Posted on 06/05/2002 12:54:41 PM PDT by madfly
From email:
Dear Colleague,
If you have not done so yet, call the White House right now and tell them to "Un-Sign CEDAW."
(pronounced See-Daw, rhymes with Hee-Haw).
CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) is the most dangerous treaty the US has ever considered ratifying. Some call it the ERA on steroids, or the ERA with a vengeance. CEDAW seeks to drive women from the home and to drive children into day care.
CEDAW seeks to eliminate Mother's Day.
Sounds crazy, but its true.
The CEDAW committee has
Pressured China to legalize prostitution
Pressured Kyrgyzstan to legalize lesbianism
Criticized Ireland for being too Catholic
Pressured Ireland to legalize abortion
Pressued Belarus to cancel Mother's Day
Pressured Libya to reinterpret the Koran to fall within CEDAW guidelines
Some in the US government are attempting to get us to ratify this treaty.
This must be stopped.
Right now, as we speak, the Bush Administration is determining its position on CEDAW. You can affect that position by calling the White House and saying, "Un-Sign CEDAW." (Rhymes with Hee-Haw). The number is
202-456-1111. They are waiting for your call.
Do it now!
And for added impact, email Secretary of State Colin Powell at
secretary@state.gov
and write, "Mr. Secretary, Un-Sign CEDAW."
Do these things right now.
THEY are deciding.
WE can stop the radicals right in their tracks.
Do it.
Call the White House at 202-456-1111 and email the Secretary of State at secretary@state.gov and tell them "Un-Sign CEDAW."
And tell all your friends. SPREAD THE WORD.
Yours sincerely,
Austin Ruse
President
C-FAM
Responding to Helms' remarks, Sen. Boxer agreed with him that the United States "is, in fact, a leader of human rights" and "should be in the leadership and out front on this issue." However, Sen. Boxer asserted that the inability to even bring CEDAW to the Senate floor, much less to ratify it, was an "embarrassment" that "takes away our ability to lead for equal rights for women." She added that it was a "disgrace that we are not a party to this treaty" because, "since 1981, when it entered into force, it has had a positive impact on the countries that have signed it."
Regardless of your religious beliefs, this is a bad Treaty!
Please document this claim, if possible. Also, why just China? What about Russia, France, America?
The effect of the Optional Protocol is likely to be even more harmful in the developing world. During negotiations on the Optional Protocol, it was poignant to hear from African delegates and NGOs who believed that the Optional Protocol would help eliminate truly oppressive economic and cultural practices which often leave women at the mercy of unmerciful men. However, it is far more likely that the complaint process will be commandeered by well-funded, international NGOs with narrow mandates to promote abortion or homosexual rights - both of which are offensive to most African cultures.Ultimately, individual freedom - for both men and women - is better served by keeping power close to home. Sovereignty and rights to self-determination are as important to women as to men. The Optional Protocol to CEDAW attempts, more than any previous protocol, to limit sovereign rights, and will impinge on freedom and fundamental rights if applied as urged by the CEDAW Committee.
This article was written by Babette Francis, National & Overseas Coordinator of Endeavour Forum Inc. and Kathryn Balmforth, Director of the World Family Policy Centre, Brigham Young University, both of whom attended the 43rd Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women meetings in New York in March 1999.
Helms bump. Look alive, once Giddy is in this will be the last time that you see conservative leadership of ANY sort from this state for years to come
I would do far more than not ratify this treaty. I would treat it as the asinine foray into what does not concern the UN, that it so obviously is. It deserves ridicule. It deserves contempt. It must never be treated seriously. When we end up debating whether life has a purpose, as an issue of State, we have crossed the line between the rational and mad.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
Well, at one tony private school in New York City, a homosexual man persuaded the school to drop any mention or celebration of Mother's Day - why - because, he claimed, it was 'discriminatory' and unfair to homosexual parents. These people won't stop until any mention of or reverence for the traditional family has been removed from the public sphere. Truly, it is they who are the prejudiced and bigoted.
This is an interesting quote from the original site.
The Committee reproached Slovenia because less than 30% of children under three years of age were in formal day care. In 1999 the Committee instructed Kyrgysztan to legalize lesbianism.
The Seattle Times ran an article a few months ago, decrying the fact that a large percentage of Washington's pre-school age children were in the care of family members and friends, rather than formal daycare. I just left the rest of the quote in there because it seemed so outrageous.
Few Americans realize that in 1971 the state of Nevada passed legislation allowing certain counties to legalize prostitution. Coincidentally, Nevada has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the country. Prostitution is becoming increasingly tolerated around the world and is legal in Australia, Austria, Germany, Greece, Holland and Singapore. Former President Clinton even tried to decriminalize consensual prostitution during negotiations last year over an international organized crime treaty.
Advocates of legalized prostitution employ an argument similar to that used by proponents of legalized abortion: Prostitution should be legalized so that the state can regulate it and, hence, “protect” women from STD's and unscrupulous pimps. In other words, women around the world will be better off once prostitution is legalized. For this reason, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), a UN vassalage, has led the way in the recent push to decriminalize prostitution.
The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination entered into force as an international treaty on 3 September 1981. One hundred sixty–seven countries have ratified the treaty. Former president Jimmy Carter signed CEDAW in 1980, but under the articles of the U.S. Constitution, two–thirds of the U.S. Senate must approve the treaty for it to become law. Fortunately, the Senate has not yet ratified CEDAW, making the United States the only developed country in the world not to do so. “Why has CEDAW, the Convention of Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, never been ratified?,” asks Sen. Jesse Helms (R–N.C.), chairman of the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. “Because it is a bad treaty; it is a terrible treaty negotiated by radical feminists with the intent of enshrining their radical anti–family agenda into international law.”
The following CEDAW pronouncements confirm Sen. Helms' position:
To China: “The Committee is concerned that prostitution, which is often a result of poverty and economic deprivation, is illegal in China. The Committee recommends decriminalization of prostitution.”
To Greece: “While noting positively the fact that prostitution is decriminalized and instead is dealt with in a regulatory manner, the Committee is concerned that inadequate structures exist to ensure compliance…”
To Liechtenstein: “The Committee recommends…that a review be made of the law relating to prostitution to ensure that prostitutes are not penalized.”
CEDAW's concern for the rights of “working-women” is complemented by a virtual smear campaign against motherhood:
To Armenia: “The Committee strongly urged the Government to use the education system and the electronic media to combat the traditional stereotype of women 'in the noble role of mother.'”
To Belarus: “The Committee is concerned by the continuing prevalence of sex–role stereotypes and by the reintroduction of such symbols as Mother's Day and a Mother's Award, which it sees as encouraging women's traditional roles.” CEDAW also condemned legislation in Georgia that “overemphasizes the role of women as mothers…[and] promotes the role of man as breadwinner.” CEDAW admonished Croatia and the Czech Republic for similar reasons.
To Ireland: “The Committee expresses its concern about the continuing existence, in article 41.2 of the Irish Constitution, of concepts that reflect a stereotypical view of the role of women in the home and as mothers.” Article 41.2 states that “the state shall, therefore, endeavor to ensure that mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labor to the neglect of their duties in the home.”
Such statements are all the more striking when one considers that CEDAW obligates its members to, “take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to suppress all forms of traffic in women and exploitation of prostitution of women.” Similarly, CEDAW mandates that “adoption by States Parties of special measures, including those measures contained in the present Convention, aimed at protecting maternity shall not be considered discriminatory.” Article 25 of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights also affirms that “motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance.” Apparently, the countries chastised above, having taken CEDAW and the UN at their word, were never informed of the true intent of the treaty.
So, what is CEDAW's intent? As alluded to by Sen. Helms, CEDAW is part of the radical feminists' attack on femininity and part of the UN's ongoing war against the family, private property and liberty. The philosopher Plato provides a more detailed response.
In his most famous work, The Republic, Plato's Socrates describes what seems to be a perfectly just city. Socrates shocks his listeners by proposing that the rulers of the city, a class known as the guardians, share “all things in common.” Socrates makes this proposal because, from the point–of–view of the city — as well as the United Nations — unity is the greatest good. Perfect justice, in other words, requires absolute communism. Socrates introduces communism into the city, not by confiscating the citizens' property, but by proposing that the female guardians perform the same tasks as their male counterparts. If women are to do the same work as men, they must necessarily receive the same education. Most important, the women must be trained in the art of war, for the defense of the city is the first duty of the guardians. Prowess in war requires physical fitness. Now, in much of Greece men ordinarily exercised in the nude. Socrates' proposal thus requires that men and women exercise naked together. Socrates grants that all manner of inconveniences will arise from such a practice, but conventional resistance to coed, nude gymnastics must be overcome.
Plato, here, wants his readers to reflect on whether Socrates' scheme is reasonable — or even possible. One can imagine that the male guardians, as well as Socrates' audience of virile young men, might gladly go along with such a program. The female guardians, on the other hand, might take more convincing. What is at issue is whether feminine modesty is natural. Socrates overcomes the opposition by arguing that the only real difference between men and women is that women bear children and men beget children. This distinction, Socrates argues, is as irrelevant as that which differentiates bald shoemakers from hairy shoemakers.
Having convinced his audience that men and women are essentially the same, Socrates logically concludes that the nuclear family must be abolished in favor of a community of wives and children. Marriages — temporary unions lasting only as long as is necessary to conceive — are strictly regulated by the city. Any “unplanned” pregnancies are to be aborted or abandoned at birth. In turn, since the guardians will have no families to care for, all property will be held in common.
The utter absurdity of Socrates' “city” led a long tradition of thinkers to conclude that The Republic is a satire meant to demonstrate the limits of political power. Unfortunately, not everyone caught on. Impervious to Socrates' irony, the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision cited The Republic as proof that “most Greek thinkers… commended abortion.” Similarly, the advocates of “global governance” seem to have adopted The Republic as their model.
Easy access to contraception and abortion has made it possible for society to overcome the stumbling block of feminine fertility that made Socrates' ideal regime impossible. Women who are not concerned about conceiving a child have no practical reason to be chaste. Women who no longer want to bear children, from a political and economic point–of–view, are virtually equal to their male counterparts. It is in the state's best interests that such women enter the workplace, abort any “unplanned” babies, leaving the rest behind in federally subsidized daycare centers and schools, and spend their lives as “productive” citizens.
For CEDAW, like Socrates, femininity and its necessary counterpart, fertility, are irrelevant. As the old dirge goes, “biology is not determinative.” Suppose, however, that CEDAW is wrong? Instead of creating a Marxist paradise, CEDAW will have helped found a playboy wonderland.
CEDAW betrayed the world's women, and its own charter, as soon as it began to treat immodesty as a virtue and fertility as a disease. If CEDAW were truly concerned with the rights of women, it would be urging the United Nations to reward, instead of punish, countries like Belarus and Ireland who are trying to safeguard femininity by requiring fathers to provide for their families and children to honor their mothers.
As communism requires the destruction of family life, a free regime depends upon the integrity and coherence of the marital bond. Physically stronger, men are ultimately responsible for creating the conditions in which women may freely choose to be chaste. The medieval notion of chivalry is grounded in this reality. Men can no longer condone — and participate in — the subversion of feminine modesty. Married men must devote themselves with zeal to the care and comfort of their wives and children. Single men must shield themselves, their sisters and their girlfriends from impurity. The very preservation of our nation's liberty requires such self–restraint, virtue, and — yes, boys — chastity. It is time true patriots and real men led the way.
More women's rights advocates are beginning to believe that attaining their rights is not exclusively a women's project-that they need to help create "a more productive and humane future rights for everyone." Women's claims of the universality of full citizenship rights is easily lost in the local cultural or national identity. To win their equality, some women believe that international human rights law takes precedence over domestic law, that Muslim women's rights will not be won on the local level. Other women believe that direct advocacy of universal human rights will not work because most people do not want it, at least when it is incompatible with their cultural traditions and mindset. But nations have shown that they want to publicly claim support of these goals for the public relations value even if the reality is something altogether different.
Public response to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) provides an interesting picture of where countries actually stand on equal rights issues and the strategies they use to bypass the provisions of this treaty. Ann Elizabeth Mayer looks at the rhetorical strategies that proclaim support for women's rights which often do just the opposite in practice. She calls them "the new world hypocrisy." CEDAW is an international treaty whose text was finalized in 1979. Although many countries have either ratified or acceded to the treaty, they have employed various strategies to circumvent its provisions.
Most strategies used to circumvent this treaty are arguments seen in the public sector at large concerning human rights, building upon the argument that higher unalterable laws than the treaty are in effect. As we have seen, the traditional texts of Islam are sacred. Although Muslim countries have tended to ratify the treaty, they accompany their ratification with reservations, which is allowed under international law. However, the reservations are not supposed to be incompatible with the purpose of the treaty. Many women believe that Muslim countries have tried to enjoy the good public relations of attending ratification, without the intent of honoring its provisions. For example, in response to Article 16 which provides for equality of men and women in all matters of marriage, divorce and family relations during marriage, Egypt's 1981 reservations stated that it had to adhere to shari'a which would also ensure a "just balance" and "complementarity" between the genders, that the husband would pay bridal money upon marriage and a payment in the event of divorce, the women retained full rights over her property and did not have to maintain her keep, and a judge had to rule on a wife's bid for a divorce, but not the husband's. However, the issue of "complementarity" is overruled by Article 5 which calls for the elimination of stereotyped roles.
Egypt's reservations are based upon old shari'a laws that are assumed to be the final authority. Yet, no national consensus has confirmed that shari'a laws are even represented by Egypt's current personal status laws. The result is that observers do not want to disrespect religious differences, and therefore, the reservations have been allowed to stand. Morocco made similar reservations in 1993 to the provisions of Article 16 that Egypt had made, again appealing to the authority of shari'a. However, after just a few months, Morocco changed its shari'a-based personal status code and allowed some of the provisions which had concerned its earlier dissent. The ability of the country to change its shari'a is just the point. The laws have never been immutable and have changed over the centuries according to the needs of day. Mayer believes their changeability is what negates the appeal to their authority.
The United States never did ratify CEDAW, nor did it ratify its own Equal Rights Amendment. Conservatives like the late Senator Sam Ervin appealed to the law of nature, saying that the treaty "made men and women into identical legal beings with the same rights and subject to the same responsibilities." The higher law cited by American opponents was not religious but secular. Ratification could violate the US Constitution which requires that family law be deferred to the states. The US does not allow its constitution to be judged by international standards.
Our forefathers deliberately wrote a document that is difficult to change, based on the fact that the United States is a republic rather than a democracy. The elaborate checks and balances protected the new republic against the undue influence of any one interest group. The most potentially dangerous faction of all-the majority-was designed to be controlled by the sovereign states. It is this type of local and national textual restrictions that pose the greatest problems for women seeking international solutions. Mayer believes that state law must be brought into conformity with international laws that guarantee universal human rights.
The Vatican's appeal to higher authority was to that of church tradition and it also appealed to nature. It then introduced another rhetorical strategy into the international cauldron. It dissociated the concept of equality into two spheres-one abstract and one practical. Women were to be equal in dignity, if not in rights. That way, the Pope could maintain the abstract equality of women while he denied the practical issues of that very equality. Often, the use of the appeal to authority is executed when agreement on the issue at hand is in danger of being debated. All the writers of Faith & Freedom would agree that this is what is happening in fundamentalist Islamic regimes throughout the Middle East today. Feminists are working diligently to replace shari'a-based laws with international laws guaranteeing human rights to all.
U.N. COMMITTEES TAKE AIM AT FAMILY STRUCTURE AND MORALITY, ANALYST SAYS
WASHINGTON, Feb. 05 2001—The United Nations has long affirmed that nations have a right to determine their own cultural norms and practices, claiming no authority to “intervene in matters … essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.” Yet it regularly attacks those that uphold traditional views on sexual morality and the family, a new Heritage Foundation paper says.Indeed, the world body makes numerous demands of governments that have signed and ratified the Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). It wants them to legalize prostitution, make abortion a “demand right” protected by international and national law, de-emphasize the role of mothers, diminish parental authority, and challenge religious rules and customs that impede efforts to create “a new countercultural agenda,” writes Patrick Fagan, Heritage’s William H.G. FitzGerald fellow in family and cultural issues.
The demands, according to Fagan, come from implementing committees that evaluate compliance by nations that have ratified the treaties. President Clinton signed the CRC but not the CEDAW, and the Senate has ratified neither, so the United States doesn’t receive reports from the implementing committees. But some frustrated nations, such as Australia, now formally refuse to implement the U.N. recommendations, Fagan says.
One committee report chided Germany, which has legalized prostitution, because “although they are legally obliged to pay taxes, prostitutes still do not enjoy the protection of labor and social law.”
Other reports have lambasted Ireland because abortions are not widely available there. (As Fagan notes, Irish voters have twice turned down referenda to legalize abortion.) And Italy and Croatia are excoriated because abortions prove hard to come by in some areas—areas where most doctors are Catholic and refuse to perform them for reasons of conscience.
Another report criticized the former Soviet republic of Georgia for “the prevalence of stereotyped roles of women in government policies, in the family, in public life based on patterns of behavior and attitudes that overemphasize the role of women as mothers.” One report even criticized the observance of Mother’s Day as “disturbing.”
One U.N. committee told Indonesia of its “great concern about existing social, religious and cultural norms that recognize men as the head of the family and breadwinner and confine women to the roles of mother and wife.” Another urged Libya to “reinterpret the country’s religious laws and scripture,” in the hopes that it would encourage other Islamic governments to do the same.
All this from an organization that, in its “Universal Declaration on Human Rights,” calls the family “the natural and fundamental group unit of society,” one that is “entitled to protection by society and the state,” Fagan says.
There’s more. In advancing what Fagan calls an international feminist agenda, the committees deride “stay-at-home” moms and dismiss the two-parent family as outmoded. This, Fagan says, despite mounting social science evidence that the best way to raise healthy, well-adjusted children is in married, two-parent families who worship regularly. “Children in such families do much better, particularly when mothers stay home while their children are young,” Fagan says. “They enjoy better incomes and greater health, and experience far less crime, addiction and abuse.”
Thanks to CEDAW and CRC, the United Nations has reversed itself on other basic principles as well, Fagan says. Its Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.” Yet it urges states to give minor children a “right to privacy,” even in the household; a right to professional counseling without parental consent or guidance; a right to abortion and contraceptives, regardless of their parents’ desires; a right to full freedom of expression at home and at school; and the legal mechanisms to challenge parental authority in court.
And in its zeal to advance the interests of career women, the United Nations constantly pushes states to boost government-managed daycare, despite overwhelming polling data that women prefer to either stay home or have family members care for their children, and social science research showing children in daycare fare worse intellectually, emotionally and socially compared with stay-at-home peers, Fagan says.
To this end, the United Nations has: criticized Slovenia for having only 30 percent of children three years old or younger in formal daycare, warned Germany that measures aimed at reconciling family and work only entrench stereotypical expectations for women and men, and told Colombia that it must set up child-care centers and training programs to “improve the status of working women.”
The U.N. recommendations on prostitution illustrate its goal of “decoupling the reproductive act from marriage,” Fagan says. The CEDAW committees regularly recommend that prostitution be legalized, regulated and elevated to a profession, with full protection of labor law and social benefits. They say that countries anxious about the social effects of prostitution should focus on eliminating the “feminization of poverty,” indicating that—in their view—monetary worries trump concerns about the exploitation of women.
President Bush and Congress can take several steps to counter the anti-family agenda, Fagan says. For one, they can make it clear that the United States will neither ratify the CRC nor sign the CEDAW. They can introduce legislation to ensure U.S. parents have the highest legal protection for their own authority. They can urge other nations to refuse to cooperate with U.N. directives that would undermine their sovereignty. And, Fagan says, they can determine annually whether U.N. agencies deserve the funding they get from the United States.
U.N. bureaucrats are at it again, critics say — this time with a plan for an international treaty on women's rights.
So what's wrong with the idea of guaranteeing women equal rights? It's all in the fine print, according to opponents of the agreement who see it as an attempt by the U.N. to interfere with domestic U.S. politics.
"This committee has reprimanded Mexico for having a lack of access to easy and swift abortion, has reprimanded Luxembourg for 'promoting a stereotype of men being the breadwinners of families,'" said Wendy Wright of the Concerned Women for America, a Washington-based activist group. "It's like the Equal Rights Amendment on steroids."
The United States is currently considering ratifying the treaty, so the U.S. Senate could hold hearings on the matter within the next week. It will be discussed under its formal name, the Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Those who want the treaty passed say it's nothing more sinister than a genuine effort to give women the rights they deserve, especially in the developing world.
"The right to healthcare, the right to education, the right to participate effectively in political decision making, the right to property and the right to vote … These are the fundamental human rights," said Leila Milani of the Coalition for Equal Rights.
Opponents of the treaty are particularly irked by the way it would be enforced. A committee will periodically sit at the United Nations with every state that has signed on and lean on those it thinks aren't moving fast or far enough.
Some American critics gripe loudest at what they call the convention's pro-abortion tone.
"It reprimanded Italy for allowing doctors to not participate in abortions out of conscientious objections," said Wright, "so this treaty goes far beyond the idea of trying to stop discrimination against women."
As far as this treaty is concerned, the word family planning does not include abortion. And this treaty is abortion-neutral.
The State Department has not voiced any objections to the treaty, and the Bush White House has remained silent on it. But that may change, with both sides hoping the Senate hearings will force the administration to take a stand.
This was back in the late part of 2000 to May of 2001 I think.
C:\WINDOWS\WEB\source.htm
Several of Boxer's colleagues echoed her calls for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold hearings on CEDAW. Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) called CEDAW "an important human rights document that is largely consistent with the existing state and federal laws of the United States." The "failure to ratify [CEDAW]," according to Kerry, "has encouraged criticism from allies who cannot understand our refusal to uphold rights that are already found within the provisions of our own Constitution." Following Kerry, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) said that, "of the world's democracies, only the United States has yet to ratify this fundamental document." And in so doing, "we risk losing our moral right to lead on human rights." Yet, "by ratifying CEDAW, we reestablish our credentials as a leader on human rights and women's rights."Also urging action on CEDAW were Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Russell D. Feingold (D-WI) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). Senator Murray proclaimed, "it is time that we as a Senate hear what is involved and have a chance to get testimony…It would be a great step forward." Senator Feingold urged the Senate to "fulfill its constitutional responsibility to offer its advice and consent on this treaty." And Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) pointed out that the United States "took an active role in drafting the treaty," and therefore, "it is past time for the United States to ratify it as well."
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