Huge Fines, Jail, and Loss of Custody Threatened for Homeschoolers

These trends in Europe, Canada, the U.N. and other countries are particularly scary in that the U.S. Supreme Court has been citing laws in other countries as precedents used to justify similar positions here in the U.S. We need to be vigilant lest these become commonplace here as well…

To those of us in the USA and other nations who have seen homeschooling blossom in the last 25 years, with the only “dire” consequences being more kids who can write well and do well on standardized tests, the idea that parents should be drastically punished for homeschooling sounds, well, Nazi-like. And I mean that literally.

One of Hitler and his buddies’ first acts on taking office was to establish the Reich Ministry of Education and give it control of all schools, including private schools. Nobody was to have the right to teach children from a different point of view than the State. There would be no right to teach from a distinctively religious point of view, especially.

As Hitler said on May 1, 1937, “The Youth of today is ever the people of tomorrow. For this reason we have set before ourselves the task of inoculating our youth with the spirit of this community of the people at a very early age, at an age when human beings are still unperverted and therefore unspoiled. This Reich stands, and it is building itself up for the future, upon its youth. And this new Reich will give its youth to no one, but will itself take youth and give to youth its own education and its own upbringing.”

“It is beyond belief that Germany is still enforcing a law that was written for one reason only – to be used by Hitler to control and indoctrinate German youth. It had no other redeeming value”

We are seeing a resurgence of this same Nazi-inspired view that the state has the right to impose one single worldview on all its youth by force.

Statements by Government Officials:

– A new ruling from the European Human Rights Court has affirmed the German nation’s Nazi-era ban on homeschooling, concluding that society has a significant interest in preventing the development of dissent through “separate philosophical convictions.”

– The German court already had ruled that the parental “wish” to have their children grow up in a home without such influences “could not take priority over compulsory school attendance.” The decision also said the parents do not have an “exclusive” right to lead their children’s education.

– The family had appealed under the European Convention on Human Rights statement that: “No person shall be denied the right to education. In the exercise of any functions which it assumes in relation to education and to teaching, the State shall respect the right of parents to ensure such education and teaching is in conformity with their own religious and philosophical convictions.”

– But the court’s ruling said, instead, that schools represent society, and “it was in the children’s interest to become part of that society.

– “The parents’ right to education did not go as far as to deprive their children of that experience,” the ruling said.

– “Not only the acquisition of knowledge, but also the integration into and first experience with society are important goals in primary school education,” the court said. “The courts found that those objectives cannot be equally met by home education even if it allowed children to acquire the same standard of knowledge as provided for by primary school education.

– “The public has a legitimate interest in countering the rise of parallel societies that are based on religion or motivated by different world views and in integrating minorities into the population as a whole.”

– The court noted it was a similar argument that arose in Holland earlier, where a politician, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, sought to close down all religious schools because only the state could properly teach children “tolerance.”

Examples of Government persecution of homeschoolers:

– Rich Guenther have been charged with contributing to the delinquency of a truant, and are being fined over $1,500

– The Loefflers just received a letter stating that the government will freeze their bank account and come into their home to take anything of value up to the amount of the fine assessed against them. The fine is approximately $14,000. The family does not have the money. If the state of Bavaria follows the usual process the father will be put in jail, and the process of removing their eight year-old daughter will begin.

– The Grosseluemerns, were recently in court for refusing to pay the fines assessed against them for not sending their child to school. The Grosseluemerns attorney proved that the prosecution attorney was not aware of the laws of Bavaria concerning the facts of this case, and that he was not upholding the federal law guaranteeing the freedom of religion and parental rights. The prosecuting attorney then turned to the judge and asked that the fine against the family be tripled, which the judge readily consented to. Two days later a press story carried a quote from Bavarian officials saying that if it becomes necessary, they will put Mr. Grosseluemerns in prison until he complies and pays the fine.

– The conservative Brussels Journal said Katharina Plett was arrested and ordered to jail while her husband fled to Austria with the family’s 12 children.

http://www.home-school.com/news/germany2.html
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52209
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=52603
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53381