It was in 1990 that the United States passed the Americans with Disabilities Act. This legislation was a major step forward for a compassionate society. We did the right thing.
Now, in our United States Senate, they just voted DOWN extending our American influence in making a similar kind of statement on the world stage. Adding ourselves to the roster of other nations supporting a United Nations treaty on the rights of those with disabilities would require nothing additional from us. The petition is based on our own American legislation that already exists! We are the model for what we voted down!
Even with former Senator Bob Dole and present Senator John McCain present, those who have suffered disabling conditions from their military service, their cowardly colleagues (some of whom voted twenty years ago for the Americans with Disabilities Act!) voted this down. How embarrassing.
And why? It is no mystery. They are cowed by the Tea Party who vow to unseat them unless they follow their narrow agenda. And in this case? Well, you never know what this global statement might do to bring some intrusion into our home schooling. There is no threat!
This is how sick our indebtedness to special interests and the fringes has become. What is at stake? Integrity, of course. Integrity.
Shame!
vitalwholeness 
I believe what was at stake was the UN was going to have a say in the education and treatment of the disabled and that was a direct infringement on the rights of parents who home school their disabled kids in the United States The Americans With Disabilities Act was a law passed by our congress and signed into law by the president. The UNCRPD is a UN Treaty. They would basically have a say in the education and even treatment of kids in this country even though this unelected board would be using blanket diagnosis and treatment methods for kids they don’t even know. No one wants the UN to have any say whatsoever in the education or treatment of their kids, whether it’s a binding law or an advisory law. The UN has made it publicly clear in the past that they should have a say in how children all over the world should be under the protection of the UN and that is basically the beginning of the end of parental rights. Agenda 21 is something that everyone should read about. My point with this is that It’s another action plan that the UN has been implementing on US soil, completely voluntary yet all the city and state governments are implementing this plan into local laws. It’s just another treaty that the UN is trying to push that infringes on our constitutional rights that they say will be non-binding but will end up being passed into laws by our own govt.
I’ve read the entire UNCRPD and find nothing even remotely referring to home schooling for children with disabilities. Anyone who is reading into this very detailed document such ideas must be looking for a bone to pick. You’ll have to go back to searching for that bone and find a convincing argument.
The document (AKA Convention) is guaranteeing the rights and dignity for any person with disabilities so they might live as full a life as is possible.. The language is “they will have access to…” I’ve seen schools spend inordinate amounts of money on one child in order to mainstreaam their education. Parents who want to take on the task of giving those children the same opportunities are not being denied that right. The only way they could be stopped is when they lock the child up in a room and don’t ever feed them or some such horrid thing like that.
The fact that the American Council for Exceptional Children was applauding the May bipartisan support from our Senate is convincing for me. To have been scuttled and voted down since then suggests yet another example of our dysfunctional government too easily influenced by interest groups who are willing to fight some pretty dumb battles.
Heaven help the children in other countries where the children have precious few of the rights and privileges of the US.