Judge in Memphis Grants Asylum to German Home Schoolers

This is an interesting case--for the article, click here:

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I read about the Romeike family in this week’s issue of Time Magazine, and today’s New York Times carried an article about how an immigration judge in Tennessee granted political asylum to this German family because they fear persecution in their home country. Why? They wish to home-school their children, which is illegal in Germany. Now, I’m surprised at this law simply because I know nothing about such policies in other countries, and I find this an interesting case because the family hails from the same German state where my penpal lives. As an American, I have known many people who were home-schooled for one reason or another, so the fact that this practice is not common or allowed in other countries definitely gives me a changed perspective on things. In conclusion, I have learned something about other societies that I did not know, making me a more informed citizen.

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Yet, the critical point here is that I am an American. The judge in the case is an American. In America, we have the right to educate our children however we want.

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But there’s another critical corollary to this discussion:

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NOT EVERYONE IN THE WORLD IS AMERICAN OR SHARES AMERICAN VALUES.

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The writer for the Times explains the judge’s ruling as follows: "In a harshly worded decision, the judge, Lawrence O. Burman, denounced the German policy, calling it “utterly repellent to everything we believe as Americans,” and expressed shock at the heavy fines and other penalties the government has levied on home-schooling parents, including taking custody of their children."

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That would be fine. German laws (or the laws of any other country) can resonate poorly with us here in the US of A. It happens. But, the people in Berlin who made these laws are NOT Americans; they are Germans, and their legislators DO NOT answer to the American status quo when they make their laws. If they want to outlaw homeschooling, it’s their right. It’s our right to disagree. That’s why we make our own laws here. If the Romeike family wants to leave Germany and home-school their children someplace else (like the USA), that’s also their right. The judge’s ruling, however, is blatant cultural imperialism, and no judge in this country has the right to attempt to impose our values on other societies. We have enough trouble in this country dealing with debates over whether judges should or ever do inflict their perspectives on our own society (read: judicial activism) that we have no business criticizing the legitimate social policies of other nations. Hasn’t this gotten us in enough trouble already?