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If you deny the rights of Christians to educate their own children, because you are afraid of how some of your small Muslim population might educate their children. You have lost the fight. You are letting the Muslims dictate terms. If you don't think parents can take responsibility of the education of their own children, then you don't believe in a very basic freedom.

Well, we Germans are a nation of 82.000.000 people. 3.7% of our population are Muslim. That makes roundabout 2.700.000 Muslims in my country. Furthermore we deal with a few hundred homeschoolers from mainly small Christian sects. We do not let Muslims dictate terms but we have to admit that our interest into proper education of Muslim kids in Germany is much higher than into the wishes of a absolutely irrelevant minority. It is simply a balancing of interests.

That is the rational used in public schools to give the kids Planned Parenthood style sex ed.

Well, Germany has anyway complete different sex morals than the US. Our kids receive sex education with 11 or 12 years since a long time. I remember that our teachers were not allowed to tell us anything about contraception but told us everything else in the beginning 80ties. Today they teach birth control too. So what? To me information has to be available if it is needed. In difference to the US the teenage pregnancy rate in Germany is much lower although I doubt that the basic sexual behavior is different. To my knowlege the average first sex of German kids happens with 16 or 17 years and is not triggered by sexual education.

It might be that most (Christian - BTW) Germans have a much more casual handling of sex than evangelical conservative Christians do, but it has to be said that the responsibility for sexual behavior is very well something that can be conveyed by a family. Sexual responsibility is different to sexual information. Therefore we have absolutely no reason to allow someone to deny his kids the information that we consider as important just because of his religious commitment. If his belief is worth something he/she should be able to get it across to his kids. If they identify themselves with the message they will adjust their personal behavior. You should simply understand that we Germans are not willing to let Muslims and/or evangelical Christians dictate our way of live. All of our kids get the basic information and it is their very own decision what they do with it. No matter if we talk about history, biology, literature or (obviously quite important to Muslims and fundamental Christians) sexual education.

If you grant the state a monopoly on what you call the dispensing of information, it will be abused.

The German state has no monopoly on information. Germans have the right to send their kids on private schools that stand for their own aims. Nevertheless those schools have to fit into some minimum standards. They have to provide real information and not only a religious program. That is all.

My wife is Canadian, and the Catholic schools in Canada are completely dictated to by the state schools. Catholics (by papal teaching) are required to be the PRIMARY educators of children. The schools are to ASSIST the parents.

Personally I see myself as the PRIMARY educator of my kids and I share your view completely that schools only should be allowed to ASSIST the parents in bringing up the children. The basic philosophy of live is something a school can not provide. Such takes loving parents. The sexual act i.e. can be explained by a teacher but it takes a loving mother or father to say something about the immemorial secret around it. Therefore - do not get me wrong: Schools are places of free information but no places of propaganda.

The thing is that we Germans want to have all of our kids to know some basic things. Therefore we need our schools. Nevertheless that does not strip the right of the parents to take influence on their children.

Thank you for your post. We have a very different understanding of what God-given rights (that the state is not allowed to trespass upon) are. With essential rights, there is no "balancing of interests." I don't particularly care whether the parents are evangelical, or Muslim or Hindu. If they are fit to breath free air, feed and clothe their own children, and otherwise raise them, they are fit to see to their own children's upbringing, including education on their own. I don't know how hard Germany makes it to be a certified private school. In many states here, Pennsylvania, for instance, (which is strong labor-union/homeschooling hostile), homeschooling is allowed, but each home school is registered as a private school.

If the schools are teaching sex ed, including birth control, that is completely against Catholic teaching. I am no evangelical, but if my line were still in Germany (my great-great-grandfather Gottlieb cames to America 120 years ago), I would have to take my children out of the country rather than have them instructed in sex education by those whose mission is to implant values different than mine, but apparently compatible with the German government. I am greatly saddened if the Jesuits are cooperating with this.

If you are willing to make a distinction between Muslims and Christians, why are you obliged to imprison evangelical Christian parents because of Muslims? If they are insignificant, they are no threat. Why not allow them to go their way as we allow the statistically insignificant Amish? I imagine you have more control in your schools with your Muslim population than we have in our inner city schools, but if some sections have critical mass, you may get your madrassas with the added burden of paying for it.

Since we disagree on whether an inviolable principle is involved (the parents' essential right to determine their own children's education, including evangelicals who want to instruct them at home), I see no resolution. It is not merely a balancing of interests, any more than Red Communist China has a right to coercively sterilize her own women after the birth of a child, regardless of the size of their population or their balancing of interest.

I wonder how many of the millions of Catholics would like to provide with a proper moral education Germany. If the country at large is okay with sex outside of marriage (teen pregnancy statistics are irrelevant. My mother was pregnant as a teen. She graduated at 18, got married, and had my older brother 13 months later at 19). What matters is out-of-wedlock sexual activity, pregnancy, abortion and divorce. Unfortunately, the U.S. has awful numbers in all these areas. Our way of life has already changed, in large part because of what has been taught in both the media and the classroom. Since Germany has the same permissive culture in this regard (with more abortifacient birth control [low-dose estrogen birth control pills often prevent implantation, causing a tiny micarriage]) and probably less marriage and divorce overall. If the Catholics in Germany are indifferent or accepting of this, there is little hope.

Your way of life has already changed. The non-secularized Muslims make the opposite mistakes, practically making women's bodies to be evil, and having a fundamentally false conception of what God wants, and how men are to behave. That does not mean that modern secularism is going to wind up any better.