Horrendous. A judge in Germany has removed four children, whom he admits are well-adjusted and academically proficient, from their parents because the family might move out of Germany to homeschool.
Yup. The Berlin Wall was just reconstructed for homeschoolers. Ironically, the judge cited the need for “tolerance” as the reason.
WND reports:
Dirk and Petra Wunderlich’s case made international headlines in August when 20 armed police arrived with a battering ram and forcibly took their four children from their home in Darmstadt, Germany, and enrolled them in public school.
As WND reported at the time, the children, ages 7 to 14, were taken into police custody. They were allowed to return home three weeks later when their father and mother, given no choice by the federal bureaucracy in Germany, agreed to allow their kids to attend public schools despite their objection to the social and religious instruction there.
According to the Home School Legal Defense Association, an international organization advocating for homeschool rights, the ruling from Family Court Judge Marcus Malkmus rejected emphatically the parents’ request to regain custody.
Lawyers for the family had asked the judge to allow the parents to have custody because they had met all court demands for their children to go to public schools, and they wished to move to France, where homeschooling is legal.
The judge, in his ruling, said that even though the Wunderlich children were academically proficient, well-adjusted socially and without educational deficiencies, he was horrified by homeschooling.
Malkmus compared homeschooling to having the children wear a straitjacket and said he had to make sure the children remained in Germany so they would be integrated into society.
He feared “the children would grow up in a parallel society without having learned to be integrated or to have a dialogue with those who think differently and facing them in the sense of practicing tolerance.”
Roger Kimball wrote more about how this could absolutely happen here at PJ Media.
January 13, 2014 at 6:47 pm
Yes, but only about half the electorate voted in the last presidential election, and no one votes in local school board elections. Passivity is the ally of tyrants.
January 13, 2014 at 7:22 pm
This is spreading fast to other countries and the silence of Church leadership in the face of such persecution is shocking.
January 13, 2014 at 8:45 pm
"integrated into society…" German society. Didn't they go through that in oh, say, the 1930s? Didn't work out so well.
January 13, 2014 at 11:31 pm
By his standards re: parallel society, all Muslim children should be removed from their homes.
January 14, 2014 at 1:42 am
Has nobody questioned why a law enacted during the Third Reich is still being followed?
Dave P.
January 14, 2014 at 3:35 am
I have noticed that people without Faith, religion and God are static. They do not reason well. This judge believes that these children are static, too, that they will not grow up and remember the violence they suffered, the separation from their parents, the injury inflicted on their parents in the name of tolerance, a cock and bull policy to bully parents and children around. This judge really believes that there will not be hell to pay, that the wrath of God will not find him in his least auspicious moment.
January 14, 2014 at 7:06 am
Darn right it could happen here. Considering how many homeschoolers are people of one faith or another (not all, but a large percentage), and considering that freedom of religion in this country is already being trodden upon, one might say its just a matter of time before the power of the government is brought crashing down on homeschoolers. Just look at the Obama administration's persecution of that German homeschooling family, the Romeikes. A judge granted them asylum and then the Obama admin tried to revoke it 2 years later, even though they haven't done anything wrong and are productive members of our society. The message is loud and clear.
January 14, 2014 at 3:49 pm
I second Las Vegas Mama…and it is already happening here…
January 15, 2014 at 12:31 am
I think that the country will let atheism take care of any children who still believe in freedom and civil rights.