Source: US Bureau of Land Management
The Supreme Court will now determine if parents have a right to opt their elementary school-aged children out of required LGBTQ reading.
The case comes after the Montgomery County School District in Maryland removed parents’ rights to opt their children out of certain parts of the curriculum and made LGBTQ-themed books required reading.
Predominantly Muslim and Ethiopian Orthodox parents brought the lawsuit, arguing that the district was violating their First Amendment religious rights.
CNN reports, “A divided 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel ruled that denying opt-outs does not require the students to “change their religious beliefs or conduct,” and therefore did not infringe on the parents’ religious freedom. The appeals court said that because the case was in an early stage, it didn’t yet know enough about how the books are being used to block the policy’s implementation.”
“New government-imposed orthodoxy about what children are ‘supposed’ to think about gender and sexuality is not a constitutional basis to sideline a child’s own parents,” the parents said in their appeal.
The district has made multiple controversial books mandatory reading for its English language arts curriculum as part of an “LGBTQ-inclusive reading list.”
Moms for Liberty Montgomery chapter president Lindsey Smith said her three-year-old child was assigned a book called “Pride Puppy” and an ABC book with images of drag queens under “Q for Queen.”
“MCPS keeps painting these books as rainbow unicorn which they are not,” Moms for Liberty Montgomery chapter president Lindsey Smith told Fox News in 2023.
The report explained, “while several parents requested a policy to opt out of these books, a recently updated policy by the school board insisted that students will be required to ‘engage’ with these materials. In addition, parents will no longer be required to be informed on which books will be included on the lists.”
“Students and families may not choose to opt out of engaging with any instructional materials, other than ‘Family Life and Human Sexuality Unit of Instruction’ which is specifically permitted by Maryland law. As such, teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future,” MCPS’ policy reads.
When President Donald Trump won the 2016 election, MCPS offered a “special curriculum” to “help students cope” with the election results.
The district borders Washington, DC.
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