On April 22, 2025, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the religious liberty case Mahmoud v. Taylor involving Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland, the district that has decided to include in its pre-K through fifth grade language arts curriculum picture books that feature homosexual and cross-dressing characters. Worse yet, the district has banned both parental notification and opting children out of exposure to these offensive materials “for any reason.”
In response to the tyrannical demand that their very young children be exposed to offensive, age-inappropriate material that violates their religious beliefs, three sets of parents of diverse faith backgrounds—Muslim, Ukrainian Orthodox, and Roman Catholic—are suing the district.
The district openly acknowledges what forty years ago would have been unthinkable:
[A]t the start of the 2022-2023 school year, MCPS approved a handful of storybooks featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer characters for use in the language-arts curriculum. … Teachers are expected to fold them into the curriculum as they would any other book.
What was the purpose of such socio-political additions to curriculum for little ones? According to the district,
The storybooks were added as part of MCPS’s commitment to “provid[ing] a culturally responsive … curriculum that promotes equity, respect, and civility.” MCPS believes that “[r]epresentation in the curriculum creates and normalizes a fully inclusive environment for all students” and “supports a student’s ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with diverse peers and encourages respect for all.”
“Normalize” is the operative word, but the goal of adding these storybooks was not to normalize the inclusion of students based on their humanity or to promote respect for or civility toward persons.
The storybooks are included in a calculated effort to normalize and promote respect for controversial ideas while concomitantly stigmatizing dissenting ideas.
Here’s a thought experiment. Some people identify as polyamorists—er, I mean consensual non-monogamists. Some children are being raised by consensual non-monogamists. Why are there no colorful picture books depicting polycules positively? Doesn’t MCPS want to normalize a fully inclusive environment for poly people and families? Aren’t storybooks about poly families necessary to develop students’ ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with their poly pals and/or poly parents?
The reason there are no such books or demands—yet—for such books is that public school leaders thus far have concluded that polyamory is not moral conduct and, therefore, little ones should not be exposed to appealing images about it in storybooks.
And there’s the rub. Many parents believe that homosexual conduct, homosexual relationships, and cross-sex impersonation are as immoral as polyamory or any of the diverse paraphilias in which fallen humans choose to engage.
In oral arguments, the district emphasized ad nauseum that “mere exposure” to ideas that violate religious beliefs does not constitute coercion. According to SCOTUSblog, however, Chief Justice Roberts was “skeptical” of that claim:
He noted that even if the county policy does not require students “to affirm what is being taught in books or lessons,” that may not be “a realistic concept for a five-year-old.” Telling such young students that they don’t have to agree with the teacher, Roberts observed, “may be a more dangerous message.”
Even fifth graders believe that whatever ideas are presented by those in authority—even via picture books—are presented as truths to be accepted. Would any of the teachers exposing young children to positive images of homosexuality or cross-sex impersonation be permitted to share with their students that some people view such images as wrong and harmful?
The district made the laughable claim that these books—books whose central characters are homosexual, queer, and “trans”—have nothing to do with “any lessons related to gender and sexuality.” You silly people, according to MCPS, this is what picture books featuring deviant sexuality are really about:
The storybooks tell everyday tales of characters who experience adventure, confront new emotions, and struggle to make themselves heard. They include a story about a family attending a Pride parade, a niece meeting her uncle’s husband-to-be, a prince falling in love with a knight as they battle a dragon in a mythical kingdom, a girl feeling nervous about giving a valentine to her crush, and a transgender boy sharing his gender identity with his family. These are archetypal stories that touch on the same themes introduced to children in such classic books as Snow White, Cinderella, and Peter Pan. In addition to helping students explore sentence structure, word choice, and style, the storybooks support students’ ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with peers and encourage respect for all.
Yeah, that’s the ticket, archetypal stories about a pride parade, a marriage between two men, a prince falling in love with a man, and a cross-dressing boy telling his parents that he believes he’s a girl—stories to which leftists believe young children must be exposed if they’re ever going to treat homosexuals and drag queens civilly.
The author of the book about the “transgender boy” is Jodie Patterson who has one “trans” child and one “genderqueer” child. Ideas have consequences.
MCPS speciously argued that no student is “asked or expected to change his or her views about his or her own, or any other student’s, sexual orientation or gender identity.”
That claim may be technically true but deeply dishonest.
While students are not “asked” to change their views on their own or any peer’s “sexual orientation” (another devious rhetorical construction of leftists) or “gender identity,” the authors of the storybooks, the publishers of the storybooks, and the teachers who selected the storybooks absolutely want children to adopt leftist views on homosexuality, marriage, and cross-sex impersonation.
That’s what propagandists seek to do: change minds. And they know it’s easier to shape the ideas of 16-year-olds than 26-year-olds, and easier still to shape the ideas of six-year-olds.
MCPS admitted that the number of parents requesting to opt their children out of exposure to these controversial books was growing:
At first, teachers and principals sought to accommodate these requests by excusing students when the books were read in class. The growing number of opt-out requests, however, gave rise to three related concerns: high student absenteeism, the infeasibility of administering opt-outs across classrooms and schools, and the risk of exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation. … MCPS therefore determined that permitting optouts was not feasible or consistent with its curricular goals.
How did the district respond to the wishes of parents? Did they decide to drop material so controversial that the number of opt-out requests was becoming difficult to manage? Not on your life.
The district responded by rescinding the right of parents to choose to opt their children out of exposure to pastel-washed images depicting offensive, age-inappropriate ideas.
Leftists believe parents should have the right to kill their offspring but not the right to decide to which ideas and images they’re exposed in school.
Leftist government school propagandists fear offending students or their parents who identify as homosexual or “trans” but have no fear of offending Muslims and Christians. These leftists have so little respect for the feelings and beliefs of Muslims and Christians that they will force their children to be exposed to offensive books.
Exposing students to material depicting homosexuality or cross-sex impersonation neutrally or positively necessarily entails a prior judgment. The judgment at the heart of such exposure is that there are no moral problems attendant to either topic. That’s why there are no materials about polycules or paraphilias, even though presumably schools want kids with poly parents or fetishes to be treated civilly. This points to the difference between including and accepting persons as distinct from including, accepting, embracing, and affirming behaviors. Leftist public servants paid by the public deliberately conflate persons and behaviors in order to advance leftist presuppositions, which is neither their right to do nor their job.
And this is just one reason why the Department of “Education” should be dismantled.