Rep. Peter “The Spanker” Hoekstra

Hoekstra last week introduced a bill in the House to amend the U.S. Constitution to permanently “enshrine” in American society an inviolable set of parents’ rights. The bill had 70 co-sponsors, all Republicans, including Minority Whip Eric Cantor and Minority Leader John A. Boehner. The bill, said Hoekstra, is intended to stem the “slow erosion” of parents’ rights and to circumvent the effects of a United Nations treaty he believes “clearly undermines parental rights in the United States.”

The treaty to which he refers is the U.N.Convention on the Rights of the Child …. sets international standards for government obligations to children in areas that range from protection from abuse and exploitation to ensuring a child’s right to free expression.

While a treaty that seeks to protect children may sound innocuous, its opponents, such as Michael Farris, the Christian conservative founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association, see in it a dystopian future in which “Parents would no longer be able to administer reasonable spankings to their children.” Andie Coller, Politico.com April 8, 2009

Rep. Hoekstra believes the most pressing issue facing Michigan today is the loss of our ability to beat a little respect into our children without fearing prosecution for child abuse. What business is it of my child’s teachers that little Johnny sports a few ugly bruises or that he can’t sit still because his bum is raw and red. Your dad beat the shit out of you often. You learned your lessons well – when you discipline your wife it’s never with a closed fist.