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| Käthe Kollwitz: The Mothers (1919) (image in public domain) |
Quotes: The State and the Family
“The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the state”. (Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 16:3 and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights Article 23:1)
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“There is an inextricable link between the protection of the family and the protection of fundamental freedoms in liberal democracies...The first thing that a totalitarian regime tries to do is to get at the children, to distance them from the subversive, varied influences of their families, and indoctrinate them in their rulers’ view of the world. Within limits, families must be left to bring up their children in their own way.” (UK Supreme Court Judgement contra Scottish Gov 'Named Person Scheme', 28 July 2016, Para 73, pages 32, 33)
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“The fundamental theory of liberty upon which all governments in this Union repose excludes any general power of the state to standardize its children by forcing them to accept instruction from public teachers only. The child is not the mere creature of the state; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” (Justice McReynolds, delivering the Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States: Pierce v Society of Sisters 268 US 510 (1925), 534-535)
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"So long as organized communities are a necessary factor in the inner vitality of a nation, the state has indeed the... juridical task... to take measures that support, restore and stimulate the life of non-political communities. Primarily this applies to the natural organized communal life of the nuclear family..." ("The Crisis in Humanist Political Theory" by Herman Dooyeweerd, 1931, Paideia Press, 2010, p 178)
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