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“The Supreme Court on Friday ruled that a group of Maryland parents have a right to opt their elementary-school-aged children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. By a vote of 6-3, the justices agreed with the parents – who are Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox – that the Montgomery County school board’s refusal to provide them with that option violates their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion.” SCOTUSblog
The left is generally critical of the decision, arguing that it will encourage anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry.
“[The plaintiffs’ lawyers made] an audacious request — seeking a broad decision that parents who object to any form of classroom instruction on religious grounds must be notified in advance, and be permitted to opt their child out of that instruction. The problem with this request is that schools cannot possibly know, in advance, which religious views are held by which parents, and which books or lessons those parents might find objectionable…
“Parents have sued school districts objecting, on religious grounds, to lessons that touch on topics as diverse as divorce, interfaith couples, and ‘immodest dress.’ They’ve objected to books which expose readers to evolution, pacifism, magic, women achieving things outside of the home, and ‘false views of death.’ Courts have historically been very cautious about ruling in favor of parents who raise these sorts of objections.”
Ian Millhiser, Vox
“Parents do not get to dictate exactly what is and is not taught in the classroom. And one of the goals of public education is to expose children to different kinds of ideas and different kinds of people that they wouldn’t normally see. Yet, on Friday, the Supreme Court decreed that parents have a brand-new First Amendment right to veto their children’s exposure to materials that violate their own religious beliefs…
“The court calls this an ‘opt-out policy.’ But the schools have already said that they cannot possibly manage a system in which every student has the right to opt out of seeing anything their parents don’t like. So they’re just going to have to pull these books from classrooms altogether. Otherwise, they would have to enforce an unmanageable system of opt-outs at constant pain of a potentially ruinous lawsuit…
“[Alito] reframes these utterly innocent children’s books as insidious propaganda designed to brainwash children into supporting LGBTQ+ rights. But this is not propaganda unless you look at it through the lens of homophobia, and unless you think that the mere depiction of gay people as being acceptable is noxious and something you must protect children against.”
Mark Joseph Stern, Slate
Some argue, “Certainly, the district’s motives were good. It was trying to make sure that Montgomery County schools welcome all the children in its diverse student body, including gay and trans children. But religious diversity is also important — so much so that it is enshrined in the First Amendment. The district appears to have been trying to solve one diversity problem by ignoring another one. This is not a good strategy in a pluralistic society that often must allow groups with conflicting views to disagree.”
Editorial Board, Washington Post
The right applauds the decision, arguing that school districts must respect parents’ religious beliefs.
The right applauds the decision, arguing that school districts must respect parents’ religious beliefs.
“In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito let the books speak for themselves via color reproductions of their pages. There was no better way to demonstrate that these were not books promoting tolerance and acceptance, but radical attempts at indoctrination. ‘Pride Puppy,’ part of the district’s kindergarten curriculum, includes a word search listing topics detailed in the book’s illustrations: drag king, drag queen, high heels, lip ring, lace, leather…
“Another book, ‘Born Ready,’ features a very young child who identifies as transgender. In it, the character’s older brother protests, ‘This doesn’t make sense. You can’t become a boy. You have to be born one.’ Their mother scolds him: ‘Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.’ The message is clear: If you want issues of sex and gender to make sense, you aren’t a loving person.”
Bethany Mandel, New York Post
“Initially, the [Montgomery County school] board said that parents would be notified when this controversial material would be used and allowed to opt their children out. Like most school districts, Montgomery County provides for parents to opt their kids out of all sorts of things, including the use of sex education curriculum. Then, without explanation, the board abruptly canceled this accommodation policy…
“Many parents have no choice but to send their children to a public school, a decision that should not require them to surrender their constitutional right. The bottom line, Alito wrote, is that ‘government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.’”
Thomas Jipping, Daily Signal
“Parents, notably, didn’t object in court to the district’s stated goals of diversity and tolerance; they simply asked for the right to remove their children from lessons that contradict their religious beliefs. District lawyers defended the books in court as beacons of ‘representative’ instruction that presented children with different viewpoints from typical ‘heteronormative’ children’s stories like Sleeping Beauty…
“The district’s broader goal to create culturally diverse classrooms ‘didn’t work,’ according to their argument, if some students didn’t participate. A Montgomery County council member even likened Muslim families who objected to the LGBTQ lessons to white supremacists…
“The most culturally diverse group represented in Mahmoud was the coalition of unlikely friends of all faiths formed to fight against woke excess in the deep-blue Washington suburb.”
The Editors, National Review
“The decision is being portrayed as a setback for the treatment of gays, lesbians, and the differently gendered, since they were the focus of the books that the victorious plaintiffs objected to. That gets it all wrong. This case is really about the right of families to guide their children's education and the difficulty of doing that in the rigid confines of one-size-fits-some government schools…
“The philosopher John Stuart Mill, who believed parents should be required to educate their children, nevertheless rejected government-run schools… That's because arguments ‘about what the State should teach, and how it should teach… convert the subject into a mere battle-field for sects and parties.’…
“And that's what we see in endless arguments and court cases over school officials trying to inculcate students with ideas that are offensive to those students and their parents. Mahmoud was a win for parents' right to guide their kids' education. But the best outcome is to get government out of the business of running schools.”
J.D. Tuccille, Reason
