“The moral equivalence of racism”?
Commenter “Rick67” writes:
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).
Commenter “Mac” replies:
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.
There’s little question in my mind that a future Court could rule in a more “progressive” manner. But for the purposes of the discussion I’ll just stick to the legal reasoning I think underpins the parents’ position and makes it quite different from racism.
Religious freedom of parents – and the right to teach a child one’s religion – is protected in the US unless there’s a situation where a child is endangered or taught something criminal. For example, there’s a body of case law forcing parents whose religion forbids blood transfusions to give a child a life-saving transfusion against the parents’ wishes. I think we can safely say there’s no analogy with the situation in the case presently before SCOTUS involving teaching young children in the public school system materials about homosexuality and transgenderism. Also, unlike racist views, these have long been considered bona fide subjects on which people have a religious point of view that considers them sins, and that hasn’t been a fringe view. Progressives are free to think such views are tantamount to racism, but in my experience progressives tend to think that about just about any point of view that doesn’t line up with their own is tantamount to racism.
Nor are these religious parents advocating that their own views against gay marriage be taught in schools, or that their children be taught by the school system to discriminate against people who practice gay marriage. They are asking that their children be allowed to opt out of this sort of pro-gay marriage pro-trans instruction for their own children. The opt-out approach is very commonly protected for a host of issues and their argument is that there is no good reason why this couldn’t be one of them, especially given the religious freedom aspects.
There is another issue that comes to play here that has no analogy to racism, and that is the sexual content of the material. Many parents could object to that as inappropriate for younger children regardless of the parents’ religious beliefs or even the parents’ own support or lack of support for gay marriage itself. But once objections get outside the realm of religious freedom, one runs into difficulty. A local public school system makes a host of decisions about the content of teaching, and it would be too disruptive to allow parents unlimited ability to opt out of anything and everything within it. So it’s a question of where to draw the line. However, the issue of age-appropriateness for sexual content also has no analogy with teaching about racism.
The problem here is that progressives deny that there should be any age limit below which teaching about sexual identity and sexual behavior is prohibited.
Hauling a failing argument off to “racism” is an old technique. I am glad to see it’s losing its mojo.
However, there isn’t much “religion” in what you see when you open your browser–make sure nobody’s around– and enter “youtube” “explicit readings” “school board”.
You’ll get a bellyful. No racism, either.
And then you wonder how the school boards in question ever got elected.
Two points:
(1) the Left is explicitly teaching racism in the schools beginning in pre-school; they just call it “anti-racism” because it’s aimed at the white children.
(2) when the schools were racially integrated, many families withdrew and began home-schooling, which was Justice Brown’s explicit remedy in this case.
Given the increasing decline of participation in public schools already, I wonder if she thought that through.
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/04/22/4-takeaways-as-supreme-court-hears-maryland-lgbt-school-books-case/
“During the arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson suggested to Baxter, the lawyer for the parents, that it’s not coercion because children can attend private schools or be homeschooled.”
Some more discussion:
https://jonathanturley.org/2025/04/22/supreme-court-hears-major-parental-rights-case-over-lgbt-readings/
https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/04/23/justice-jackson-suggests-maryland-schools-were-never-going-teach-kids-lgbtq-books-despite-districts-clear-mandate/
I argue that ” LGBTQ” , especially the ” T” , is a quasi religion.
They didn’t throw out the Judeo- Christian Ten Commandments and prayer in school just to leave a vacuum.
LGBTQ is the replacement.
They didn’t stop promoting Western Civilization just to leave a vacuum. Multiculturalism is the replacement.
Slow motion Chinese Cultural revolution. Except at least the Chinese still wanted China to be strong, even as they were altering it’s culture. These people often want America weakened and some globalist ideas strengthened.
Any guess on how Justice Thomas would vote on a case involving interracial marriage?
We must either take control of the School Boards or remove so many of our children from the State Schools that they fold up and die. The national ‘education unions’ are in no way essential to education and serve only their own interests and success of the Woke Narrative.
Vote NO on every school bond measure. Pressure your local politicians in the state government to institute the practice of ‘The money follows the child’.
Yes, we as a society do not want the private Islamic school teaching ‘How to kill Jews’, nor the KKK advocating lynching.
Since these WOKEists want to teach our children all about the perverse practices of homosexuals, they should be asked why they don’t want to teach about the disordered heterosexual practice popularized by the late Hugh Hefner: Change your bedmate frequently. Or about the sexual slavery popular with Muslims.
Love is love, they say.
“A local public school system makes a host of decisions about the content of teaching, and it would be too disruptive to allow parents unlimited ability to opt out of anything and everything within it.”
Seems to me schools already do just that to accommodate every degree of “neuro-divergence” invented in the last few years. Why can’t non-religious parents get an opt-out on the basis of their humanistic objections?
I’m just reluctant to allow faith of whatever shade to become the next cultural battle space. Like the aforementioned race card.
Homosexuals are in the transgender spectrum. Gay describes a happy, merry state of mind. The Rainbow is a symbol of albinophobic character. Diversity is a religious doctrine of color judgment and class bigotry. DEI is systemic, institutional Diversity. Political congruence (“=”) is a principle of selective exclusion (e.g. baby “=” fetus, a technical term-of-art, under the Pro-Choice ethical religion). Abortion is homicide from six weeks, a hate crime from conception under Loving. As for Levine’s Dreams of Herr Mengele, gender refers to sex-correlated attributes including sexual orientation. Trans- to a state or process of divergence from normal.
Religion refers to a behavioral protocol or model. Faith is a logical domain refers to trust… in an authority.
And… “the moral equivalence of” murdering Gaia…as the grifts (and lies) keep acomin’….
“EPA head demands answers from company putting sulfur dioxide into the air to address global warming”—
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/energy/epa-head-demands-answers-company-putting-sulfur-dioxide-air-address-global
+ Bonus:
“Trump pulls plug on Maine’s offshore wind project”—
https://justthenews.com/nation/states/center-square/trump-pulls-plug-maines-offshore-wind-project