Who Really Owns Your Child?

“He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future.” — Adolph Hitler

Who Really Owns Your Child?

By Dave Robbins

 

Do you really own your children? With the ever-encroaching fingers of government into our personal lives, it is a question that must be asked. Most parents would answer with a resounding “Yes!” But is it really true?

 

Take, for instance, the educational system here in America. This is the one entity, besides your church, that you trust with your children throughout the moldable years of their lives. How much influence do you have on their overall educational experience? We’re not talking about reading, writing and arithmetic, but the value system that will dominate their thought processes for a lifetime.

 

If you haven’t thought about it, you should. Just less than fifty percent of the entire work force in America is made up of women. This means that, more and more, families are relying on the public school system to educate their children.

 

The problem is that, with both parents working and only approximately twenty percent, of Americans regularly attending church, school has become the societal instruction method for our youth. And who controls the curriculum of our public schools? The government…Not you!

 

Clearly, the US Government has many agendas for the indoctrination of our children, and one of these is tolerance. Tolerate anything and everything, whether it is religion, sexual orientation or gender identity preference. It doesn’t matter; just tolerate it. However, many Christians do not adhere to these views.

 

The Bible teaches there is only one correct belief concerning sexual orientation. In the Book of Genesis, God defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. That is why Bible reading is not allowed in public school as part of the curriculum. The Bible is intolerant of sin, not tolerant! It creates a division between Bible believing Christians and governmental worldviews as are largely being taught today in our public school systems.   A few years ago I took a creative writing class in college. Over fifty percent of my writing assignments were on alternative families such as two mommies and two daddies.

 

Many parents strongly disagree with the anti-biblical worldview that is now being taught in almost the entirety of public education. In order to instill a biblical worldview, approximately two million children are homeschooled in America today. Now, even that is in jeopardy!

 

Recently, Eric Holder (Attorney General of the United States) stated, “There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool. So long as government bans homeschooling broadly and equally, there is no violation of your rights.” This was in response to the Romeike family’s political asylum case (Romeike vs. Holder), in which Eric Holder would like to deport a German Christian evangelical family for legally seeking political asylum in order to homeschool their children here in America.

 

Is this really happening in the United States of America? I am ashamed to say this…but yes, it is!

 

The Romeike Family

In September 2006, Uwe and Hannelore Romeike began homeschooling their school-aged children in Germany, largely for religious reasons. Having reviewed Germany’s public school curriculum, they felt that it would influence their children against Christian values, and their only option was to teach the children themselves.

 

However, there was a problem. Homeschooling is against the law in Germany. Prior to the nazification of Germany in the early twentieth century, individual families were permitted to homeschool. But, the swift Nazi takeover of Germany in 1933 changed the political landscape. In 1938, Adolf Hitler and the German Parliament outlawed homeschooling completely. Sadly, after WWII, the Nazi law prohibiting homeschooling was never repealed. Consequently, all German children must attend public school or a government approved private school.

 

As a result of their decision to homeschool, the Romeike family was heavily fined and even had the police show up to physically take the children to public school against their will.

 

With fears of crippling fines, jail time and the eventual loss of child custody in mind, the decision was made to seek political asylum in the United States. The Romeike family relocated to the US in August 2008, knowing that America had the freest homeschooling laws of any nation on earth. The Romeikes simply wanted to legally homeschool their children according to their particular religious beliefs without any fear of persecution.

 

The political asylum application was processed legally, but they had to wait until January 2010 for the hearing to occur. According to the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), “On January 26, Judge Burman granted the Romeikes asylum after determining that the German government’s treatment of homeschoolers was “repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and that Germany was denying the family “basic human rights.” The judge determined the German state’s policy of imposing increasing and potentially crushing fines, the loss of custody of children, and possible criminal prosecution over homeschooling amounted to persecution.”

 

In a recent interview, HSLDA Staff Attorney and Director of International Relations Michael Donnelly further stated that in summation, Judge Burman granted the Romeikes political asylum for two reasons: “(1) The German application of their school law was frustrating the Romeike’s religious convictions (2) Homeschoolers were a particular social group that the Romeike family was a part of and the German government was oppressing or persecuting them because of that. And these are two elements, within the Asylum Act that can qualify an individual for asylum.”

 

Finally, after four and one-half long years, the Romeike family was free to teach their own religious beliefs, along with an unbiased worldview, without fear of persecution! However, that was all about to change…

 

Holder vs. Romeike

According to the HSLDA, within months after Judge Burman’s decision to grant the Romeikes political asylum, the United States Government Agency for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), under the Obama administration, actually disagreed with Judge Burman’s verdict. This resulted in an appeal by the federal government to the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA).

 

Michael Donnely states that, “…during the Obama administration’s arguments, they stated that (1) Homeschooling was not a fundamental right and that it shouldn’t be protected (2) Homeschooling was not a particular social group.”

 

The BIA agreed with the government’s argument that US law recognizes the “broad power of the state to prohibit or regulate homeschooling.” ICE took the position that Germany’s harsh treatment of homeschoolers is merely prosecution, not persecution.”

 

Political asylum denied…

 

HSLDA then appealed to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (just under the Supreme Court) and on April 23, 2013 arguments were heard in the Holder vs. Romeike case. Sadly, on May 14 the three-judge court upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum.

 

On May 28, Michael Farris, founder and chairman of HSLDA filed an appeal to the entire 15-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit to rehear the Romeike case.

 

However, according to the HSLDA, on June 26, “…the Department of Justice submitted a brief to the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals stating ‘Germany’s laws, that suppress religious homeschooling aim at promoting tolerance and are not grounds for claiming persecution.’”

 

The Justice Department asked the court to deny the petition for rehearing, claiming that the Romeikes were being prosecuted under generally applicable law and that there is no proof that Germany specifically targets religious homeschoolers, despite statements from the German High Court to the contrary.

 

The Justice Department further asserted that Germany’s open opposition to the development of religiously or philosophically motivated ‘parallel societies’ is designed to create an ‘open, pluralistic society.’

 

“Teaching tolerance to children of all backgrounds helps to develop the ability to interact as a fully functioning citizen in Germany,” the brief also states.

 

On July 15, the US Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals denied the HSLDA request for rehearing of the Romeike case. The HSLDA is currently petitioning for a review by the Supreme Court.

 

Jeopardizing US Homeschoolers

The Obama Administration actually used, among others, the argument that, “Germany’s laws that suppress religious homeschooling aim at promoting tolerance and are not grounds for claiming persecution” in an effort to send a Christian family back to Germany where they will face large fines, loss of child custody and potential imprisonment just for wanting to homeschool their children.

 

In other words, the Obama Administration believes that it is acceptable to deny a parent the right to homeschool their children if they choose not to teach tolerance of all religions, sexual orientations, and the worldview of the government.

 

This should alarm every Christian parent in America. Our federal government does not feel that suppressing religious homeschooling would qualify for persecution!

 

Furthermore, Eric Holder’s statement that “There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool…so long as government bans homeschooling broadly and equally,” is not just words. This is a principle that he believes in, and he is the Attorney General of The United States of America, acting on behalf of the United States Government!

 

Are we Americans so naïve as to think, if this case goes to the Supreme Court and the Romeike family loses, that we are not all losing at the same time? Sure, it is lawful for US citizens to homeschool for now. But our government, which makes the laws, does not think that it is a fundamental human right for you to do so.

 

According to Michael Donnelly, “At the state level, there are continuing efforts to curtail or control homeschooling with registration requirements and state imposed testing requirements.”

 

Make no mistake. If the Romeikes lose this case, homeschooling families across America lose as well. We may not feel the effects today, but once there is a crack in the dam, it is only a matter of time before homeschooling will be suppressed here in the US.

 

The Real Agenda

It is obvious that the Obama administration agrees with Germany’s educational laws. If not, then why send the Romeike family back? The real issue here is much more sinister than an innocent homeschooling family from southwestern Germany.

 

On one hand you have the Romeikes, a Christian evangelical family, who legally sought political asylum in the US after being religiously persecuted in their home country for wanting to homeschool their children. The Obama Administration is doing everything they can to deport them.

 

On the other hand, President Obama is aggressively pushing for an immigration overhaul that would allow a path to citizenship for the 11 million illegal citizens already residing in the US.According to The Blaze, “The director of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (the same agency that filed against the Romeike family), John Morton, told a congressional panel that the agency had actually released 2,228 people from immigration jails over the course of three weeks, starting February 9, for what he described as ‘solely budgetary reasons.’ They included 10 people considered the highest level of offender.” But the government is not pushing for their deportation.

 

Two factors are at work here. Just like the German government, the Obama Administration does not want a parallel society in America. The US Government knows that the ability to homeschool prevents the indoctrination of children not in the public school system. Requiring all students to be in the public school system would allow the government to teach its worldview without religious contradiction. Consequently, under no circumstances can they allow political asylum for homeschooling persecution in another country, even though our laws currently provide American citizens the right to homeschool. The result would be to open the floodgates for persecuted homeschooling families worldwide!

 

Secondly, it is clear that the Obama Administration is seeking to further its socialist platform of globalization. This is the process of converting the world from consisting of many sovereign nations into a single “world without borders” ruled by a global government. That is why President Obama is fine with the US having open borders and allowing millions in illegally, while working feverishly to deport a single legal Christian homeschooling family.

 

The problem is that the Romeike family is caught in the middle and the Obama Administration is using them to send a message to the rest of the world…The United States Government does not want Christian homeschooling, which promotes a parallel society in America!

 

Totalitarianism

In 1938, just about the time homeschooling was outlawed in Germany, Adolph Hitler made this famous statement concerning the Hitler Youth Corp., “These boys and girls enter our organizations [at] ten years of age, and often for the first time get a little fresh air; after four years of the Young Folk they go on to the Hitler Youth, where we have them for another four years…And even if they are still not complete National Socialists, they go to Labor Service and are smoothed out there for another six, seven months…And whatever class consciousness or social status might still be left…the Wehrmacht [German armed forces] will take care of that.”

 

At the time, many people believed that Adolph Hitler was the Antichrist because the Nazi era was just the sort of totalitarian society that the true Antichrist will seek to implement globally.

 

The Antichrist, like any professional politician, will know that in order to accomplish his goal of a world government, he must control the minds of the youth. He must force them to believe that his socialistic world governing system is the ultimate way of life. And just like Hitler, this doctrine will be preached in the public schools of the world.

 

The Antichrist will detest the very mention of homeschooling. He will say that it is not a human right and that it is not persecution to deny an individual that opportunity. And any governing body that agrees with this method of indoctrination will fall right in line with his world-governing system in the very near future.

 

God help us!

 

What Can We Do To Help?

Thankfully, the HSLDA has supported and provided legal counsel for the Romeike family from the outset. Currently they are petitioning the Supreme Court for a review of the case. But this may not be enough. Here are a couple of ways that you can help:

 

1. Contact Congress 

There are 535 voting members of Congress.Recently a mere 27 of those members signed a letter in support of political asylum for the Romeike family. Here is an excerpt from that letter: “We respectfully ask that, as the chief law enforcement officer of a nation founded as a safe haven for those who seek liberty, you grant asylum to the Romeike family who fled to the United States in 2008 after suffering persecution from the German government as a result of their decision to homeschool their children.

 

A decision to deny the Romeikes the opportunity to educate their children freely is a decision to abandon our commitment to freedom. Doing so would put America alongside those countries that believe children belong to the community or state.  A country founded on freedom should stand for the fact that they belong to their parents. As a ‘city on a hill,’ this country has always embraced those who seek freedom. The United States ought to welcome families who suffer persecution for exercising their right to educate their children.”

 

Please petition your member congress to cooperate in this endeavor at: http://www.house.gov/representatives/ and http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

 

2. Prayer  

The absolute most important thing that we can do to help the Romeike family is pray. Matthew 21:22 states, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” Believe me, God does hear and answer prayer in 2013!

 

Place yourself in the Romeike’s shoes and respond like it was your own children. For you see, if things keep going the way they are here in America…It just might be.