A group of religiously diverse parents in Maryland is petitioning the Supreme Court to consider whether local school districts can force LGBTQ indoctrination on students against their parents' wishes.
“Parents should not have to take a back seat when it comes to teaching their children about complex and sensitive issues related to gender and sexuality,” Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, a nonprofit law firm representing the plaintiffs, said in a press release. “Nearly every state requires parental consent for high school students to receive sex education. If an elementary school-aged child is receiving sex education during story hour, parents should have the right to excuse their child from school.”
Pride is corrupting
According to plaintiffs' petition (all citations omitted):
In November 2022, the Montgomery County Board of Education introduced its first “LGBTQ-inclusive” storybooks for elementary school students and also released corresponding guidelines for teachers. The board instructed officials responsible for selecting books to consider their options through an “LGBTQ+ lens” and ask whether they “reinforce or subvert” “stereotypes,” “cisgender norms,” and “power hierarchies.”
Among the new books is “Pride Puppy!”, a picture book for 3- to 4-year-olds that describes the Pride parade—though it likely omits scenes like “lingerie-clad transvestites twerking in front of little kids,” as The New American reported about Minnesota's 2023 parade—but asks kids to spot certain images in pictures of the Pride parade, including “underwear,” “leather,” “lip rings,” “(drag) kings,” “(drag) queens,” and “Marsha P. Johnson,” an LGBTQ activist and prostitute.
Another picture book, “Intersection Allies,” explains what it means to be “transgender” or “non-binary” and encourages children to discuss which pronouns “fit” them.
The list goes on. Love Violet is about “same-sex playground romance,” the petition states. Born Lady
The story is about a biological girl named Penelope who identifies as a boy. When her brother questions how to become a boy, his mother reassures him that “everything doesn't have to make sense. This is about love.” Teachers are told to teach students that people “guess our gender” at birth, but “we know ourselves best.” (emphasis in original)
As mentioned above, teachers received specific guidance on how to approach the curriculum, all of which, of course, was along LGBTQ lines. “This guidance instructed teachers to 'disrupt' students' 'binary thinking' by framing opposition to these views as 'hurt,'” the plaintiffs write.
Montgomery County elementary school principals opposed the book, but the school board forced them to adopt it: teachers are required to read at least one copy of the book to their students each year.
The board of directors is causing trouble for parents
Initially, the Board of Education had allowed parents to choose not to have their children take classes using the new textbooks in accordance with religious diversity guidelines, and released a statement to that effect on March 22, 2023.
The next day, the school board reversed course, saying opt-outs would not be allowed and parents would not be told when their children had to read the books, but it continued to allow students to opt out of sex education and “any other instruction that is contrary to their religious beliefs,” the petition states.
In response, more than 1,100 parents signed a petition asking the board to revert to its previous policy. According to the plaintiffs, “Board members responded by publicly accusing them of promoting 'hatred,' and likening them to 'white supremacists' and 'xenophobes.'” The board then revoked virtually all opt-out rights.
The board's hostility has led some Christian, Jewish and Muslim parents to file a federal lawsuit alleging that their First Amendment rights have been violated by the board's policies, not to mention a Maryland law requiring parents to opt out of “family life and human sex education.”
The district court denied their request for an injunction.
A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, 2-1, holding that the school board's policy did not “coerce” parents to change their “religious beliefs or behavior” or “what they teach their children” and therefore did not violate the parents' right to freely practice their religion.
Attractive appearance
The parents are currently appealing to the Supreme Court.
They cited several reasons why the Supreme Court should consider their case. First, the appeals courts are divided on whether public schools can force students to participate in activities that conflict with their faith. Second, the Fourth Circuit's decisions are “at odds with precedent on religious freedom.” Third, their case raises “urgent issues of national importance.”
For these parents, and for the “practical spirit” of the Religion Clause, it is vital that the Religious Freedom Clause continue to be applied in the public school context in a manner that protects parental rights and is consistent with religious freedom precedent elsewhere. By limiting the application of the Religious Freedom Clause, lower courts and others like it have punched a public school-shaped hole in the rules governing how religious freedom burdens are evaluated in all other factual contexts.
“The school board is promoting controversial ideas that have been rejected by governments around the world and criticized by the board's own principal as inappropriate for the age group it is targeting,” said Grace Morrison, director of parents group Kids First, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “Children deserve their moments of innocence. The Supreme Court should take up this case, reinstate the opt-out and allow parents to decide when and how to teach these sensitive topics to their elementary school-aged children.”
