, Westside Comm’y Bd. of Ed. v. Mergens, 496 U.S. 226 (1990)), earning prominent coverage by such cable network leaders as Mike Huckabee and Glenn Beck, on whose daily Fox News show Barton enjoys frequent accolades and a central presence in the curriculum of “Beck University.”[30]
The popularity of figures such as Barton among the politically-active evangelical community cannot be underestimated, and their influence on matters of national and international law that affects families cannot be dismissed. The objections raised to the adoption of the Convention by the U.S. are not rooted in simple opposition to specific issues such as availability of contraceptives or prohibitions on spanking, but in a much broader opposition to the secular influence of non-Christian law. More specifically, the opponents of the Convention, through the aforementioned conservative groups, have attempted to block its ratification based on fear that it would thwart their stated goals of usurping the current law of the United States and supplanting it with Dominionist theonomy.
It was from this perspective of a potential threat to their future authority that opponents of the Convention argued that it was explicitly and intentionally designed to promote immorality, lawlessness, and a breakdown of society. Bill Saunders of the Family Research Council stated that, “Nearly all the evils we face can be hidden in this language [of the CRC]: Abortion, contraception as health care, pornographic sex education, abortion as a method of family planning, stigmatization of traditional religious beliefs and educational practices, and the exportation of the culture of death to the developing world.”[31] The drafters of the Convention, and particularly the Reagan State Department, would have been surprised to hear this.
Although the language of the Convention was carefully crafted to conform to U.S. law, it has been portrayed by those within the Dominionist movement as a calculated and direct attack on American families and society.[32] This language of war and violence is another hallmark of the movement, and one employed extensively in the battle to prevent ratification of the Convention. The Heritage Foundation’s Patrick Fagan, an expert on families, criticized the Convention by making a sweeping attack on the integrity of the United Nations as a whole, alleging that, “agencies within the United Nations are involved in a campaign to undermine the foundations of society – the two-parent married family, religions that espouse the primary importance of marriage and traditional sexual morality, and the legal and social structures that protect these institutions.”[33] Language in the Convention that was intended to protect innocent children born out of wedlock from social discrimination was interpreted by Fagan to constitute an assault on marriage and an attempt to “deconstruct the status” of the family.[34]
In a similar fashion, Beverly LaHaye, who headed Concerned Women for America, asserts that the Convention was a furtherance of the Clinton’s “radical legal doctrine of children’s rights” being pushed by the Children’s Defense Fund and promoted by the U.N., posing a significant threat to parental rights.[35] Beverly LaHaye is the wife of well-known author Tim LaHaye, whose Left Behind series of books and movies portray exactly the apocalyptic scenario promoted and envisioned by the Dominionist movement.[36] In LaHaye’s stories, a war is waged by a band of Christian believers known as the Tribulation Force, and the rest of the world who are “left behind” following the Rapture. Those who join forces with the Antichrist include the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, Iraq, all Muslims, the media, liberals, freethinkers, and any other poor souls who refuse to convert to the dominionist brand of “true Christianity.”[37] Quite literally tens of millions of American readers have made the Left Behind series a phenomenal marketing success, and LaHaye continues to be an icon of the evangelical movement. Disturbingly, a video game based on the Left Behind stories consists of characters who roam the country in search of converts to their Christian worldview. Those who resist or refuse to be converted are shot, murdered with absolute impunity under the new biblically-mandated version of “God’s law.”[38] GameSpot describes the game as having a peculiarly “50s-style attitude” toward gender, noting that many levels and unit classes are restricted to “male-only” characters. Females are not allowed to hold certain positions within the military, and are relegated to “domestic” and support positions.[39] PCGamer goes further in its criticism, noting extensive racial stereotypes of Arabs and blacks, and describing the game as “the very definition of bigotry, or more specifically: misogyny.”[40]
Conclusion
The influence of dominionist ideology has played a substantial role in the increasing presence of evangelical Christian values in the political sphere. By casting the Convention as a component of the culture war, its opponents have successfully prevented any meaningful progress on its implementation and likewise prevented the country from engaging in a substantive conversation as to its merits and legitimate points of controversy.
By operating “behind the scenes,” this movement has succeeded in avoiding an honest assessment of its goals and objectives as they relate to the progress America seeks to make on the important issues of child welfare through the recognition of human rights. No debate on the issue can be complete without acknowledgement of the role Dominionist theonomy plays in American politics, and on our ability to remain a credible leader on the world political stage.
[1] Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm
[2] United States Ratification of Human Rights Treaties, Human Rights Watch (July, 2009), p. 2
[3] United States Ratification of Human Rights Treaties, Human Rights Watch (July, 2009), p. 6
[4] Id., p. 5
[5] Special Spring 2006 Symposium: The Religious Right and the Opposition to U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Gunn, T. Jeremy (20 Emory Int’l Rev. 111) (Spring, 2006) p. 112
[6] Id., p.116
[7] Symposium: Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: IV: Implementation and the United States: U.S. Failure to Ratify the U.N.C.R.C.: Playing Politics with Children’s Rights, Kilbourne, Susan (6 Transnat’l L. & Contemp. Probs. 437) (Fall, 1996) p. 440
[8] Id.
[9] Full text of "Parental Rights and Responsibilities Act of 1995 : hearing before the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, One Hundred Fourth Congress, first session, on H.R. 1946 ... October 26, 1995”; p. 2
[10] Comment: The Parental Rights Movement, Lane, Linda (69 U. Colo. L. Rev. 825, 833) (1998)
[11] Id., at 825
[12] The Colorado Parental Rights Amendment: How and Why It Failed, Donovan, Patricia (Guttmacher Institute: Family Planning Perspectives, Vol.29, Number 4, July/August 1997) p. 2
[13] Finances Behind Parental Rights Amendment Disclosed, Ariton, G. (Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph, Sept. 17, 1996) p. B4
[14] The Process of Direct Democracy: Colorado’s 1996 Parental Rights Amendment, Smith, Daniel A. and Herrington, Robert J. (The Social Science Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2000) p. 183-184
[15] The Process of Direct Democracy: Colorado’s 1996 Parental Rights Amendment, Smith, Daniel A. and Herrington, Robert J. (The Social Science Journal, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2000) p. 182
[16] Dare to Discipline, Dobson, James (Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1970) p. 27
[17] James Dobson’s Intriguing Views on Beating Dogs and Spanking Children, Sunstone, Paul (Café Philos, Feb. 2009)
[18] Symposium: Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: IV: Implementation and the United States: U.S. Failure to Ratify the U.N.C.R.C.: Playing Politics with Children’s Rights, Kilbourne, Susan (6 Transnat’l L. & Contemp. Probs. 437) (Fall, 1996), p. 441
[19] Statements of Doctrine, Phillips, Douglas (Vision Forum Ministries)
http://www.visionforumministries.org/home/about/doctrine.aspx
[20] Replacing Godless Hollywood with Bible-Based “Cultural Dominion,” Ingersoll, Julie (Religion Dispatches Magazine, Oct. 25, 2010)
[21] Symposium: Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: IV: Implementation and the United States: U.S. Failure to Ratify the U.N.C.R.C.: Playing Politics with Children’s Rights, Kilbourne, Susan (6 Transnat’l L. & Contemp. Probs. 437) (Fall, 1996), p. 445
[22] Id., at 446
[23] Id., at 449
[24] Dominion Theology: The Truth About the Christian Right’s Bid for Power, Diamond, Sara
See, http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/diamond.htm
[25] The New World Order Wants Your Children, Schlafly, P. (Eagle Trust Fund, Alton, Ill.) (Mar.1993)
[26] Special Spring 2006 Symposium: The Religious Right and the Opposition to U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Gunn, T. Jeremy (20 Emory Int’l Rev. 111) (Spring, 2006), p115
[27] Dominion Theology: The Truth About the Christian Right’s Bid for Power, Diamond, Sara
See, http://www.sullivan-county.com/nf0/fundienazis/diamond.htm
[28] The Twenty-Five Most Influential Evangelicals in America, Time Magazine (Feb. 07, 2005)
[29] In Contempt of Courts, Blumenthal, Max (The Nation, Apr. 11, 2005)
[30] Summer School for Conservatives: Glenn Beck Opens Virtual University, Watson, Bruce (Daily Finance, July 7, 2010)
[31] The UN Threat to the Family: Bad Treaties Make Bad Law, Saunders, William (Family Res. Council No. 88) https://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PD02G1
[32] Symposium: Implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child: IV: Implementation and the United States: U.S. Failure to Ratify the U.N.C.R.C.: Playing Politics with Children’s Rights, Kilbourne, Susan (6 Transnat’l L. & Contemp. Probs. 437) (Fall, 1996), p. 458
[33] Special Spring 2006 Symposium: The Religious Right and the Opposition to U.S. Ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Gunn, T.J. (20 Emory Int’l Rev. 111) (Spring, 2006), p. 122
[34] Id.
[35] U.N. Rights of the Child, Concerned Women for America (Aug. 7, 1997);
see, http://www.cwfa.org/content.asp?id=19003
[36] American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, C Hedges (Free Press, 2006), p187
[37] Id.
[38] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Behind:_Eternal_Forces
[39] Id.
[40] Id.
