Here is another article from that Republican distribution list concerning the United Nations; and what the Clinton administration has been signing the American people up for...
U.S. wages war on family
Kathryn Balmforth
washtimes.com
Anyone wanting to understand the Clinton administration's true social
agenda should spend some time watching the United States negotiate at the
United Nations. The documents being negotiated are intended to shape
international law, and international law is intruding, to a greater and
greater degree, into the domestic arena. Nevertheless, there are few
spectators and very little press coverage of United Nations proceedings.
Most Americans ignore the United Nations. Consequently, the Clinton State
Department feels free to take positions it would never openly espouse to
the American public.
For example, during the same week in 1996 that Bill Clinton was signing
the Defense of Marriage Act, telling the American people he believed that
marriage should be heterosexual, his State Department was at the United
Nations Habitat Conference in Istanbul promoting language which would have
required legal recognition of homosexual marriage.
Last year, after the Columbine tragedy, Mr. Clinton was publicly calling
on parents to exercise more control over their teen-age children.
Simultaneously, however, U.S. diplomats negotiating at the United Nations
"Cairo" conference were systematically trying to dismantle the legal
framework of parental rights which allows parents to exercise such
control.
The U.S. performance at last week's Beijing women's conference was another
example of the Clinton administration's two-faced approach to social
policy at the United Nations.
During the final hours of negotiations, debate opened on language calling
for efforts to strengthen the family, the fundamental unit of society. The
proposal rested on solid data showing that breakup of the family
overwhelmingly leads to the impoverishment of women, and that little girls
are safest from abuse and exploitation when they live in an intact family.
But the United States immediately proposed an amendment calling not for
"stronger families," but for government "support" (read "welfare") for
poor families. The United States also proposed language allowing for
alternative "families," such as homosexual couples. When the United States
failed to win support for its amendment, the delegation called for total
deletion of the pro-family language. It was deleted.
As tenaciously as Mr. Clinton's State Department resisted any positive
reference to the family throughout the Beijing negotiations, it was
equally tenacious in resisting any negative reference to prostitution.
During the negotiations, the United States continually maneuvered to avoid
explicit condemnation of prostitution, pornography, and even pedophilia.
When asked for an explanation of his delegation's pro-prostitution stance,
one U.S. diplomat claimed it was taken out of deference to countries whose
laws permit prostitution. The United States showed no such deference,
however, to countries whose laws prohibit homosexual behavior, pushing
aggressively for a provision calling for repeal of all such laws.
The United States also promoted unlimited "sexual rights," even for
minors, and for increased sex education and access to "reproductive health
services"" meaning contraception and abortion for youngsters. At the same
time, however, the United States resisted any mention of the right of
parents to guide the upbringing of their children in these matters.
While the official Clinton position when speaking to the folks at home is
that abortion should be "safe, legal and rare," the United States pushed
hard at the United Nations for expansion of "access" to abortion, which
can only be a call for more abortion. The United States called for more
abortionists, by increasing "training" for abortion, without allowing for
doctors' "rights of conscience." The United States also supported veiled
language aimed at making unfettered abortion a "human right," which would
override national sovereignty and laws.
Last, but certainly not least, the United States called for universal
ratification of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms Against
Women, or CEDAW, a treaty which the United States itself has not ratified.
On this point, at least, the Clinton administration is consistent when
speaking to Americans, having lobbied openly for U.S. ratification of
CEDAW. CEDAW is the most potent international anti-family weapon currently
in effect. It is a binding instrument which calls for government intrusion
into all facets of life, no matter how private, consensual, or even
sacred.
The leftist spin emanating from the Beijing negotiations blamed a handful
of developing nations and the Holy See for blocking negotiations, and
smeared those delegations as anti-woman. In truth, the stumbling block was
the persistent focus by the Clinton administration and its allies on
undoing the traditional family and creating controversial "rights" that
don't enjoy popular support even in the United States, and which are
completely immaterial to most women of the developing world.
In the end, the most radical proposals put forward by the United States
and its allies were defeated by a coalition of developing world nations
who stood up to the Western powers. In the end, they grew stronger and
gathered more support, and the United States capitulated. Ironically,
these nations actually won a victory, not only for themselves, but for the
majority of the American people who still believe in the family, and the
traditional morality which supports it. |
