Homeschool News & Views

Issue 76, July 5, 2008

From Homeschool Helpers

In association with Pass It On Ministries

By Dan L. White

Listen to this article.

California has affected the morals of the whole United States by its court decision ordering homosexual marriage. When their Supreme Court gave that decree, that affected the whole country. Other states are now beginning to follow California’s decision, even though the voters in almost all states don’t want homosexual marriage.

Will California do the same thing with homeschooling?

In February a California appeals court ruled that no one in California can homeschool without a state teaching certificate. That ruling immediately made almost all homeschool families in California criminals. That appeals court is one level below the California Supreme Court.

Think about those two decisions, on homosexuals and homeschooling, by those who are supposed to be among the wisest people in the state.

The judges forced homo marriage on the state, against the vote of the people. Homos don’t really want to get married. That has been shown by the fact that in areas where they can get homo-married, after an initial rush, they stop. They’re not monogamous family people. The average homosexual has about twenty different sexual partners a year. Those who “get married” still follow the same pattern. They don’t want monogamous marriage. They just want to destroy Biblical marriage. They have stated that their goal is for anyone to have sex of any type with anyone else. In doing that they spread disease and misery.

The judges – purported purveyors of wisdom – decreed that Biblical marriage must be thus destroyed.

At about the same time -- slightly earlier -- the California appeals court criminalized homeschooling. Homeschooling produces families who are much less likely to get divorced and children who are much less likely to get on drugs, get pregnant, commit suicide, commit crimes, etc. All of that the California judges made criminal, by their royal decree.

How about that? Is that wisdom?

They think so.

Isn’t the contrast between those two decisions enormously absurd? Canonizing homo-marriage and criminalizing Christian homeschooling.

In the New Testament the scribes and Pharisees were looked at as being the wisest of the wise in matters of morals and Biblical law. In reality they were the least wise of all. They were full of themselves but they were devoid of spiritual wisdom. Christ said they were like tombs, with nothing inside but dead men’s bones. No wonder He told His disciples to call no man your rabbi.

Jer 8:7-9 WEB

(7) Yes, the stork in the sky knows her appointed times; and the turtledove and the swallow and the crane observe the time of their coming; but my people don't know Yahweh's law.

(8) How do you say, We are wise, and the law of Yahweh is with us? But, behold, the false pen of the scribes has worked falsely.

(9) The wise men are disappointed, they are dismayed and taken: behold, they have rejected the word of Yahweh; and what manner of wisdom is in them?

Many judges in America today are the same way, full of themselves and their own importance but devoid of spiritual wisdom. How would you find people in America who have less wisdom than those California judges? That would be very difficult to do, unless you looked at the Democratic presidential candidates.

California courts have changed the nation by commanding homo-marriage. Will the California courts do the same thing in America with homeschooling?

It seemed to me that the decision to criminalize homeschooling caused just about as much of an uproar as the decision to force homo-marriage. The decision to destroy Biblical marriage affects a lot more people than the decision to destroy homeschooling, because a lot more people get married than homeschool. But I got the impression that the homeschool decree got as much response as the homo-marriage decree.

A homeschool grad was working at someone’s house this week, and was asked where she graduated from high school. Upon hearing home school, the person complained that they were making that illegal. Obviously he had heard of the California court decision.

Homeschoolers are doers. They’re only about 2% of the population, but that two percent is a do percent. They’re active. Homeschool grads are about twice as likely to be involved in civic affairs as the typical public school grad. So when the California royal decree came down from on high criminalizing homeschooling, the homeschoolers exploded. The Homeschool Legal Defense Association gathered over 250,000 signatures from the whole nation on a petition urging the California judges to reconsider. They got those signees in just ten days, over 25,000 a day. Homeschoolers demonstrated at the state capitol in Sacramento, and just generally raised a little ruckus.

Because of the uproar, the California judges vacated their decision and said it would reconsider the case. Too bad they didn’t vacate their positions.

These California far left wing judges are religious zealots. The California Supreme Court chief justice was the swing vote in the homo-marriage decision. He voted to force homo-marriage on California and the nation because it was the right thing to do, he said. He wasn’t going by some legal stipulation or precedent. He was going by his heart.

The judges in the homeschool decree went out of their way to criminalize homeschooling. The case was not about homeschooling at all. A girl, one of eight children in her family, had complained that she was being mistreated. After the case had already been closed, the court appointed lawyers for the girl, who were opposing her parents, asked that the court not allow the parents to homeschool their children, so that public school teachers could watch for signs of abuse. Those lawyers were not opposing homeschooling in general at all, but the judges took that puny opportunity to outlaw all homeschooling.

That’s where their heart is. To rephrase Patrick Henry, “Give me liberalism or give me death!”

These zealots of liberalism heard the case again in June. The court heard arguments filed by everyone from the teachers’ unions – they’re against homeschooling – to the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, the California Department of Education – they’re not against homeschooling – and the Seventh Day Adventist Church. I believe they were the only church who really got involved. Churches don’t usually get involved in such things, you know. That’s ironic, because if this California ruling against homeschooling stands, it’s likely that all churches in America will lose their religious freedom within a generation.

A decision is expected soon. If the left wing judges reaffirm their first decision, then liberals around the country will use that as a base to attack homeschooling nationwide, just as they are using the homo-marriage decision to attack marriage. Christian homeschooling is a great bastion of marriage and family. Satan must attack it ferociously, sometime, somehow.

From the LA Times:

“Glenn and Kathleen, a Sacramento-area couple who requested that their last name not be used for fear of prosecution, home school their 9-year-old son Hunter because their Christian beliefs would be contradicted in a public school setting, Glenn said. He is troubled by the idea that his son would be exposed to teachings about evolution, homosexuality, same-sex marriage and sex education ."I want to have control over what goes in my son's head, not what's put in there by people who might be on the far left who have their own ideas about indoctrinating kids," he said. If the ruling takes effect, Glenn vowed to move his family out of state. "If I can't home school my son in California, we're going to have to end up leaving California. That's how important it is to me."”

If the appeals court reaffirms their previous decision, there will be an even greater outcry, and that will be appealed to the California Supreme Court. And those are the sages who commanded homo-marriage.

By their actions, we know the hearts of these judges. Sometimes, though, when they have stirred up too much of a hornet’s nest, liberals back up. For a while. Bill Clinton was elected governor of Arkansas, raised taxes and was defeated. He apologized, was then reelected and the rest is history. Barack Hussein Obama is also a master of thrust and parry.

Michael Farris of HSLDA said, “The homeschooling movement has been successful not because of the work of lawyers but because the Lord has blessed it. We must always remember Proverbs 21:1—‘The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, like the rivers of water; He turns it wherever he wishes.’ ”