German authorities have sentenced eight fathers to prison for refusing to send their children to mandatory sexual education classes.
The families were initially fined for not sending their children to the classes.
The International Human Rights Group (IHRG), a Christian legal defense organisation that defends religious liberty and the right to home-school in Europe, reports that in addition to refusing to allow their children to attend sex-ed classes, the families also resisted having their children enlisted in a theatre production of “Mein Körper gehört mir” or “My Body Belongs to Me,” which informs young children in how to engage in sexual intercourse.
With fines having failed to force the families into compliance, government officials have now sentenced each of the eight families’ respective fathers to spend a brief time in prison. One father has already spent seven days in jail and was released Friday.
Instead of inflicting ordinary punitive fines on the families, the state has opted to impose a special fine called “Bussgeld,” which IHRG European Director Richard Guenther explains literally means “repentance money” and is “designed to show contrition for a wrong behavior on the part of the person being fined.”
The “Bussgeld” fines are significant, because they put the eight German families in a difficult situation: payment of the fines would imply an admission of guilt, but they believe that they have done nothing wrong.
The president of IHRG, Joel Thornton, says that the move to imprison the fathers “shows how committed the German system is to punishing home school families and others who do not comply with the compulsory education laws, even when they are only removing their children from a single clearly objectionable class.”
Thornton states that unlike much of the American education system, German officials “view the children as belonging to the State, particularly during the time they are in school” and for that reason parents’ beliefs and authority over their children takes second place to the interests and mandates of the State.
Attorneys Gabriele and Armin Eckermann of the German homeschooling advocacy group SchuzH have intervened with IHRG to represent the fathers concerned.
Thornton says that the situation in Germany has prompted IHRG to take a “more radical approach.” This involves lodging a civil suit on behalf of a number of persecuted home-school families in order to force Germany’s courts to recognise the rights of parents as the primary educators of their children.
