A bill offered by Minnesota Republicans would have the state condemn the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The bill’s language comes directly from ParentalRights.org, a subsidiary of the Home School Legal Defense Association, which is also responsible for Generation Joshua, a program that enlists Christian children to campaign for Republican candidates.

SF63/HF402 “condemns the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child” and “urges the United States Senate to reject its ratification.”

The U.S. and Somalia are the only countries that have not ratified the treaty which was first drafted in 1989. Two Republican presidents, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, helped draft the treaty, and they were successful in getting portions of the U.S. Constitution included, according to Amnesty International.

A total of 193 countries have ratified the treaty, more than an other international treaty to date. The treaty encompasses several aspects of human rights: “the right to survival, to develop to the fullest; to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation; and to participate fully in family, cultural and social life” as well as the principles of “non-discrimination; devotion to the best interests of the child; the right to life, survival and development; and respect for the views of the child.”

If passed into law, SF63/HF402 — introduced by Republican Sens. Mike Jungbauer of East Bethel and David Brown of Becker, and Reps. Sondra Erickson of Princeton and Pam Myhra of Burnsville — would direct Secretary of State Mark Ritchie to send the resolution condemning the act to all members of the U.S. Senate, President Obama and leadership of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill contains a hodgepodge of conservative critiques, including the concerns of the Tenthers; as with all treaties, Congress would have jurisdiction under the child rights treaty, not the states.

“The Congress of the United States would acquire primary jurisdiction to legislate to meet our nation’s legal obligation to comply with the treaty if ratified, thereby shifting from Minnesota and her sister states to the Congress of the United States powers not formerly delegated which are currently reserved to the states under the Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution,” the bill reads.

The bill also expresses concerns about provisions in the treaty that call on governments to protect the welfare of children living in poverty; such actions would would expand government.

“[The treaty] requires a level of socialized spending programs for the supposed needs of children (which in too many cases simply employ more government workers) that would bankrupt any American state,” reads the bill.

The bill also gives a nod to the sovereignty movement.

The bill states, “[T]his represents a wholesale abandonment of the ultimate sovereignty of the United States on matters within the scope of the treaty; and this abandonment violates the core principle of our self-government: to wit, only American legislatures and the people themselves have the moral authority to make law for America.”

The bill was not authored by Minnesota Republicans, but was produced by the Home School Legal Defense Association. HSLDA and ParentalRights.org share the same resources including employees, and among their main concerns with the bill is that it could prevent parents from spanking their children. The treaty “bans all corporal punishment, including reasonable spanking by parents,” the bill states.

HSLDA’s concerns have prompted the group to get more involved in the political process, a move that spawned its Generation Joshua program.

“Generation Joshua wants America to be a perpetual city on a hill, a beacon of biblical hope to the world around us,” the group’s mission statement states. “We seek to inspire every one of our members with faith in God and a hope of what America can become as we equip Christian citizens and leaders to impact our nation for Christ and for His glory.”

Generation Joshua members are homeschooled Christian youth ages 11 to 19 and have been active in Minnesota, particularly in Minnesota 6th Congressional District, where the bill’s author, Sen. Jungbauer, resides.

Jungbauer is also carrying another bill written by the HSLDA. It’s a resolution calling on Congress to create a Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Sen. Sean Nienow of Cambridge is also an author of the Senate version and Republican Reps. Glenn Gruenhagen of Glencoe, Peggy Scott of Andover and Ron Shimanski of Silver Lake have introduce the House version.

Bachmann was the beneficiary of campaigning by 64 GenJ youth teams in 2008. Photo: Chris Steller

Later this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann is set to headline a political training for conservative Christian homeschoolers called Generation Joshua. “GenJ” trains homeschooled Christian teens to get involved with political campaigns through door-knocking, phone-banking and other activities in order to “help America return to her Judeo-Christian foundations.” Bachmann has used these teams to win her own campaigns for Congress.

Founded in 2003, Generation Joshua “is designed for Christian youth between the ages of 11 and 19 who want to become a force in the civic and political arenas.” GenJ sprung out of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), an association that lobbies for conservative Christian home school causes. GenJ Student Action Teams (SAT) are set up in a number of states and often do campaign work for candidates endorsed by the HSLDA.

“Quite frankly with the hymn ‘Soldiers of Christ, Arise’ running through my head, I want to inspire young Christians to fight for what is right,” said Ned Ryun, co-founder of GenJ, at the time of the organization’s founding. “There are many issues facing us today that will impact America for generations, same-sex marriage being a key one.”

Bachmann spoke at the GenJ training, called iGovern, in 2009. This year’s event will also feature Tom Minnery, senior vice president of Government and Public Policy for Focus on the Family; Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America (CWA); and Republican Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

Bachmann was endorsed by HSLDA in 2006 and benefited from the homeschool teams in that election.

In 2008, Bachmann praised the efforts of the GenJ students who made up 64 young Christian outreach teams working on behalf of her campaign. They made 6,000 calls and knocked on some 60,000 doors in the course of the campaign.

Bachmann isn’t the only politician to benefit from GenJ’s outreach teams. Last fall the group campaigned on behalf of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in New York’s special election. (Bachmann endorsed Hoffman over GOP-endorsed candidate Dede Scozzafava in October.) GenJ says it impacted 17 races in 2008, contacting over 500,000 voters.

Republican Rep. Tom McClintock, credits GenJ with his winning a speaker in California in 2008. “Generation Joshua fielded over 100 volunteers who walked precincts in a driving rain, and made thousands of phone calls throughout the weekend to every targeted voter in the district,” McClintock told Robert Kunzman last week. “I can confidently say that those 2,000 votes were Generation Joshua votes.”

The Minnesota Independent asked GenJ director William Estrada if the group had plans to organize again in Minnesota this year for Bachmann or other candidates. He declined to give specifics on this year’s plans, but replied with a statement: “Many Minnesotan Generation Joshua students have volunteered with the Congresswoman’s campaigns and we are very proud of these students’ successful efforts.”

Organizations that keep tabs on religious right groups say that although GenJ may have an extreme agenda, it’s proof that the democratic system is set up to provide outlet to many views.

“Obviously, they have every right to participate in the electoral process to push their ultra-right wing agenda in the marketplace of ideas; that is the very nature of our democratic system,” said Kyle Mantyla, senior fellow with People For the American Way. “That said, we certainly don’t agree with their agenda, goals, or values.”

Mantyla added that the GenJ movement seems to be picking up important support among religious right heavy hitters. “It is surprising to see them bringing in groups like Focus and CWA — that is proof that they not only have ties to establishment religious right groups but are also taken seriously by the establishment,” he said. “Minnery and Wright are highly influential religious right leaders and their participation in this training can only help to increase the influence of Generation Joshua and its activists within the movement.”

GenJ has produced several videos about the program and their successes.

GenJ video overview of the program:

William Estrada talks about the electoral successes of GenJ:

Bob Collins at Minnesota Public Radio’s Newscut blog documented it on the day before the election last November:

Why aren’t these two kids — Alex and Cate Sutton — in class? Because they are, actually.

They’re home-schooled kids who have been given the assignment to drop leaflets in Woodbury today for Rep. Michele Bachmann, who’s in a close fight for re-election in the 6th District. They say this is part of a paper they’re writing on government.

Kristin Troyak, left, is driving them around and is responsible for 3 “teams” of home-schooled kids who have been deployed today in Woodbury. There are 64 teams being deployed around the region. They’ve also made 6,000 phone calls on Bachmann’s behalf over the weekend, she said.

The kids Collins talked to were from outside Bachmann’s district and said they were part of Generation Joshua. That’s the national organization of homeschoolers that also mobilized young people for Bachmann’s 2006 Get Out the Vote effort — not just from outside Bachmann’s district but from other states.

UPDATE: Generation Joshua’s young election workers were getting out the vote for Republican Jim Tedisco in the recent special congressional election in New York’s 20th Congressional District. (via DumpBachmann)

As the Minnesota Daily reported on Election Night in 2006:

One group called Gen J, or Generation Joshua, rallied middle school and high school students to pass out campaign literature and call voters for Bachmann.

Patrick Henry College (Virginia) journalism senior Adrienne Cumbus is a volunteer leader for Gen J. Originally from Houston, she said she came to support Bachmann because the candidate doesn’t try to appeal to everyone — instead, she knows her own values.

“She’s very articulate in what she says,” Cumbus said. “She’s not sitting on the fence.”

Here is a transcribed excerpt and video from Bachmann’s Nov. 4, 2008, Election Night victory speech:

I think we’re good to go on this one. I think we’re good to go. So we are absolutely delighted to have been able to win this race. And we didn’t do it alone. We did it with you.

And I want to think 70 great kids who came out this weekend. We often hear that there aren’t young people in the Republican Party. I’m here to tell you that couldn’t be further from the truth. We had 70 teenagers knock on our door Friday afternoon, and by the time I got to (Dellwood’s?), these 70 kids had made over 7,000 phone calls, by the time I got to (the office?).

The youth of America are energized, and they’re energized around the principle of freedom. They love freedom!

They knocked on over 60,000 and made phone calls. They just went wild this weekend. So we are so grateful for these great kids.

Here’s what Bachmann said about re-eductation camps on April 4, 2009:

It’s under the guise of — quote — volunteerism. But it’s not volunteers at all. It’s paying people to do work on behalf of government. … I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums.