Asylum for child abusers?

A New Basis for U.S. Asylum Claims: Homeschooling - TIME

Oh good! Now we are importing wackos from other countries.

Richard Dawkins has famously described religious indoctrination as a form of child abuse. If that is the case, then home schooling may be the institutionalization of that abuse. The raison d'etra of home schooling is that "Schools, even private schools, are deemed to be harmful because of the poor values they transmit: their 'progressive dogma', social diversity, lack of discipline, sex education and pro-abortion stances threaten the balanced development of Christians." (from Alternet)

Just to be clear, "progressive dogma" is what the rest of us refer to as a secular education. A 2007 survey by Department of Education revealed that 1.5 million children - about three percent of the school age population - are homeschooled, a number that is ever trending upward. Eight-three percent of parents of homeschooled children indicated that their choice to homeschool was based on "a desire to provide religious and moral instruction." (I wonder if that means that my children have not had moral instruction.)

Sex education is the big thing. Surely there are good reasons in some regions to consider home schooling. Issues such as the prevalence of drugs or violence and substandard local academic achievement; indeed homeschooling was a leftist creation of the 60's and early 70's (they wanted to protect their children from capitalist indoctrination) but it is science, in particular biology as it relates to the human race and procreation, that is at the root of this flight from public schools. "Science" curricula for children homeschooled by religious parents consists in titles such as titles such as "Christian Kids Explore Biology" described by the publisher as "unabashedly Christian". Other titles include the the "God's Design for Sex series" by author Brenna Jones, who describes herself as " a mother whose goals have focused on the nurture and formation of the character of her children". As if the rest of them are not.

Biology is not all that is at issue. There is physics - "Christian Kids Explore Physics" described thusly "The universe that we live in is the result of God’s thoughtful design and careful building. Physics gives us a glimpse into the materials, laws, and structures of that universe. " And we must not forget history - "Mystery of History Vol. 1 Creation to Resurrection", which purports to be "An historically accurate, Bible-centered approach to ancient history. This user-friendy curriculum can be used with the whole family." (I am guessing that the authors are not getting the irony in this statement.)

There are many relevant questions about homeschooling that have been aired ad nauseum and defended in kind by homeschoolers. Google "Homeschooling, murder" and what you get is two and half pages of shrill defense before you even get to the CBS news link about which they are all so upset. Ditto for issues such as the qualifications of homeschooling parents and the incidence of abuse in homes where children are schooled.

But what is at issue for me in all this is not those questions - the homeschoolers are right, abuse, murder and poorly qualified teachers exist in abundance in the society of families who do not homeschool. What I question - along with Dawkins and others - is, is the simple presence of religious indoctrination abusive? We certainly object to the idea of madrassas indoctrinating young men into Islam, and no one is more shrill of this point than the Christian right. Are not religiously homeschooled children in the same situation?

The Time/CNN article referenced above discusses the granting of asylum to a family of Christian fundamentalists who were "persecuted" by the laws of Germany, which require mandatory attendance to school. Apparently the state does not feel that homeschooling qualifies.

Say what you want about homeschooling, but the creation of a new class of refugees: people (Christians only, presumably - there is no counterpart that I am aware of for granting homosexuals amnesty because they are subject to religious persecution in Iran) who wish to escape the democratic process of their country, is an extension of the concept of asylum into the absurd.

Wait, though. I wonder if I could get amnesty in Amsterdam to escape the US's oppressive laws against pot.

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