Monday, June 30, 2008

"Parents Have No Rights": Germany Report

HL recently received a chilling report from a sister in Christ recently on the ground in Germany. They spoke and stayed with several families currently fighting the government's impositions.

Friday morning our children had the experience of sharing in their hiding as we sneaked around the house while school was in session, unable to play outside. Unable to sing our morning worship songs with the windows open... the children might be heard.
It really does make you appreciate your freedom, doesn't it? One family in particular's story was heartbreaking. (Identifying information has been removed to protect these brethren's freedom to move and operate in Germany.)

It is not just home schoolers who are in need of freedom. Parents in general have NO rights regarding the education of their children. _______, who we met in _______, cried as she told us about her fourth grade son in public school being forced to watch hours of pornography, including homosexual porn, as part of his school "sex ed class" (in 4th grade!!) When the parents found out (they weren't told ahead of time!) and they tried to take the child out of the class they were told they could not and that if they tried the police would come to the house and take the child to the police station to watch the videos. No kidding. It is really like that here.

We have a new appreciation for our freedom and every single family we met has requested the same thing: Prayer. Please continue to pray
for these families.
What is truly chilling is how little attention these situations have drawn in the world press. Prayer is needed, but word just needs to get out. Germany is a heavily export-dependent economy, and if public opinion can be brought to bear against their unjust policies, they may back down on some of their decisions. Pray for these families, and tell others about their plight.

IHS,
John Calvin Young

Friday, June 27, 2008

Washington Times Op-Ed

Michael Smith of HSLDA had an op-ed piece in the June 15th Washington Times entitled "More problems for home-schoolers in Germany," that gets right to the point about the dilemma these families face:

As a result, families who wish to home-school in Germany have two choices.
First, they can continue home-schooling and hope to remain undetected, but then face losing their children and large fines if discovered. Second, they can flee their country.

Seems like the choices for innocent people on the outs with Germany's leaders haven't changed much in 6 or 7 decades.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

It's About Dominion: Prison for the Parents

Melanie at Mamahadeen reported on the case of German homeschooling parents Juergen and Rosemarie Dudek, sentenced to three months in prison for homeschooling their children, despite the fact that their children, when tested, got top marks on the state tests. It's not about the children's education--it's about dominion.

Read her blog post here and the original WorldNetDaily article here.