The Role of the \u27Natural Family\u27 in Religious Opposition to Human Rights Instruments

This chapter examines how the vision of the natural family articulated by several prominent conservativereligious organizations in the United States shapes their opposition to certain human rights instruments. TheUnited Nations\u27 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child seems to reflect an advance in internationalhuman rights formulations and to have generated a high degree of formal commitment by governments, as evidenced by its quick and virtually universal ratification. However, the United States stands nearly alone innot having ratified the Convention, and the religious groups examined in this chapter strenuously urge that it should not do so, lest it undermine the natural family, motherhood, and parental and national sovereignty. On similar grounds, they support the United States\u27s continuing failure to ratify the Convention on theElimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Strikingly, these groups invoke the UN Declaration of Human Right\u27s provision that the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State to critique the Convention and CEDAW as anti-family and a threat to the natural family. This opposition is troubling if, as some have argued, one way to resolve the paradox that impressive declarations on paper of human rights coexist with gross violation in actual societies of human rights is toenlist the unique resources of religion to support a human rights culture. This chapter examines oppositionexpressed by Concerned Women for America, Family Research Council, the Howard Center for Family, Religion & Society, and the affiliated World Congress of Families. It also analyzes the recent document, TheNatural Family: A Manifesto, co-authored by Dr. Allan Carlson of the Howard Center and the World Congress of Families, and Paul T. Mero, of the Sutherland Institute. The Manifesto is intended to provide a philosophical foundation for pro family efforts. The chapter concludes with some reflections on this defenseof the natural family. It critically evaluates how such groups\u27 opposition to these human rights instrumentsentails a conception of the proper place of men and women within families and society and a conviction that gender equality undermines families