Letter: U.N. convention’s true aim is not to protect children

Tuesday, July 29, 1997 | 11:30 a.m.

Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Jose Ramos-Horta of East Timor made remarks to the effect that the convention is intended to emancipate children from parental authority within the home and invests them with "rights" that can be enforced against their parents.

Under the convention, if a child decides he or she has a "right" to join a street gang or a cult, for example, the parent's role would be to engage in "dialogue" rather than exercising parental authority. Under the convention, parents and children would be equal before the state -- a radical departure from the biblical world view in which children are required to honor and obey their parents to the extent that the parents honor and obey God.

More ominously, the convention would establish the legal framework for the seizure of children from parents who use their authority in an "undemocratic fashion" or practice other "unacceptable" means of discipline.

The convention is not intended to protect children, but to enhance the powers of the United Nations. Hillary Rodham Clinton, honorary chairwoman of the Children's Rights Congress, claims that "it takes a village" to raise a child. Through the convention, the new world orderites hope to become the chieftains of a global village in which the UNICEF slogan "Every child is our child" will be realized.

It is to the credit of America that it has thus far refused to enlist in this cynical and destructive enterprise.

Sharon Peterson

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