ETA: For an extremely intelligent and well-written post on this subject, please go to
Get Along Home.
The Romeike Family is a German homeschooling family who sought asylum in the United States in 2010 due to persecution by the government for homeschooling. They did receive asylum at that time. The Obama Administration is seeking to deport them, and if successful, this family will likely lose everything, including the custody of their children upon return to Germany.
The Home School Legal Defense Association is representing this family legally to help them remain in the United States.
This being a quilting blog, you may not know that we homeschool our three children, ages 17, 14, and 12, and have done so for seven years. We joined HSLDA this month to help support HSLDA in representing this family and the many other homeschooling legal cases they work with. There are very few limits on homeschooling in Washington State, and we enjoy these freedoms very much, but homeschooling is not guaranteed as the government continues to remove our parental freedoms in an effort to squelch opposing worldviews.
Dr Del Tackett of Focus on the Family states, "[The US Government] doesn't believe that parents have a right to educate their children. It is more in line with the National Education Association that homeschooling shouldn't be allowed. It believes that the government can best educate 'America's children.' It doesn't want another worldview taught in this country. It wants America's children to have one worldview and one worldview only."
The Obama Administrations' position indicates that the US Government is siding with restrictive homeschooling laws in Germany.
Even if you do not homeschool, and even if you are against homeschooling, this case and its outcome will affect the lives of every family in the United States - yours, your neighbors', your sister's, your grandkids' - for generations to come. It is about the basic right of parents to make decisions regarding their own children. It is a case about parental rights, and it sets the precedent for future policies. It is another step in taking away our personal freedoms. I urge you to watch this video and
sign the petition through HSLDA.
http://youtu.be/TTw8x4Uuf8Y