The creation of the United\nNations 75 years ago was heralded with high hopes. \u201cMay it be taken as divine\nsignificance,\u201d declared Ethiopia\u2019s Haile Selassie in May 1945, \u201cthat, as we\nmark the passing of the Nazi Reich,\u2026 delegates from all United Nations\u2026 are now met\ntogether for their long-planned conference [in San Francisco] to lay\nfoundations for an international pact to banish war and to maintain World\nPeace.\u201d At the concluding session on June 26, the delegates signed the founding\nCharter, which aspired to \u201csave succeeding\ngenerations from the scourge of war\u201d and \u201creaffirm faith in fundamental human\nrights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of\nmen and women.\u201d Congratulating the delegates, President Harry Truman proclaimed, \u201cOh, what a great\nday this can be in history,\u201d even though \u201cthis is only a first step.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As called for by the Charter, the Human Rights Commission was soon\norganized. Chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, it labored tirelessly through nearly two\nyears and hundreds of meetings to produce the Universal Declaration of Human\nRights, adopted on December 10, 1948, \u201cnot [as] a treaty,\u201d explained Mrs.\nRoosevelt, but as \u201ca declaration of basic principles of human rights and\nfreedoms,\u2026 to serve as a common standard of achievement for all peoples of all\nnations.\u201d Her expectations echoed those of many of her fellow delegates: \u201cWe\nstand today at the threshold of a great event both in the life of the United\nNations and in the life of mankind\u2026. This declaration may well become the international\nMagna Carta of all men everywhere.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recognizing \u201cthe inherent dignity and\u2026 equal and inalienable rights of all members of\nthe human family\u201d (Preamble), the Universal Declaration insists that \u201cEveryone has the\nright to life, liberty and security of person\u201d (Article 3) and \u201cthe right to\nfreedom of thought, conscience and religion\u201d (Article 18). These and all other\nrights mentioned pertain only to individuals, with one exception. The family,\nsociety\u2019s foundational group unit based on marriage between a man and a woman, possesses inherent dignity and rights which States are morally\nbound to respect and protect: \u201cMen and women of full age, without any limitation due to\nrace, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family\u2026. The\nfamily is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to\nprotection by society and the State\u201d (Article 16). Such was the clear-eyed vision of the fledgling United Nations for what\nwas hoped would be, in the words of Harvard Professor Mary Ann Glendon, \u201ca\nworld made new.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since its founding, the UN has grown in membership from 51 countries\nto 193, and, as recently noted by the Economist<\/em>,\n\u201csits at the centre of a rules-based world\u201d and \u201cspan[s] almost every aspect of\nlife.\u201d But good intentions and accomplishments\u2014particularly for the world\u2019s\nchildren\u2014notwithstanding, the UN\u2019s gradual departure from founding principles has become so dire\nas to cause a sitting US president to upbraid the General Assembly. \u201cGlobal bureaucrats have absolutely no business attacking the\nsovereignty of nations that wish to protect innocent life,\u201d declared President Donald Trump in September 2019.\n\u201cLike many nations here today, we in America believe\nthat every child\u2014born and unborn\u2014is a sacred gift from God.\u201d This was followed in\nMay 2020 by a letter from the Trump Administration (officially from the acting administrator\nof USAID) to the Secretary-General warning the UN not to \u201cintimidate or coerce\nMember States that are committed to the right to life,\u201d and criticizing the UN\nfor \u201ccynically placing\u201d in its Global Humanitarian Response Plan \u201cthe provision\nof \u2018sexual and reproductive health services\u2019 on the same level of importance as\nfood-insecurity, essential health care, malnutrition, shelter, and sanitation\u2026.\nTo use the COVID-19 pandemic as a justification to pressure governments to\nchange their laws is an affront to the autonomy of each society.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n How is it that the UN has strayed so far from its founding vision?\n\u201cWithin a few decades,\u201d explains sociologist Gabrielle Kuby, \u201cthe UN became an\ninstitution that would use its power and resources to change the image of\nhumanity as declared by the Declaration of Human Rights and to replace\nuniversal moral values with relativistic postmodern \u2018values\u2019 as the foundation\nof culture\u2026. Today the UN and its powerful sub-organizations fight for\ndissolution of men\u2019s and women\u2019s sexual identity [and] elimination of marriage\nand family.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n We who have long worked with UN ambassadors and their missions\nhave witnessed firsthand the incessant attempt by a coalition of nations and\npowerful NGOs to promote their anti-life, anti-family, and anti-faith policies in\nevery possible UN conference and venue. One brave but distraught delegate told\nme, \u201cThe UN is destroying our families!\u201d\u2014a lament we have heard in various\niterations countless times from developing nations that are often forced to\ncomply with UN mandates or forfeit much-needed funding. This affront to\nsovereignty is cunningly designed to have the same kind of coercive effect internationally\nthat Roe v. Wade<\/em> did in the United\nStates. \u201cThe reason people want the Supreme Court to declare that abortion is a\nconstitutional right,\u201d explained the late Justice Antonin Scalia, \u201cis precisely\nto rigidify that right; it means it sweeps across all fifty states, and it is\nthe law now and forever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Years ago I was privileged to interview Archbishop Silvano Tomasi,\nthen the Holy See\u2019s representative to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, who\nsaid that \u201ca very small minority is slowly taking control of international\nstructures and imposing them on the rest of society by taking the concept of\nrights and emptying it from its prior meaning and then putting in a new\nmeaning. Religion is viewed as a negative force which blocks the fulfillment of\nthe individual\u2019s rights.\u201d This dangerous agenda, added the Archbishop, \u201caims\ndirectly at changing the human condition and therefore its consequences are\nmore destructive than the ideology of Marxism. We must resist this new\nideology, and stand up and use every means available to create a\ncounter-force,\u201d for unless we do, it will be \u201cthe suicide of society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The 75th<\/sup> anniversary of the United Nations is a wake-up\ncall to confront the reality that the UN now threatens the very principles it\nonce pledged to protect. Haile Selassie, no stranger to dangerous attacks on\nfreedom, warned, \u201cThroughout history, it has been the inaction of those who\ncould have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the\nsilence of the voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it\npossible for evil to triumph.\u201d For ourselves and coming generations, we cannot\nafford to lose the battle that has been thrust upon us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The creation of the United Nations 75 years ago was heralded with high hopes. \u201cMay it be taken as divine significance,\u201d declared Ethiopia\u2019s Haile Selassie in May 1945, \u201cthat, as we mark the passing of the Nazi Reich,\u2026 delegates from all United Nations\u2026 are now met together for their long-planned conference [in San Francisco] to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":21858,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"mc4wp_mailchimp_campaign":[],"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"The 75th anniversary of the United Nations is a wake-up call to confront the reality that the UN now threatens the very principles it once pledged to protect.","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"single_blog_custom":"","sidebar":"","second_sidebar":"","share_position":"","share_float_style":"","post_date_format":"","post_date_format_custom":"","post_reading_time_wpm":"","zoom_button_out_step":"1","zoom_button_in_step":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"","single_post_gallery_size":""}],"trending_post_position":"","trending_post_label":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_social_meta":{"fb_title":"","fb_description":"","fb_image":"","twitter_title":"","twitter_description":"","twitter_image":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[511,805],"tags":[2105,487,4529],"class_list":["post-21634","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-foreground","tag-president-trump","tag-united-nations","tag-universal-declaration-of-human-rights"],"yoast_head":"\n