Home > Parental Rights, Parenting, Sex Education > German mother in prison over sex ed issue

German mother in prison over sex ed issue

March 4th, 2011

This is kind of nuts. I’m glad I live in the U.S.

by Carolyn Moynihan

A German mother is in prison as a result of resisting state measures to force objectionable “sexual education” on her children. Her husband has already served his 43-day sentence. The couple bring the number of Christian parents imprisoned for this reason to 10.

Heinrich and Irene Wiens belong to the Baptist Church. Their case has been taken up by the United States based Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) — a Christian legal alliance defending religious liberty, sanctity of life, marriage, and the family.

In June 2006, the Wiens’ objected to their children’s attendance at both a mandatory stage play and four school days of so-called “sexual education” classes. Both parents believed the programs contradicted their sincerely held religious beliefs, as they and their four children are active in the Christian Baptist Church. The Wiens’ kept their children at home during the programs and instead instructed them in their own Christian values on sexuality.  The parents were subsequently sentenced by a lower court in June 2008 and both were fined a total of 2,340 Euros (approximately $3,250 U.S.), which they refused to pay on legal and moral grounds.

Hence the prison sentences.

ADF filed an emergency appeal yesterday with the European Court of Human Rights, calling for Mrs Wien’s immediate release. Legal counsel Roger Kiska, based in the Slovak Republic, says the Wiens are well within their rights under the European Convention of Human Rights and other laws.

ADF is representing four similar cases before the ECHR. “These types of cases are crucial battles in the effort to keep bad decisions concerning parental rights overseas from being adopted by American courts,” says Mr Kiska.

Found here.

  1. Mark
    March 4th, 2011 at 15:20 | #1

    I would interested to see what it was the children were being taught. From what I can find, the play was a to teach kids how to protect themselves from being sexually abused. But no where is there a description of what the overall class was like. Without the details, it’s hard to get worked up over this incident.

  2. Leland
    March 4th, 2011 at 19:38 | #2

    Mark :
    Without the details, it’s hard to get worked up over this incident.

    Yeah, it’s not as if we should start from the assumption that parents would generally know better than anyone else what would be best for their own offspring or anything. After all, your children are rightfully just wards of the state and you are to rear them as you are ordered, huh Mark?

  3. Ginny
    March 4th, 2011 at 21:37 | #3

    @Mark

    Without the details, it’s hard to get worked up over this incident.

    I don’t know what the class was teaching, or what specifically the parents objected to. Different people have diverse standards when it comes to something as important as sex. But that’s not the point.

    What I am worked up over is that the parents were fined and jailed (jailed!) for saying that they get to decide how and what to teach their children on this topic.

  4. Sean
    March 5th, 2011 at 05:54 | #4

    How were their sincerely held religious beliefs in any way threatened? Kids learn stuff in school and elsewhere that conflicts with religious values. That’s why parents have to teach their kids right from wrong, despite what the rest of the world does or says. This notion that you get to make the rest of the world conform to your religious beliefs, or shield your children from differing views, is bizarre. It’s not even possible.

    What’s next? Forcing the next door neighbors to move away if they are planning to divorce or otherwise violate biblical rules and regs, so the children don’t see it? Gimme a break.

  5. Sean
    March 5th, 2011 at 05:58 | #5

    Ironically, children in Germany get much better health care than children in the US. In “Christian” America, conservatives are fighting access to health care for children tooth and nail. It isn’t very convincing to act like you care for children when you won’t let them have access to health care, or when you force the children of same-sex couples to be raised outside of wedlock.

  6. Mark
    March 5th, 2011 at 11:14 | #6

    @Leland
    Oh, Leland. I KNOW you assume parents know EVERYTHING and can teach their children EVERYTHING. Why even send a child to school if the parents are so bright and clever?

  7. Mark
    March 5th, 2011 at 11:18 | #7

    @Ginny
    “What I am worked up over is that the parents were fined and jailed (jailed!) for saying that they get to decide how and what to teach their children on this topic.”

    No, they were jailed for defying the courts. “The parents were subsequently sentenced by a lower court in June 2008 and both were fined a total of 2,340 Euros (approximately $3,250 U.S.), which they refused to pay on legal and moral grounds.”

    You see? They had their day in court. Didn’t like what the court decided so refused to pay the penalty and were subsequently jailed. So it was the parents own choice. Sometimes when you choose, you have to pay a penalty. Or do you advocate parents should defy the law? Nice example to set for children.

  8. Anabaptist persecution
    March 5th, 2011 at 16:56 | #8

    The question is not whether the parents got their day in court. The question is whether the law and the court are just in this situation. Mark seems to condemn civil disobedience via his sarcasm, but continually brings up the black civil rights struggle, in which peaceful civil disobedience played a prominent part. Mark seems to want it both ways when it comes to civil rights and civil disobedience. Again, the question is whether the court violated the rights of the parents under the European Convention of Human Rights and other laws and more generally, is the verdict a just one, and if so, on what basis, other than that the German State must always be obeyed. Sean and Mark haven’t addressed that question nor do Sean’s comments about health care or his wild speculation about the people next door address the merits of the case, namely the ability of opt out of teaching session that the parents reasonably believe is hostile to their faith. Would Sean and Mark like to see that right abolished in the U.S. and Christians jailed accordingly? The Anabaptist tradition did spring from an environment of intense persecution of their faith in the center of Europe. Are Sean and Mark indifferent to that history?

  9. Leland
    March 5th, 2011 at 17:42 | #9

    @Mark
    You and Sean are both missing the point (again).

    Whatever their reasons, the parents should have the right to opt their own children out if they want to.

    Why do you have a problem with that?

  10. Sean
    March 6th, 2011 at 05:45 | #10

    “Whatever their reasons, the parents should have the right to opt their own children out if they want to.”

    Really? Should they have the right to opt out of math class? Biology class when evolution is taught? What if their child was put in a class with(“gasp!) black kids? Should they be able to opt out?

    Schools make policies about what “opt out-able”. If you don’t like the policy, get it changed, if you can.

  11. Mark
    March 6th, 2011 at 11:16 | #11

    @Anabaptist persecution
    “Mark seems to condemn civil disobedience via his sarcasm, but continually brings up the black civil rights struggle, in which peaceful civil disobedience played a prominent part.”

    I do not condemn civil disobedience. This is what these parents did, good for them. NOW they have to pay the price. Civil disobedience often comes with a price. Sorry that you feel people should be able to flaunt the law with no responsibility.

    “Again, the question is whether the court violated the rights of the parents under the European Convention of Human Rights and other laws and more generally, is the verdict a just one, and if so, on what basis, other than that the German State must always be obeyed.”

    That is why I was saying more information is needed. But for you and others to go all martyr – like is ridiculous.

  12. Sean
    March 6th, 2011 at 14:03 | #12

    “Sean’s comments about health care or his wild speculation about the people next door address the merits of the case, namely the ability of opt out of teaching session that the parents reasonably believe is hostile to their faith”

    Lots of things are “hostile” to the Christian faith, and Christians have proven quite adept at accepting them. Take divorce. Christians are forbidden from getting a divorce. But divorce is legal in the US, and many Christians actively participate! Rush Limbaugh is thrice divorced! And he’s a favorite of the “family friendly” wingnuts. So long as Red Lobster keeps serving up shellfish legally, I guess that little biblical no-no is also legal. Of course, good Christians avoid going anywhere near shellfish!

    It is not the role of government to insulate religionists from real-world realities. If you voluntarily choose to accept ancient non-scientific fairy tales are your reality, you are on your own, so to speak. Retreat to a commune, like the Amish, if it pains your sensibilities to deal with the real world. But in the US, the government is specifically prevented from advancing your religious beliefs for you. Or insulating you from beliefs you don’t approve of.

  13. Ginny
    March 7th, 2011 at 22:03 | #13

    @Mark

    I do not condemn civil disobedience. This is what these parents did, good for them. NOW they have to pay the price. Civil disobedience often comes with a price.

    It’s true that, if you’re going to use civil disobedience, you have to be ready to pay the price. As an example, look at the civil rights movement in the 1960’s. Segregation was the law in the South. The people (black and white) who sat together at the “whites only” lunch counters knew that they were breaking the law. They could hope that their actions would change the unjust law, but they had to expect that they might be thrown in jail. And when they were thrown in jail, there was national attention and outrage–“People are being jailed for merely sitting at a counter??? That needs to be changed!”

    Similarly, these German parents disobeyed the law–they committed civil disobedience. And I agree: “Good for them.” They knew that they might have to pay the price, and now they are. So here is where international attention and outrage come in: “People are being jailed for merely directing their children’s education??? That needs to be changed!”

    So I guess I could clarify what I said in an earlier comment–I am not “worked up” over the fact that they were sent to jail after breaking a law. I am worked up (outraged, actually) at the existence of the law that sent them to jail.

  14. Mark
    March 8th, 2011 at 05:57 | #14

    @Ginny
    ““People are being jailed for merely directing their children’s education??? That needs to be changed!””

    Again, they are being jailed for violating the law. They had their day in court (unlike those sitting at the counters in the 1960’s). They lost their case (like I said, details would be nice but details are as rare as hen’s teeth on this blog). They were fined and jailed for failing to follow the courts and the law. Again, if you feel that parents have a right to flaunt the laws, so be it. I prefer on working to change laws that I feel are unjust.

  15. Leland
    March 8th, 2011 at 14:41 | #15

    @Mark
    Mark, those kids sitting at the lunch counters in the ’60s usually did have their day in court. But the court they faced was no more fair than the court in Germany these two parents faced.

    Some laws are so profoundly unjust that not to defy them would be by far the greater evil. Sometimes the only effective way to change unjust laws is to defy them.

  16. Ginny
    March 8th, 2011 at 22:58 | #16

    @Mark

    I prefer on working to change laws that I feel are unjust.

    That is exactly what they are doing–not “flaunting” the law that they feel is unjust, but trying to change it.

    And when I say “They shouldn’t be in jail”, I don’t mean “They should be able to break the law and get away with it.” I mean “The law that put them in jail is unjust and wrong, and shouldn’t even exist.”

  17. Mark
    March 9th, 2011 at 05:34 | #17

    @Leland
    “Some laws are so profoundly unjust that not to defy them would be by far the greater evil. Sometimes the only effective way to change unjust laws is to defy them.”

    Then as my mother said, take your medicine.

    As far as those kids at the counters: they were jailed, beaten and then released and THEN possibly got their day in court. Not the other way around for these people.

    And why are parents so frightened of education? Oh, that’s right, because ignorant narrow minded people keep telling them to be afraid. Do these parents not think their children are intelligent? Do they fear their children will be brain washed? If that is the case, why have them in school at all? Teach them at home where they will be nice and safe and never have to deal with the real world.

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