Our Threatened Freedom

Why Prosecute Good Children

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Political Studies

Lesson: 13-169

Genre: Conversation

Track: 013

Dictation Name: Vol. A – Part 13 – Why Prosecute Good Children

Location/Venue: Unknown

Year: 1980’s – 1990’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Why prosecute good children? This is R.J. Rushdoony with a report on our threatened freedom.

In November of 1978, I was in a small city of Ohio, to be a witness in a trial. Two Christians, Mr. and Mrs. James Owen, had placed their daughter Jennifer in a Christian school next door to their farm. An arrest followed, with a charge of truancy against Jennifer, and her father, ostensibly, contributing to her delinquency, by placing her in that Amish school, when he was not Amish. Jim Owen is a Christian, he is not Amish, but he respects the Amish, and a good school next door was a blessing to him.

By the time the case went to court, Jennifer had completed the first grade and begun the second. At the end of the first grade, in June 1978, she was tested. The test results showed that Jennifer scored between high 3rd and low 5th. Very good indeed, for a first grader. Obviously the school was a good one. The Owen’s lost the case, however, and the appellate court sustained the juvenile court. The case will now go to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Consider the implications of this case. Because the Owens are not Amish, the court regards it as a legal offense for them to place their children in an Amish school. Does this mean that someday soon only Baptists can send their children to a Baptist school, or only Catholics can use a catholic school?

The court was supposedly concerned with Jennifer Owen’s welfare, but Jennifer Owen has a better home and next door to her school, a better school than most children do. The school’s performance record shows that. The state could not argue that Jennifer was harmed, nor that the community was harmed. Nor that any moral or educational wrong had taken place. All that the state could honestly claim was that its supposed right or power to play God was denied. Its concern was neither the general welfare nor Jennifer Owen’s welfare. Its concern was its own totalitarian claim to power.

The state wants a monopoly of power over all of us, including our children. The saddest part of this Owen case is that it is not unusual. It has happened, again and again. It will continue to happen, until we the people are sufficiently aroused to demand changes in the nature of civil government.

Meanwhile, we have every reason to be worried. Both Hitler, Stalin and Stalin’s successors, have persecuted and killed innocent people in great numbers. Almost everyone bewails that fact, and condemns such tyranny. Now, in the United States, godly children like Jennifer Owen in Ohio, are being taken to court for no other reason than being in a Christian school, getting a superior and a godly education. Is the state of Ohio so perfect that it can regard a good little girl as an offender? We need to be disgusted, ashamed and indignant, and to demand a change. If we do not, our children soon may also be in court.

Copies of this broadcast are available from R.J. Rushdoony, [Address].

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