On these pages, I recently asked for prayer for Uwe and Hannelore Romeike.  The Romeikes, an evangelical couple from Germany, wanted to homeschool their six children in Germany as they had grave concerns that the German public schools taught non-Christian values.  Homeschooling in Germany, banned continuously since the Nazi era, is the only European nation where homeschooling is banned outright.  As a result, because the Romeikes homeschooled their children in Germany, they faced significant fines, imprisonment, and the loss of custody of their children.  As a result, the family fled to the United States in 2008, and applied for asylum.  In 2010, Judge Lawrence O. Burman reasonably and appropriately granted political asylum in the U.S. for the Romeikes based upon the evidence presented to him and the appropriate legal standard.  However, Secretary Napolitano’s Department of Homeland Security appealed Judge Burman’s ruling arguing that German laws banning homeschooling do not violate the family’s fundamental human rights, and she withdrew the family’s asylum status.  (I suppose she didn’t want to open the floodgates to homeschooling Christian asylum seekers.)  In late April, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments on appeal from the Romeikes.

Yesterday, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama Administration’s denial of asylum granted to the Romeike family.  The court said that the Romeikes had not made a sufficient case, and that the United States has not opened its doors to every victim of unfair treatment.  (Of course, you might not know that from the more than thirty million illegal immigrants currently living in the U.S.)  Nevertheless, the court of appeals did acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution recognizes the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children (whew!), but then refused to concede that the harsh treatment of religiously motivated homeschoolers in Germany amounts to “persecution.”  (I suppose it has to be something more pernicious than merely significant fines, imprisonment, and the loss of custody of the children.  Perhaps the judges expected harsher treatment more akin to Iranian or North Korean legal and judicial standards?)

I am certain that the appellate court’s decision will be appealed to the Supreme Court, which typically hears fewer than 100 cases each year.  However, my suggestion is that the Romeikes can easily disappear into one of many “sanctuary” cities (which include the President Obama’s adopted home city of Chicago), where they can find “appropriate” documents any early morning at a local home improvement center, live openly, and teach their children as they see fit.  Please continue to keep the Romeike family and their litigation team in your thoughts and prayers.  And if you wish to assist the family in a more tangible way, please contact Michael Farris from the Home School Legal Defense Association at 540.338.5600.  If the Obama Administration wins this effort, your rights as a parent are at risk.

I hope that my readers had a wonderful Mother’s Day.  For those whose mothers are still living, I hope that it was a great day of celebration.  For those who like me no longer have our mothers with us, Mother’s Day is when I contemplate and thank God for the wonderful memories of the love, kindness, and nurture that my mother gave to me.  President Obama, whose mother died in 1995, had no public schedule of events for yesterday, so I am sure the First Family celebrated Mother’s Day together.  However, in recognition of Mother’s Day, the White House tweeted the following to celebrate non-motherhood: “Thanks to the #ACA, 1 in 3 women under 65 gained access to preventive care—like birth control—with no out-of-pocket costs. #HappyMothersDay.”  The ACA referred to in the tweet is, of course, the Affordable Care Act, the so-called Obamacare.  Thus, for President Obama, Mother’s Day is a day to celebrate an abortion mandate that compels religious groups and others to pay for birth control and other abortifacients under the employee health care plans in violation of their religious liberty.  As my readers know, the abortion mandate has led to more than 100 lawsuits from religious groups, businesses, schools and universities, and others, that are not allowed to deviate from the narrow provisions of Obamacare’s mandates.  Of course, there was much that the President could have said to the American people to celebrate motherhood on Mother’s Day.  He could have written something general and non-political, as did Andrea Lafferty of the Traditional Values Coalition, who wrote, “With all the bad news of late, let’s turn our focus to those women in our lives who have loved us, cared for us, and mentored us.  We are so grateful for all the praying, faithful mothers and women who won’t give up.  I hope you enjoy special time with your families rejoicing in the blessings of a mother.”  Alternatively, if the President wanted to focus on the importance of women’s choices, perhaps he could have quoted Donna Ball, who wrote in At Home on Ladybug Farm, “Motherhood is a choice you make every day, to put someone else’s happiness and well-being ahead of your own, to teach the hard lessons, to do the right thing even when you’re not sure what the right thing is…and to forgive yourself, over and over again, for doing everything wrong.”  Either would have been very classy, but I think that such statements are outside of President Obama’s comfort zone.  But, with the White House tweet, President Obama is, at least, consistent and able to draw clear “red lines” with regard to abortion absolutism (though he readily struggles with “red lines” in Iran, Syria, North Korea, and the Benghazi scandal).  He recently blessed the Planned Parenthood convention by concluding his formal remarks by saying “God bless you!” and now blesses the ability of women to be non-mothers with no out-of-pocket costs.  On Mother’s Day?  Really?

The Chicago White Sox lost the 1919 World Series to the Cincinnati Reds.  “Shoeless” Joe Jackson and seven other White Sox players were accused of accepting money to throw the Series.  A Chicago street urchin came up to the outfielder, grabbed his coat sleeve, and asked Shoeless Joe, “It ain’t true, is it, Joe!”  So in a similar fashion, could one of our Mere Comments readers be a tax evader?  Say it isn’t true, Mike!

How could such a situation arise?  First, let me put some perspective on this.  The fetching Mrs. Avramovich and I have never purchased anything from online Internet retailers for a variety of reasons.  Nope, as hard to believe, not from Amazon, not Netflix, not from Macy’s, Wal-Mart, never, zilch, nada!  Nor do we intend to do so as long as humanly possible.  So, I have no personal or vested interest for or against Internet purchases.  So, I can objectively opine on this topic.  However, I can easily imagine that some of my readers have made Internet purchases from an out-of-state business.  In this context, by a 2-1 bipartisan majority, the U.S. Senate recently passed the so-called “Marketplace Fairness Act,” which allows states, counties, towns, Indian reservations (yep, the Native American reservations were snuck into the bill by the Senate leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) at the last moment) to levy and collect sales taxes on Internet purchases.   This bill is intended to overturn the 1992 Supreme Court Quill decision that found that out-of-state retailers are not required to collect sales taxes, unless they have a “nexus,” meaning a sufficient business presence in a particular state, such as an office or warehouse.  If enacted, Internet sellers would have to comply with the sales taxes for almost 10,000 different jurisdictions within the United States that collect sales taxes, and where the same product may be taxed differently in various jurisdictions.  (An Internet seller of popcorn, for example, could face a bewildering task as some towns or counties might classify popcorn a food exempt from, or pay a lower rate of, sales tax, but an adjoining town might fully tax popcorn as a novelty item.)  President Obama is enthusiastic about this new tax, and supports it.  Although I am unsure whether this bill will pass the House of Representatives, which tends to be more skeptical about raising taxes on consumers, and still maintains, for the time being, some modicum of fidelity to federalism principles.  But then again, access to tax money talks, and I am sure even some Republicans can be bought as their states can use the tax money.  Nevertheless, I am unsure that the Supreme Court would find this end run around its Quill ruling to be sufficiently constitutional under our federal system.  Moreover, given that the Senate bill applies only to businesses that sell more than $1 million of goods annually, there is also a potential constitutional equal protection legal argument.  But whether this Senate bill is ever enacted into law, most Internet purchasers already have a tax liability due to their states, and other local jurisdictions.

So, where is the possible tax evasion?  Well, let us consider the example of Illinois, although dozens of other states have similar provisions.  According to the Illinois Department of Revenue website:

In 1955, the General Assembly passed the Use Tax Act.  Use Tax is a sales tax that you, as the purchaser, owe on items that you buy for use in Illinois.  If the seller does not collect at least 6.25 percent sales tax, you must pay the difference to the Illinois Department of Revenue. The most common purchases on which the seller does not collect Illinois Use Tax are those made via the internet, from a mail order catalog, or made when traveling outside Illinois. You must keep your receipts when you make these types of purchases.  In 2010, the [Illinois] General Assembly passed a law making it easier for individuals to pay their Use Tax by putting a line on Form IL-1040.  It also created an Illinois Use Tax Amnesty which means individuals can pay Use Tax owed for prior years without penalty and interest on Form ST-44.

[Emphasis added.]

Illinoisans might easily contend, “Oh Balderdash!  That is a ridiculous tax!”  But do not be sanguine about this.  The Illinois Department of Revenue warns:

The Illinois Department of Revenue can assess use tax owed by taxpayers who do not pay voluntarily.  For taxpayers who do not have records to document their use tax liability, the department will estimate liability.

Of course, Christian believers are reminded by our Lord, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”  And St. Paul teaches, in pertinent part in Romans 13: 6-7, “This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.  Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue . . . “  So could there be a possible tax evader among my readers?  Well, if you ever were an evader or know of one in your household, then you are now responsible for this information, which has been presented on Mere Comments as a public service to our readers.  After all, such sales and use taxes are needed by cities, counties and states to pay for public education, safety and police, and health care for the poor.  Surely, no one, particularly Christian believers, can reasonably object to paying these taxes.

A ond-day conference will be held at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church  on Chicago’s southwest side near Midway Airport, sponsored by Gottesdienst: The Journal of Lutheran Theology,  edited by Rev. Fr. Burnell F. Eckardt Jr. (see his Touchstone article, Nursery Crimes, Jan/Feb 2013). Rumor has it that Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is planning to attend this conference. See you there? The cost is $12.