At least it didn't involve wizardry

Ray Ballmann
Pastor, Word of Truth Church
Director, Texas Home School Coalition

Dear Pastor Ballmann,

I salute you for all the fine work you've done to help us to "train up a child in the way he should go." Christian homeschooling has no doubt saved many a young soul from the depravity secular education foists on so many of our children.

Still, there are many who oppose what we do. These detractors consider us to be religious lunatics who short change our children by isolating them from their peers and shielding them from the heresies of science. They are quick to find our shortcomings and exploit them against us, and I fear that is exactly what they are going to do when they hear about the arrest of the Humble Three.

As I'm sure you know, the Humble Three are a trio of good, god-fearing homeschooled Texas teens who, on a lark, entered an old segregation-era black cemetery, dug up the body of an 11 year old child named Willie Simms, severed his head with a shovel, and made a bong out of his skull.

Yes, it was a horrible act. Our bodies are temples the Lord provided for us. It is a sin to defile them with smoke from the demon weed. The boys deserve to be punished for it. But I fear secular education proponents will use the incident to claim that homeschooling is no more effective than secular education when it comes to teaching basic values.

We need to be prepared when they make that claim. Better yet, we need to strike first, explaining how much worse the whole incident could have been had the Humble Three not been home schooled. For instance, they could have used the child's skull to fashion a video game controller, or worse yet, to perform some kind of slight-of-hand wizardry like making a a foam ball disappear from one of their hands and reappear in the skull.

I'd be glad to help out with the press release if needed.

Heterosexually yours,

Gen. JC Christian, patriot