Although his administration signed the UNCRC, President Bill Clinton never pushed the Senate for ratification. Nor did George W. Bush. At a debate on youth issues a month before the 2008 election, then candidate Obama said: “It’s embarrassing to find ourselves in the company of Somalia, a lawless land. I will review this and other treaties to ensure the United States resumes its global leadership in human rights.” (At the time there were only two countries that had not ratified because South Sudan was not yet an independent nation. These two nations have since ratified the treaty.) It is now 2025. Thirteen years have passed. Unfortunately, President Obama has not acted, despite this campaign pledge. President Trump has not acted, as well. The Convention outlines the basic human rights that children everywhere should enjoy, among them the rights to survival, to develop to the fullest and to protection from harmful influences, abuse and exploitation. How am I affected? I am a German citizen who is the father of two young children who are US citizens. Because of US immigration law, I must periodically return to my home country. While I was abroad, in 2014, I was neither able to write to my children or to talk to them via telephone or Skype for over nine months. I am back in Germany again, only to find myself in the same situation. No contact for three months now. Among many essential rights outlined in the convention, there are two articles who could help my girl and my boy since they emphasize the importance of frequent contact between children and their parents: Article 9 (Separation from parents): Children have the right to live with their fit parents. Children whose parents do not live together have the right to stay in contact with both parents, unless this might hurt the child. Article 10 (Family reunification): Families whose members live in different countries should be allowed to move between those countries so that parents and children can stay in contact, or get back together as a family. There is a troubling lack of awareness of and education on child protection issues. However, these issues do not receive any media attention in the U.S. Our leaders like to say the U.S. is the world leader on human rights. That claim is undermined by its failure to join the rest of the world in ratifying this convention. This needs to stop. We owe it to our children. President Obama, please ratify the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child .. because it is the most successful human rights treaty in human history! https://www.facebook.com/UNCRCPetitionUS/ https://www.twitter.com/UN_CRC/

Scientology avoids specifying a stance on homosexuality through the tightly constructed loopholes and semantics of its late founder L. Ron Hubbard. Throughout my involvement in the church from age ten to the end of college, I was told by multiple staff members this is because it is not legal for Scientology to claim it addresses or seeks to alter any specific trait. I knew repeated accounts of Scientologists saying “Don’t you ever want to learn the real reason behind why you’re gay?” when recruiting openly gay people. To anyone who has been indoctrinated in the Church, it is very clear that Scientology is inextricably homophobic and negates homosexuality at the core. One of Scientology’s explicit, urgent goals is to bring everyone on the planet up to a state of spiritual existence referred to as “Clear”, achieved primarily through the practice of Scientology auditing. Auditing is Scientology’s signature (pseudoscientific) therapeutic practice of recalling traumatic events until the emotional weight is dissipated, meant to raise a persons level on the “Emotional Tone Scale” or “Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”.  Scientology’s fundamental criterion for human behavior, “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, irrefutably characterizes the sexual behavior of a “Clear” as heterosexual, and classifies homosexual behavior as the byproduct of aberration, or a lower undesirable spiritual state on the chart. You can find “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” pictured and explained on Scientology’s website and the internet, or in books like “Self-Analysis”, available at such retail stores as Barnes and Noble. Every row in "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation" corresponds to numbered ascending and descending levels of spiritual existence or “tone levels”. Every column describes a different category of behavior, such as “Emotion” and “Sexual Behavior”. In Scientology each "tone level" is usually referred to by its number and/ or emotion, (Content is 3.0, Anger is 1.5, etc.) since Scientology teaches that you can most easily spot a persons position on the “tone scale”/“Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” by observing their emotional state. The "tone level" associated with homosexuality, “1.1, Covert Hostility” is characterized in the sexual behavior column by the term “Irregular Practices”. It is widely known in Scientology that "Irregular Practices"  is basically synonymous with “homosexuality”.  To confirm for someone unfamiliar with "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation" that "1.1" is without argument how Scientology categorizes homosexuality, here are some excerpts from the writings of late Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard:  “Homosexuals don't practice love; 1.1s can’t."    and  “Such people should be taken from the society as rapidly as possible and uniformly institutionalized; for here is the level of the contagion of immorality, and the destruction of ethics; here is the fodder which secret police organizations use for their filthy operations. One of the most effective measures of security that a nation threatened by war could take would be rounding up and placing in a cantonment, away from society, any 1.1 individual who might be connected with government, the military, or essential industry…” (1) Scientology and all of L. Ron Hubbard’s writings on which Scientology is based functions as a model of infallibility; a source of applicable, unfaltering technology. There is not room for dissent or interpretation in Scientology. Dissent or interpretation in Scientology are at best considered mistakes to be corrected and at worst justify vicious organized attack from the church. There are no “Versions” of Scientology that validate homosexual behavior. Scientology only allows for one version of Scientology, and it is one in which homosexuality is defined as a byproduct of “aberration” that Scientology auditing explicitly aims to restore. As a child, I poured over “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” starting at age twelve or thirteen, through signing up for “The Volunteer Ministers Course”. Substantial auditing was beyond my family’s price range, but in my case indoctrination with “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” was enough to shape my thinking as a kid. “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evalution” additionally posits that though everybody has a chronic “tone level” with corresponding columns generally predicting each aspect of behavior, "tone level" acutely fluctuates throughout the day or over time, since each “tone level” corresponds with a different emotion and people experience varying emotions in different situations. According to Scientology, whatever emotional tone you acutely experience, your will accordingly exhibit the corresponding behaviors. Recognizing same sex attraction in myself as a seventh or eighth grader, I asked the course supervisor “So, according to a persons mood, you could feel same sex attraction without being chronically 1.1?” The course supervisor thought for a second and said “Does it make sense according to the chart”? And by the screwed up logic of “The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, it does.  "The Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation” erases the concept of homosexuality as anything more than a changeable byproduct of existing in a lower spiritual state. For a developing queer child attempting to modify their behaviors in accordance to Scientology’s “Hubbard Chart of Human Evaluation”, or simply trying to exist in a religious context that erases the validity of their instincts, the detriment is clear.  Despite being a rigid system of highly engineered totalitarian indoctrination that readily qualifies as a cult, Scientology manages to steamroll its way into the definition of a religion. It is nevertheless important to protect the right to individual religious beliefs.  Scientology auditing, however, is not a belief, but a practice. Auditing is a practice that is taught and executed with deliberate precision and uniformity, and for which the...

38 water protectors have been arrested and are facing charges for opposing the Dakota Access Bakken oil pipeline in Sioux treaty territory in North Dakota. The pipeline company uses attack dogs and mace to continue building while destroying sacred sites with bulldozers. Support these protectors of Mother Earth, our water, and climate; learn how to live without fracked oil and gas; drop the charges by September 20!

We are concerned about the following audition notice and request that the EEOC and DFEH take administrative action: "All ethnicities are welcome to audition. Historically we have used performers whose facial features make them appear conventionally Caucasian. So if you fit this description, please send us your information. If you don’t, your amazing voice and stage presence could change our minds, so please send us your information." - Beach Blanket Babylon (San Francisco) ≈ 26 August 2016 Such a blatantly race-based employment preference violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), both of which prohibit discrimination based upon race and color. Under U.S. law, race is never a bona fide occupational qualification, and Beach Blanket Babylon’s preference for Caucasian talent combined with its own admission within the notice that an auditioner’s race is not essential for the role(s) in question leave no room for ambiguity. We further request that the EEOC and DFEH initiate investigations into systemic violations of Title VII and FEHA at all levels of California’s entertainment industry. Discriminatory employment practices are industry standard and disparately impact all but White males on and behind camera and stage.

By refusing to stand during the national anthem, San Francisco 49ers’ quarterback Colin Kaepernick is making an important, bold rebuke of police violence against Black people. Kaepernick joins a long history of Black athletes using their platforms to advance racial and gender justice issues - like Tommie Smith and John Carlos giving the Black Power salute during the national anthem at the 1968 Olympics and Jackie Robinson writing that he could not salute the flag as “a Black man in a white world.” Colin Kaepernick is demanding that America live up to its own ideals and address the oppression of people of color. To express your support for this brave athlete, please add your name.

The actions on September 3, 2016 by the private security guards hired by Dakota Access endangered the lives of dozens of protesters, including many young children. Photos and videos released online show protesters, including a pregnant woman, were bit and bleeding. Security personnel were caught on video macing protesters, but denied it when confronted by the media. The guards had no uniforms, drove vehicles with out-of-state plates, and appeared to have little or no training. It's unclear whether or not they're even licensed to operate in the state. The actions of the security guards hired by Dakota Access have the public asking questions: - Who was the private security firm hired by Dakota Access? - Why aren’t the security guards wearing uniforms? - Are the guards properly trained and licensed by the NDPISB? The North Dakota Private Investigation and Security Board is a governor-appointed board that licenses and regulates the private investigation and security industries. The board must investigate the actions of the private security guards hired by Dakota Access and ensure they are properly trained and licensed to operate in North Dakota.

Our nation is one that is very diverse in its complex constellation. The national anthem in its full text, celebrates (and calls for) the death of slaves in verse three. When we stand to respect this nation with hands over our hearts, we are directly supporting the spirit of the poem and its author, Francis Scott Key, who was himself a slaveholder as well as a prosecutor of abolitionists. We can no longer in good conscience, stand for a song who denigrates historically or otherwise, any one of our fellow American citizens.

It is upsetting to see an athlete being targeted on being anti-American for standing up for people of color in the mainstream media, while Donald Trump is not being questioned on all the awful, racist, anti-Semitic remarks that is seen on the news daily.

On September 6th and 7th, the anti-Muslim group ACT for America will host its annual conference, bringing right-wing activists from around the country to our nation’s capital to advance an agenda that targets Muslims and harms us all. ACT—a group that calls itself the “NRA of national security”—has once again invited elected leaders in Washington, D.C., and from around the country to speak at the conference and hear from its members. Last year, at least 15 members of Congress spoke at the national security briefing. But this year, unlike in the past, ACT is keeping the names of participating lawmakers secret to avoid scrutiny. What do they have to hide? While claiming to uphold civil liberties, including religious freedom, ACT for America’s leader has said that a “practicing Muslim, who believes in the teachings of the Koran, cannot be a loyal citizen to the United States of America.” ACT is lobbying lawmakers to lead with fear. The group is calling for unwarranted surveillance, inhumane policies on immigration and refugee resettlement, biased law enforcement trainings, and unconstitutional opposition to mosque construction. We must not embrace this blatant anti-Muslim bias nor the policies that spring from it. If elected leaders do not denounce ACT’s dangerous rhetoric, they are not only implicitly endorsing anti-Muslim bigotry, but also a vision for this country that denies fairness and equality to us all. We cannot afford silence. Tell members of Congress and all elected leaders to reject ACT for America’s invitation to anti-Muslim hate.

I feel that allowing various groups to give a 3 minute inspirational message at the city council meetings would help my lovely city be more tolerant. Certainly allowing only the Baptists to give invocations is a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Last week, Donald Trump put out a call on his website for "election observers" to keep Hillary Clinton from "rigging" the election. This focus on trumped up spectres of election fraud as a tool for intimidating voters is nothing new for the Republican Party. During the 1970s and 1980s, after people of color in low-income neighborhood were harassed and intimidated at the polls, the Republican National Committee (RNC) was barred from a practice called “voter caging”—challenging voters’ eligibility to cast ballots at their voting site. And now, Trump's “election observers” could be the next wave of voter intimidation based on bogus charges of voter fraud. The Brennan Center’s ongoing examination of voter fraud claims have found that “voter fraud is very rare” and “voter impersonation is nearly non-existent.” What is not rare, however, is our country’s legal history of blocking people from voting. The Fifteenth Amendment and the Nineteenth Amendment—which gave people of color and women the rights to vote, respectively—were ratified after years of campaigning, organizing, and sacrifice. Jim Crow laws kept Black Americans from voting until the civil rights movement fought for and secured the passage of the Voting Rights Action, signed into law in 1965. We cannot allow Trump supporters to harass voters—our country has come too far to be pulled backward.

How can we build community trust and confidence when we have public safety officers with this mindset?