Homeschooling Not a Fundamental Right, Justice Dept. Argues
A family homeschooling safely in rural Tennessee may be forced to return to their native Germany, where the parents likely face huge fines and criminal penalties, and could lose custody of their five school-age children.
Uwe and Hannelore Romeike are looking to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them permanent refugee status. But Attorney General Eric Holder is disputing their case, arguing Germany's ban on homeschooling fails to violate the family's fundamental rights.
The Romeikes fled Germany in 2008 after authorities fined them thousands in euros and forcibly took their children because they homeschool. In 2010, a U.S. immigration judge granted the Romeikes political asylum—the first time this status was granted based on compulsory schooling laws. The judge found the family has legitimate fear of persecution in Germany, where a small group of Christian homeschooling families have...
For living souls, yes. For legal persons, no. Usually the transfer of God's creation, the living soul, to the State's creation, the legal person, is done via the voluntary State birth certificate.
The State birth certificate is today's infant baptism, and I know from very personal experience. Unbelievers and even professed believers go nuts over this, like really, really looney nuts!
The poster formerly known as Russ wrote: And all this time I thought that rights came from our Creator.
Jim Lincoln wrote: First of all I'm sympathetic to this family. It would have been good if the Justice Dept. had stayed away from this, one has to remember though, if Christians get to home school, so do Muhammadans. Behind the Lines: Conquest through proselytizing. Germany has a big Islamic problem, and thanks to the likes of Bush--and others we imported many anti-American Islamists into this country as well. So, I can see Germany's problem, we should not be the ones trying to fix their mess, by sending back people who apparently worthwhile members of American society, and our obeying our laws. Perhaps deportation of Islamists who are disobeying our laws should be pushed more vigorously?
If only they had entered from Mexico, during the night, when no one was looking, then it would be ok with Holder if they stayed.
Even people such as the AG have a right to their uninformed, personal opinions, however disconnected from their positional authority.
PS Jim, thanks for including your favorite Pavlovian reflex word: Bush
Jim Lincoln wrote: First of all I'm sympathetic to this family. It would have been good if the Justice Dept. had stayed away from this, one has to remember though, if Christians get to home school, so do Muhammadans. Behind the Lines: Conquest through proselytizing. Germany has a big Islamic problem, and thanks to the likes of Bush--and others we imported many anti-American Islamists into this country as well. So, I can see Germany's problem, we should not be the ones trying to fix their mess, by sending back people who apparently worthwhile members of American society, and our obeying our laws. Perhaps deportation of Islamists who are disobeying our laws should be pushed more vigorously?
Once again an attack on religious liberty coming from a non-Islamic source (Eric Holder is an Episcopalian) but don't look at the source blame Islam? Islam is to Christianity in America what Lee Harvey Oswald was to John F. Kennedy.
First of all I'm sympathetic to this family. It would have been good if the Justice Dept. had stayed away from this, one has to remember though, if Christians get to home school, so do Muhammadans. Behind the Lines: Conquest through proselytizing. Germany has a big Islamic problem, and thanks to the likes of Bush--and others we imported many anti-American Islamists into this country as well.
So, I can see Germany's problem, we should not be the ones trying to fix their mess, by sending back people who apparently worthwhile members of American society, and our obeying our laws. Perhaps deportation of Islamists who are disobeying our laws should be pushed more vigorously?
The article omits any discussion of the German law banning homeschooling. What forward thinkng, progressive, defender of human rights pushed the ban into law in 1938? Hitler. Holder and Hitler. What a team.
The poster formerly known as Russ wrote: And all this time I thought that rights came from our Creator.
And our bondage comes from our first parents.
joe lee wrote: And I thought that families that were hard-working in which parents took extraordinary risks to escape persecution and came to these shores to raise their children in the fear of the Lord were the kind of immigrant families we wanted. Silly me...must have been reading some antiquated textbook about the pilgrims.
Yes, thankfully half of the Germans did not die in the first winter.
What this German family doesn't realize is that the basis of their refugee status conflicts with the agenda of the Obama administration. If Obama and Eric Holder were to concede the point that this family's fundamental human rights are being violated by Germany's ban on home schooling, that would make it more difficult for them to clamp down on home schoolers in this country at a later date, if they wish to do so. I find it very disturbing that our government is in essence denying the fact that parents have a "fundamental human right" to raise their children in accordance with their own values through home schooling, instead of placing them in government run schools. What does that portend for the future of parental freedom of school choice in our own country?
Homeschooling is a right and a command of God. If any family was deserving of refugee status in America it would be this family. Folks thinking that Nazism died in Germany and yet a family has to flee the country in order to train up their children in the way they should go. May God bless them and keep them safe.
p.s. If there was Justice in America and an actual Justice department that cared about Justice, Eric holder would be expressing his opinions behind bars.
And I thought that families that were hard-working in which parents took extraordinary risks to escape persecution and came to these shores to raise their children in the fear of the Lord were the kind of immigrant families we wanted. Silly me...must have been reading some antiquated textbook about the pilgrims.
COMMENTS | 
we imported many anti-American Islamists into this country as well.
frank: "
john uk
romans 7:21-25 kjv
21 i find then a law, that, when i would..."
