Predictions are that SCOTUS will require that parents be allowed to opt out of gay content in public grade schools on grounds of religious freedom
The issues are as follows:
This case concerns the Montgomery County School District, the largest in Maryland, and whether they should be able to prevent parents from opting their kids, as young as 3-4 years old, out of school curriculum describing, among other things, drag queens, gay sex, and other topics including transgenderism. After a group of parents sued, the case made its way to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia, and the Carolinas. That court said no. No opt-outs. …
Anyway, the “Question Presented” in the case, or, in other words, the exact legal question the Supreme Court has to decide is:
Do public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out?
This isn’t about the teaching of math or science or other subjects in a traditional curriculum. These are young children, and these are matters that until very recently were considered to be a family’s private business and matters on which religions often have had strong moral differences and objections. When I was growing up, and even when my son was growing up, I don’t recall public schools mentioning these topics one way or the other. They were not considered matters for public school instruction, either approving or disapproving, and were not considered suitable matters to discuss with pre-pubescent children.
In the present legal case, the school originally had an opt-out but – get this – so many parents requested it that the school had trouble dealing with that and therefore refused to allow any opt-outs. That’s quite a solution.
The only idea I ever had of my teachers’ private lives was, in the case of female teachers, “Miss” was unmarried and “Mrs.” was married. Beyond that, nothing. The biology of sex was presented separately to boys and girls in, I think, fifth grade. Marriage and any alternate sexual practices were discussed with parents and not at school.
I caught that, too, Neo — they wanted no opt-outs because they had so many they didn’t know where to put the kids! That should have been their first clue.
@neo:This isn’t about the teaching of math or science or other subjects in a traditional curriculum.
I think it actually is.
As I understand it, these LGBTQ books were being assigned in English class for the study of English, and the district was arguing that there shouldn’t be an opt-out for English class.
English class isn’t pushing anything, oh no, they just want kids to learn to read. About Uncle Bobby’s wedding.
And this is why it’s good there are some Muslims in the US because the Left is intimidated to paint them as bigots:
If there aren’t equivalent math or science books, there soon will be. Math texts have been used to push social justice content for some time now.
My experience mirrors that of Kate’s, except that sexual practices were talked about-just not in any classroom.
Are these schools giving equal time to heterosexual practices? Why are these schools trying to sexualize children anyway?
Whaddaya say we talk about opting in to such material instead of opting out?
Y’know??
Why should the default be that it’ll there for everyone, except for these few weirdos?
Y’know??
That it was in the curriculum to begin with is an indicator of what a claque of creepy people are in our time employed in public education. (I doubt it’s much different in secular private schools). The teacher’s colleges are progenitors and the unions and the Democratic Party protectors.
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Note, ‘religious freedom’ is the stated reason here, but in truth everyone should be able to opt out of what the creepazoid teachers and administrators want to do.
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In red states, if Republican legislators will get off their asses, you can do the following:
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(1) prescribe that the state board of regents compose and administer only such examinations which appear in a state glossary which names the subjects and prescribes capsule descriptions.
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(2) grant by law plenary discretion to parents to remove their children from classes which do not comport with the state glossary.
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(3) grant all parents the right to a voucher issued by the local school board with a redemption value equal to the variable costs in the board’s budget divided by the population of school-age youth in the district. A parent could use the voucher to finance their child’s enrollment in a private (tuition free) school or to finance the enrollment of their child in another public district. The public district if it took students from other districts would have a franchise to balance bill the parent for the difference between the redemption value of the voucher and the per-pupil cost in the district. The private school accepting the voucher would be debarred from imposing further charges on the parent, but would be due from a dedicated state fund a capitation of a value equal to this year’s collections of a special value added tax divided by the number of such vouchers issued by all boards in the state which maintain brick-and-mortar schools. (The VAT in question would not be collected in those districts which issued vouchers in lieu of maintaining brick-and-mortar schools).
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(4) grant parents the right to a partial rebate of their school property taxes. The rebate would be equal to the parents’ contribution through such taxes to the variable costs of educating the districts youth divided by the number of school age children they have (with the proviso that the refund to the parents not exceed in value the variable costs in the school budget divided by the number of school age youth in the district). The cash refund can assist the parents in financing enrollment of their child in a tuition-funded private school or in financing home schooling.
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(5) debar state colleges and universities from offering teaching certificates which in their course content differ from prescriptions in a state glossary. The glossary description would incorporate teaching methods courses and courses on testing and the psychology of learning. Full stop. As a transitional measure, the extant teachers’ colleges could be dissolved by law and their faculty discharged.
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(6) prescribe that schools of public administration in the state system offer a menu of specializations: general public administration, general philanthropy, education, hospitals and clinics, police departments, and courts. End ‘educational leadership’ degrees.
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(7) End collective bargaining for public employees.
If “religious freedom” is the only ‘out’ you’ve solved nothing. There should be options available for every parent from which to choose…and yet another argument for home and private schooling.
We had two one time classes on sex. One in fifth grade, which focused solely on girl parts and boy parts. Which made sense as that was right about when puberty started. The other was in seventh grade, which also talked about birth control. There were opt outs. This was during the time of the Renee Richards controversy. Not talked about in school.
I read the oral argument in Mahmoud. The liberal judges — Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson — kept bringing up parades of horribles, imagining extreme examples, what if this, what if that. They couldn’t seem to address what’s really happening at all and interrupted petitioners’ counsel whenever he tried to return the subject to the actual facts. You’d almost think they couldn’t come up with any real-world reasons to object to his position.
I attended Montgomery County schools as a child, including a particular elementary school repeatedly mentioned during the argument for its decision to read one of the controversial books from the curriculum to young students every day during Pride Month. Nothing remotely like this was ever mentioned in those days by anybody to anybody, of course. Back then, the County was trying to recover from segregation after Brown v. Bd of Education, which integrated its schools for the first time in history in about 1960. That was a worthy struggle for the schools. But this? It’s hard for me to believe that this is really where we are now, with books mandated for kids in kindergarten about subjects like a little boy who becomes a girl named Penelope.
Hundreds of parents, many of them Muslims, pleaded to be allowed to excuse their children as young as three or four from this kind of forced indoctrination about transsexuality (if that’s a word!) School Board members accused the parents of bigotry and (horrors!) Trump support, and one young Muslim girl was shamed at a public meeting for “following the dogma of her parents.” The families were left with no option but litigation. One family had to move in with grandparents so they could afford private school.
How did this happen? Really, how did it? Sometimes lately I feel so old.
The line of questions Amy Coney Barrett is following indicate an attempt to weasel out of getting to the heart of the issue. This isn’t only about religious beliefs. It’s also about the left’s attempts to sexualize children at inappropriate ages and indoctrinate them into the view that perversion can only exist if its imposed without consent. And even ‘consent’ is circumstantial.
Mind you these are not sex-ed classes we’re talking about. These are regular classes, supposed to be concerned with the three Rs and not L, G, B, T and Q. Kids nowadays are getting SJW-aligned material in math, in science, in reading classes.
John Guilfoyle:
The problem with allowing parents to opt out for ANY reason is that it would mean that public schooling in general would lack uniformity because they might have to allow parents to opt out of any course for any reason. My guess is that many of the parents who originally opted out here for religious reasons weren’t necessarily all that religious; they just didn’t want their kids taking the course and I doubt their degrees of religiosity were checked up on. On the other hand, I would guess that the parents who sued were indeed religious.
Art Deco: “That it was in the curriculum to begin with is an indicator of what a claque of creepy people are in our time employed in public education.”
Yes. It’s sick that we are even at this point. Though once marriage was officially redefined as having no intrinsic connection to biological sex, it’s hard to see how objections of the sort raised by these parents could hold up for long. If you object to “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” you’re implying that you don’t accept the decision of the Supreme Court and are engaging in something morally equivalent to an objection to black and white children going to the same schools.
it’s hard to see how objections of the sort raised by these parents could hold up for long.
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It’s not hard at all.
In the oral argument, the lawyers for the families seemed to be trying hard to be perceived as reasonable. Under questioning from the liberal wing of the court, they repeatedly conceded that, under the current related cases, the parents could not challenge the curriculum itself, as opposed to looking for an opt-out, or otherwise try to change the experience for students other than their own children. They also conceded that parents’ objections had to be religious (at least, to fall within the posture of this particular case) and that part of the test for a valid religious objection is “sincerity.”
The argument here seemed to boil down to religious discrimination. The MontCo school district has a policy allowing Muslim students to opt out of, say, being exposed to an image of Mohammed. It’s discriminatory, argued petitioners’ counsel, to permit Muslims to opt out of classroom instruction that exposes them to images of Mohammed against their religion but not for “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.” The liberal justices couldn’t seem to come up with any argument against this position except for a parade of horribles citing extreme examples that parents might object to — but aren’t, in this case.
“If you object to “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” you’re implying that you don’t accept the decision of the Supreme Court and are engaging in something morally equivalent to an objection to black and white children going to the same schools.”
Not at all. The parents went out of their way to make clear that their objection was to the school’s intrusion on their right to control their OWN CHILDREN’s religious education. If we’re really at a point when that objection doesn’t hold up for long, we are at a sad point indeed.
Pretty much my point, Mrs. Whatsit. Religious people are in the position of arguing for the right to practice the moral equivalent of racism and have the public schools cooperate with them.
That’s in the context of civil rights laws and practice as we’ve known them for the past 60 years or so. If the Trump administration succeeds in reversing that, it’s a different story.
A case of “mission creep.” Schools need to get back to doing an adequate job of teaching basic subject matter, and not wander off into the weeds.
You see a similar thing with politics at the municipal level, even in smallish cities like Boise, where I live. Our mayor is a politically ambitious leftwing Democrat, who seems to think the basics are beneath her. She doesn’t get it that the mayor’s job in a city this size is to make sure that the streets are safe, that the trash gets picked up, and the potholes get filled. Period.
The exchange between Mrs Whatsit and Mac is interesting.
Mac replied “Religious people are in the position of arguing for the right to practice the moral equivalent of racism and have the public schools cooperate with them.”
Mac’s reply (which I anticipated) begs an important question. Are these objections the “moral equivalent of racism”? I fully understand that Americans of a more progressive persuasion see it that way. I encountered this line of reasoning during my time working at a church which had several members who were several steps to the left of me on political, cultural, and yes religious issues.
I do think we should be cautious about how much we play the “views contrary to mine are the moral equivalent of racism” card. Does it have a limiting principle? What social, cultural, political policies can it not impose on people?
I appreciate the comment above which says this isn’t or *should* not be about religious freedom. Unless “religion” in this context includes any deeply held convictions about how human beings should relate to each sexually and about gender identity (whether how and when boys can turn into girls).
I think the case properly understood invites the Court to rule on where lines can be drawn and by whom and to what extent public education can say to hell with deeply held convictions of parents on certain issues. Perhaps whether there are any limiting principles when it comes to educating children.
Rick67: ‘Mac’s reply (which I anticipated) begs an important question. Are these objections the “moral equivalent of racism”?’
Well yeah! That is *the* question. The first question anyway, followed closely by the question of how the law should treat it.
I should make it clear btw that I’m totally on the side of the parents in this dispute. I’m just pointing out the way their views appear in light of current progressive doctrine, which in the case of gay rights and gay marriage is also the law of the land.
That racism and disapproval of homosexuality are not different in any meaningful way is hard dogma among progressives. Ask yourself how these parents would fare with the courts and for that matter with widespread opinion if they were objecting to depiction of interracial marriage. They may prevail with the Supreme Court as presently constituted, but it wouldn’t take much for that to change, especially as some of the conservative judges are quite willing to go with the progressive view on sexual matters.
1. Periodical reminder: Nobody is “Born that Way”… there is no such thing as a biologically homosexual child who must be “saved” from their traditionally-minded parents.
We mapped the human genome in the early 2000s and no genes were found that correlated with homosexuality – or transgenderism.
Which leads to:
2. The trannies successfully used the tropes launched by gays and lesbians a generation before to normalize behaviors previously considered dysfunctional.
As noted by some posters above, that legal normalization has now made opposition to the alphabet agenda officially equivalent to racism or chauvinism.
Everyone who thought they were being “nice” and “compassionate” for supporting gay marriage is responsible for this…. you let the camel’s nose in the tent, and now we must deal with the whole camel in the tent.
I am glad that the trannies’ extreme physical mutilation of kids got many liberals to wake up – but many conservatives saw this societal sucker-punch being set up by the Left, and gave warning back in the 70s 80s and 90s.
As a religious Jew I remember being pooh-poohed by people (some of them quite traditional) who were eager to go along with popular opinion and/or scared of being branded a “hater”….
Now we know it would have been better for all – including many kids falsely induced to adopt the gay identity – if parents and other sane grownups had stuck to their moral guns.
Which leads to:
3. We will have to roll this ALL the way back – eliminating gay marriage and talking openly about the continued dysfunctional, compulsive, and exploitative behavior among gays and lesbians. This behavior was not caused by our “homophobia” – and so has not disappeared after we destroyed the institution of marriage (which was the Left’s real purpose…)
it is very important to “go there” and talk about dysfunction and immorality, not try to avoid the real issues or cast this as “our family’s personal preference”… that is a frame that leaves the public square to the Lefties.
In fact, given the predatory recruitment of young people by various “mentors” the “kindness” of accepting the gay-rights agenda is actually a cruelty. The kids targeted for “early sexualization” (nice euphemism for molestation…) are typically already traumatized, abandoned, or isolated by family breakup or dysfunction.
Bleeding heart liberals have misguidedly let the creeps into the schools… that is what this story and others like it reveal quite clearly…
The US Left is closely following Antonio Gramsci’s advice of the 1930s. He was an Italian, a founder of the Italian communist party, who proposed communism could take over a government peacefully by taking over EDUCATION and media and movies and entertainment. Mussolini had him executed, not a bad thing.
But Gramsci lives on, in the Democratic (socialist) Party today in its efforts to capture the American Republic and bring us all under the totalitarian yoke. Equality in the cellar for us all except the horrible leaders of the Party, who will be the new pigs running a new Animal Farm. Beware, lest we, in our popular lethargy, succumb to a new Stalinist rule.
how Western Europe has ended up from one of it’s observers
https://substack.com/@benjaminkerstein/note/c-111655250
once upon a time, the West was predominantly monotheist of one of another brand, then the Word was driven out, and something filled the void, some call it the Old Gods, as Jonathan Cahn, noted, and so much of the World descended into Chaos, now we debate what type of Chaos we are facing, sadly most of the religious authorities if you can cite the Archbishop of Canterbury, are sadly inadequate, each iteration of same, so San Francisco New York, the great cities of this metropole has fallen away, interesting the Maryland case concerns the suburbs if memory serves, where Moslem and Christian parents objected,
This might not add anything to the discussion, but it seems to me that the underlying question isn’t about religion, or the “trans agenda” (whatever that is). The key question is “Who’s in charge ?”.
It’s not unreasonable to argue that the parents are voters and taxpayers; IOW they’re the public which public servants are supposed to serve. But the same thing could be said, and probably was, about parents who opposed integrating schools. The parents attitude may not be the moral equivalent of racism, but there is a parallel if you’re inclined to look for one.
The most obvious solution would be to submit the question to the voters, but the Left would opposed that just as they opposed it on the question of abortion, and for the same reason. They want a judicial solution because they assume that it will go their way and a referendum might not.
A virtuous nation would ban practitioners and advocates of Homosexuality+ from its schools!
Thanks to Mac for the reply.
As is often the case in order to come up with an answer (here a Supreme Court decision) we need to tease out what is the question.