In the past, I have covered the German Homeschool crisis (see here, here, here, here, here, and here.) I ran across an article by Richard Guenther that spoke about not only homeschoolers, but other minorities who are being persecuted for going against school policies.

Today, two mothers were taken to prison in the state of Nordrhein-Westfalen. They were not homeschoolers but were charged with keeping their children from fulfilling the mandatory school attendance laws of their state. Their crime? They refused to allow their children to participate in a very, very ungodly school theater piece. First they received fines. When they refused to pay the fines they were taken to jail. One mother’s husband is in the hospital for a very serious lung operation. He like the other father will face jail when his wife finishes her punishment in prison. When she was brought to the police station the officer in charge told her to go home and not tell anybody. Why? Because she was brought to prison with her baby. She still nurses her baby. The other mother remains in jail. She has 12 children. The last step is to take the children away!

Here’s another story:

Yesterday, in Hamburg, a 9 year old girl’s muslim parents contested before the court that their little girl should be made to wear a swim suit to attend the co-ed swim course in her school - which they believed to be a sin. The state argued that it was in the best interest of the child to learn to swim. The judge ruled that the state is principally entitled to “follow its own educational goals independent from the beliefs and wishes of the parents.”

The stories are unbelievable, bringing you to stop and pray for these families in Germany.

t doesn’t get much worse than when, like last week, a judge with two social workers visited a Baptist family in Paderborn in an attempt to force them to send their child back to school. He came to evaluate the possibility of giving the custody of their home-educated boy to the state. One of our attorneys was present at this visit and cited in support of parental rights among other laws the article of the German constitution that would allow this family to homeschool their child for religious reasons. The judge retorted that he didn’t want to hear about laws. This shows again clearly that it is not about keeping the law and about the well-being of the child but all about state-prescribed social agenda.

Pray hard everyone, pray hard.