Supreme Court to hear case over religious objection to LGBTQ history book

The Supreme Court announced on Friday that it will enter a new battle in the culture war, agreeing to decide whether the law gives parents of public school students a guarantee. -establishing the right to excuse their children from classroom discussions about books that contain stories depicting LGBTQ characters and themes.

Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland’s largest public school system, adopted a new curriculum in 2022. Among them, its attorney told the judge, were “a few textbooks featuring lesbians, gay men , bisexual, transgender or queer for use in the arts curriculum. , along with many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual types in traditional gender roles.”

The stories include “Pride Puppy,” an alphabet first about a family who loses a puppy in the Pride parade; “My Rainbow,” about a mother who designs a colorful wig for her transgender daughter; and “Love, Violet,” a story about a girl who falls in love with her classmate. (Some of the books have been removed from the curriculum.)

In recent cases, the Supreme Court has expanded the role of religion in public life, sometimes at the expense of other values, such as gay rights and access to contraception.

In the past few years, courts have ruled against a website developer who said he didn’t want to create a website for same-sex marriage, a high school football coach who said he had rights under the constitution to pray about 50 meters. line after the game between his team and Philadelphia’s Catholic social services agency, which said it would violate city law and refuse to work with same-sex couples who have asked to adopt children.

The school system in this new case, located in the liberal suburbs of Washington, initially notified parents when the history books would be discussed, with the possibility of allowing children to leave these sessions. The school system soon changed that policy.

“The increase in truancy requests,” his attorney wrote, “has raised three related concerns: the lack of high-achieving students, the inability to manage classroom truancy and schools, and the dangers of exposing students who believe that history books portray them and their families in social exclusion and isolation.”

Many parents sued against the new policy, saying it violated their religious rights. The lower court refused to block the program while the appeal progressed.

Writing for the majority of a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, Judge G. Steven Agee said: “There is no evidence at this time that the decision- The board’s decision not to allow the choice is forcing the parents or their own. children to CHANGE their beliefs or behavior, whether at school or elsewhere.”

Judge Agee, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, added: “Parents in this case or other plaintiffs in other challenges to the use of history books should come up with evidence that the teacher or school administrator is using the storybook in a way that directly or indirectly forces the children to change their religious views or practices, the analysis will change if seen. this record.”

In a dissent, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, said the parents, from many faiths, made a simple request.

“They do not claim that the use of the books is unconstitutional,” he wrote. “And they’re not trying to ban them. Instead, they want to remove their children from such scriptural education.”

An attorney for the parents, Eric Baxter of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case.

“Forcing controversial gender ideologies on 3-year-old children without their parents’ consent is a violation of tradition, parental rights and basic human decency,” he said in a statement.

The school board, in the Supreme Court decision on the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, no. 24-297, wrote that parents “seek to disrupt the decades-old consensus that parents who choose to send their children to public schools do not . their children are deprived of their right to freely exercise their religion simply because of teaching materials that parents find offensive to their children.”