Senate Republicans prevented the U.S. from ratifying a treaty on Tuesday which would extend existing rights for disable people in the U.S. to disabled people in other countries. And they did so out of irrational paranoia and misinformation.
The Senate Tuesday fell short of the two-thirds vote required to ratify a United Nations treaty aimed at securing rights for disabled people around the world, when the vast majority of Republican senators voted against the treaty. The final vote was 61-38 vote. All the nay votes were Republican.
The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities essentially makes the 1990 Americans With Disabilities Act a non-binding international standard. It requires no change to U.S. law.
It requires no changes to U.S. law, so why did the Republicans vote against it?
Because it mentions something about the U.N., which as you're probably aware solicits all manner of conspiracy theories from Republicans.
“I do oppose the CRPD because I think it does impinge upon our sovereignty,” said Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK). “Unelected bureaucratic bodies would implement the treaty and pass so-called recommendations that would be forced upon the United Nations and the U.S. … This would especially affect those parents who home-school their children. … The unelected foreign bureaucrats, not parents, would decide what is in the best interests of the disabled child, even in the home.”
Not only is their opposition based on a conspiracy theory, it's also seemingly based on the idea that home-schooling is as big of a fad in other countries as it is here in the U.S. where people home-school their children out of spite.
This is why our Congress is a laughing stock in the western world.