International law–law not passed or ratified by any United States governmental body–is sometimes being used to decide cases in the United States. Generally conservative justices are against that and moderate to liberal ones are for it. Regardless of the outcome of cases where international law was taken into consideration, Justice Scalia’s observation that such cherry-picking of what laws to consider is so open to manipulation is advice well given, and hopefully well taken.

However, if you think that such decisions will generally be made on strictly the larger constitutional issues, you’d be wrong. Increasingly, the weight of international law is being felt right in the home.

A home schooling association is warning that the U.S., and even more so other countries, faces the threat that home schooling may be deemed illegal due to international law.

The Home School Legal Defense Association’s (HSLDA) Chairman and General Counsel, Michael Farris, warns that even though the U.S. has never ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the convention may still be binding on citizens because of activist judges.

According to a new “interpretation” of what is known as “customary international law,” some U.S. judges have ruled that, even though the U.S. Senate and President have never ratified the Convention, it is still binding on American parents. “In the 2002 case of Beharry v. Reno, one federal court said that even though the Convention was never ratified, it still has an ‘impact on American law’,” Farris explained. “The fact that virtually every other nation in the world has adopted it has made it part of customary international law, and it means that it should be considered part of American jurisprudence.”

Under the Convention, severe limitations are placed on a parent’s right to direct and train their children. As explained in a 1993 Home School Court Report by the HSLDA, under Article 13, parents could be subject to prosecution for any attempt to prevent their children from interacting with material they deemed unacceptable. Under Article 14, children are guaranteed “freedom of thought, conscience and religion” – in other words, children have a legal right to object to all religious training. And under Article 15, the child has a right to “freedom of association.” “If this measure were to be taken seriously, parents could be prevented from forbidding their child to associate with people deemed to be objectionable companions,” the HSLDA report explained.

Judges, it seems, are now the arbiters of what should and shouldn’t be law. But a judge that makes a ruling in a case based on law that the citizens’ representatives have rejected does so without giving the citizens any possible recourse. We can then be judged based on rules we have not the slightest influence in creating. How in the world is that government of the people and by the people? It is a further step away from our representative republic and towards a judicial tyranny; whoever controls the judges makes the rules.

And what sort of things can come from the innocuous-sounding “United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”?

Farris explains that, in 1995, “the United Kingdom was deemed out of compliance” with the Convention “because it allowed parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes without consulting the child”. Farris argues that, “by the same reasoning, parents would be denied the ability to homeschool their children unless the government first talked with their children and the government decided what was best. This committee would even have the right to determine what religious teaching, if any, served the child’s best interest.”

I’m quite glad that Sandra Day O’Connor is no longer a part of the Supreme Court.

“I suspect,” O’Connor said, according to the Atlanta daily, “that over time we will rely increasingly, or take notice at least increasingly, on international and foreign courts in examining domestic issues.”

Doing so, she added, “may not only enrich our own country’s decisions, I think it may create that all important good impression.”

Because, as Bush’s critics keep insisting, it’s more important to have the rest of the world love us. Justice for Americans, and for the new republic of Iran, takes a back seat. Way back.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out and Blogger News Network. Comments welcome.)

How did the media treat an historically accurate portrayal of Christianity vs. a movie that accuses Christianity of being false? The Media Research Center runs the numbers (either in short summary form or the full report with charts and details) in their report “The Trashing of the Christ”.

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty has their own PowerBlog worth keeping track of (and a semi-occasional podcast). I missed this last week (my blog reading got way behind), but it’s a good one; the Myth of Aid.

Why do we continually think that throwing money at a problem solves it? Acton highlights their efforts to bust the myth as well as ABC’s John Stossel. Often the money simply buttresses corrupt governments and reinforces the bad policies they inflict on their people. We should be more concerned with bringing capitalism to these countries rather than encouraging graft (think “Oil-for-Food”).

Agree wholeheartedly.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Sunday he believes journalists can be prosecuted for publishing classified information, citing an obligation to national security.

The nation’s top law enforcer also said the government will not hesitate to track telephone calls made by reporters as part of a criminal leak investigation, but officials would not do so routinely and randomly.

“There are some statutes on the book which, if you read the language carefully, would seem to indicate that that is a possibility,” Gonzales said, referring to prosecutions. “We have an obligation to enforce those laws. We have an obligation to ensure that our national security is protected.”

Because it’s not up to reporters to decide what’s secret enough and what isn’t. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be convicted, of course. The courts get to decide these issues. However, bringing them up on charges is very reasonable, and it’s not a First Amendment issue, especially if it turns out they did harm national security.

Congratulations to Iraq on their official new government.

Comparisons of the Iranian regime to Nazi Germany just got more legitimacy.

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country’s Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

“This is reminiscent of the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.”

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical “standard Islamic garments.”

The law, which must still be approved by Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

“There’s no reason to believe they won’t pass this,” said Rabbi Hier. “It will certainly pass unless there’s some sort of international outcry over this.”

And guess who’s been a big sponsor of this?

The new law was drafted two years ago, but was stuck in the Iranian parliament until recently when it was revived at the behest of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

And the official line is “no comment”.

A spokesman for the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa refused to comment on the measures. “This is nothing to do with anything here,” said a press secretary who identified himself as Mr. Gharmani.

“We are not here to answer such questions.”

The question before the world now is whether history will repeat itself. Is there a diplomatic solution to this? Consider how often Ahmadinejad has been slamming those doors and upping the ante, both in rhetoric and now in legislation.

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre has written to Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, protesting the Iranian law and calling on the international community to bring pressure on Iran to drop the measure.

“The world should not ignore this,” said Rabbi Hier. “The world ignored Hitler for many years — he was dismissed as a demagogue, they said he’d never come to power — and we were all wrong.”

Mr. Farber said Canada and other nations should take action to isolate Mr. Ahmadinejad in light of the new law, which he called “chilling,” and his previous string of anti-Semitic statements.

“There are some very frightening parallels here,” he said. “It’s time to start considering how we’re going to deal with this person.”

Mr. Ahmadinejad has repeatedly described the Holocaust as a myth and earlier this year announced Iran would host a conference to re-examine the history of the Nazis’ “Final Solution.”

He has caused international outrage by publicly calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map.”

Outrage, yes, but has that done anything constructive? There are still steps we can take short of war to try to force the issue, but no one has the guts to take them yet. Just issue another report and have another vote and go home thinking you’ve done something. It’s time for action on Iran. The longer we wait, the more strenuous the action must be to make a difference.

But remember that the Left in this country was outraged just over sanctions. Ahmadinejad may be counting on such allies to keep the wolves at bay until he has a nuclear club to threaten them with. And if America doesn’t put its weight behind such sanctions, they’re highly unlikely to work.

It may be time to choose your weapon. Continuing to watch 1940s Germany replay right before our eyes shouldn’t be an option.

UPDATE: A short history of religous markers can be found on Redstate.

UPDATE PART DEUX: Looks like the story wasn’t true after all. Hot Air has the details, step by step as the truth came out. My commentary on why we need to take real action against Iran, however, still stands, regardless of whether or not people are being tagged.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

“The Da Vinci Code” is a work of fiction, right? Right, but it’s based on a series of “facts”, many of which have been debunked. Thus it winds up leaving to the reader where to draw the line as to where fact stops and the fiction begins, even when dealing with Brown’s “facts”.

The results, then, are not surprising.

Reuters:

“The Da Vinci Code” has undermined faith in the Roman Catholic Church and badly damaged its credibility, a survey of British readers of Dan Brown’s bestseller showed on Tuesday.

People are now twice as likely to believe Jesus Christ fathered children after reading the Dan Brown blockbuster and four times as likely to think the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei is a murderous sect.

“An alarming number of people take its spurious claims very seriously indeed,” said Austin Ivereigh, press secretary to Britain’s top Catholic prelate Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor.

“Our poll shows that for many, many people the Da Vinci Code is not just entertainment,” Ivereigh added.

The Edmonton Journal:

Almost one in five Canadians believe that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross was faked and that he married and had a family, according to a new poll that challenges the cornerstone Christian belief in the resurrection.

Albertans were most likely to accept The Da Vinci Code’s premise, with 22 per cent reporting they believe in a hoax.

It is true that this book and movie will also cause people to look more closely at the Bible to find the truth, but I believe it will mostly be those who would already be skeptical of Brown’s book. But the price at which this is bought–the further distancing from the truth those who haven’t made up their mind–seems too high for a Christian to stomach. Saying “it’s just fiction” doesn’t answer the problem. Saying “I wasn’t fooled” ignores the problem. Saying “only the foolish will be fooled” condemns the uneducated and ignorant (something Jesus wouldn’t do).

The reason Christians need to make a noise about this is because the truth is being muddled to the point that people are being led away from the truth under the guise of a work that, while covered by the fig leaf of the label “historical fiction”, blurs the line between “historical” and “fiction” so profoundly that a significant number of people can’t tell the difference.

If someone wrote a “historical fiction” novel about the the battle of Gettysburg with as many problems with the facts as “The Da Vinci Code” has, it would be rightly panned by Civil War historians. It wouldn’t change their minds as to the truth of what happened during that battle, but they would be properly concerned that the general public, who didn’t have the same information they do nor necessarily the inclination to research it, would tend to believe it. They would try to convince people to stay away from such a movie. No one would blame them. It should be the same for the response you’re hearing from many churches (sans any calls for banning books or movies).

And with “The Da Vinci Code”, there’s far more at stake than simple historical accuracy. There’s eternity to consider.

UPDATE: In case you still think that Dan Brown’s motive is purely entertainment, consider this quote from an interview on CNN (emphasis mine):

SAVIDGE: Obviously, you were just looking at the Last Supper there. When we talk about da Vinci and your book, how much is true and how much is fabricated in your storyline?

BROWN: 99 percent of it is true. All of the architecture, the art, the secret rituals, the history, all of that is true, the Gnostic gospels. All of that is — all that is fiction, of course, is that there’s a Harvard symbologist named Robert Langdon, and all of his action is fictionalized. But the background is all true.

This is a book meant to persuade under the guise of entertainment.

(Cross-posted at Stones Cry Out, Blogger News Network and Redstate. Comments welcome.)

Josh Trevino’s “basic plea for basic decency” on the web is called Online Integrity. The main points of the effort are:

• Private persons are entitled to respect for their privacy regardless of their activities online. This includes respect for the non-public nature of their personal contact information, the inviolability of their homes, and the safety of their families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted. The separateness of private persons’ professional lives should also be respected as much as is reasonable.
• Public figures are entitled to respect for the non-public nature of their personal, non-professional contact information, and their privacy with regard to their homes and families. No information which might lead others to invade these spaces should be posted.
• Persons seeking anonymity or pseudonymity online should have their wishes in this regard respected as much as is reasonable. Exceptions include cases of criminal, misleading, or intentionally disruptive behavior.
• Violations of these principles should be met with a lack of positive publicity and traffic.

A worthy, bipartisan effort to help clear the air and keep the conversation civil.

This blog is a signatory.

Today’s Odd “Considerettes” Search Phrase – how can I e-mail power rangers time force e-mail addresses [#6 on Yahoo! Search]

This is another one of those strange click-throughs. Given what they’re asking for, and given the excerpt of the blog that Yahoo showed, I have no idea why someone clicked on it. But thanks for stopping by!

Georgia Same-Sex Marriage Amendment Update: Haven’t had one of these in over a year. Judge Russell has made her ruling.

A judge has struck down Georgia’s ban on same-sex marriages, saying the measure that was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2004 violated the state constitution’s single-subject rule for ballot questions.

“Procedural safeguards such as the single-subject rule rarely enjoy public support,” Fulton County Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell wrote. “But, ultimately it is those safeguards that preserve our liberties, because they ensure that the actions of government are constrained by the rule of law.”

Activists had long awaited Russell’s ruling in their court challenge, which was originally filed in November 2004, soon after the constitutional ban was approved in that year’s general election.

The “single-subject rule” being referred to is the law that states constitutional amendments must deal with a single subject. Critics of the amendment said that the wording constituted two subject; defining what marriage was, and banning same-sex marriage & civil unions. Judge Russell applied it another way.

In her ruling, Russell said before the state’s voters can be asked to decide whether same-sex marriages should be banned, they must first decide whether same-sex relationships should have any legal status before the law.

“People who believe marriages between men and women should have a unique and privileged place in our society may also believe that same-sex relationships should have some place — although not marriage,” she wrote. “The single-subject rule protects the right of those people to hold both views and reflect both judgments by their vote.”

I think that’s defining “single subject” too tightly. Additionally, the amendment passed by slightly more than a a 3-to-1 margin, meaning that the 24% that voted against it wouldn’t make a difference either way.

I understand the very good reasons for the single-subject rule, but I think this amendment passed muster. It was defining what marriage is, and saying that nothing else is that, not even civil unions.

Next stop, quite possibly the Georgia Supreme Court.