A radical environmental group called the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund is the brainchild behind a constitutional proposal, to be voted on Sunday, that would grant rights to “nature.” From the proposal:
Persons and people have the fundamental rights guaranteed in this Constitution and in the international human rights instruments. Nature is subject to those rights given by this Constitution and Law
The purpose of this is to permit ideologues to sue and for nature, or aspects thereof, to have standing as litigants in court:
Every person, people, community or nationality, will be able to demand the recognitions of rights for nature before the public organisms.* The application and interpretation of these rights will follow the related principles established in the Constitution. [The word “organisms” means government bodies and courts.]
Do we need any further proof of the game that is afoot around the world to turn nature and animals into the moral equals of people—of course with only people having any obligations. In essence, this is the worship of nature transformed into an established religion.
To show you how far this kind of thinking is spreading—and how radical the MSM has become—the LA Times , in effect, praised the measure by refusing to take a position on giving rights to trees!
It sounds like a stunt by the San Francisco City Council. But Ecuador is engaged in nothing less than an effort to redefine the relationship between human beings and the natural world…
No other country has gone as far as Ecuador in proposing to give trees their day in court, but it certainly is not alone in its recalibration of natural rights…Ecuador is codifying this shift in sensibility. In some ways, this makes sense for a country whose cultural identity is almost indistinguishable from its regional geography—the Galapagos, the Amazon, the Sierra. How this new area of constitutional law will work, however, is another question. We aren’t ready to endorse such a step at home, or even abroad. But it’s intriguing. We’ll be watching Ecuador’s example.
If this passes, I will write further. But for now, let us be clear: This isn’t promoting a human duty to treat the environmental correctly—a matter the Times editorialists are too woolly headed to understand. By granting nature equal rights, human needs and welfare will have to be sacrificed! Those most hurt will be the poor looking to develop their countries! This radical deconstruction of the importance of being human should concern everyone who believes in human prosperity and the importance of the concept of distinctly human rights.
And don’t say, “It can’t happen here,” or I’ll scream!
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