The Supreme Court has rightly decided in Mahmoud v. Taylor that Maryland parents with children in public schools may opt their 5-11-year-old children out of lessons that address homosexuality and “trans”-cultism. Like all shills for early indoctrination of children with leftist ideas about homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation, Maryland leftists want to start propagandizing as early as possible.
In 2022, the Montgomery Board of Education voted to include five “LGBTQ+”-themed picture books in the K-5 curriculum. Initially the board agreed to notify parents prior to instruction and then—not surprisingly—the following year the board reneged, saying it would neither provide prior notification nor permit opt-outs. One can safely assume that was the cunning plan all along.
One district official defended ending opt-outs with this specious reasoning:
[P]ermitting some students to exit the classroom while the storybooks were being taught would expose other students “to social stigma and isolation.”
What about the social stigma that including these books results in for students who believe homosexuality and cross-sex impersonation are wrong and that two people cannot in reality marry?
The goal of leftist activists in coercively exposing young children to leftist ideas—and only leftist ideas—on sexuality and gender is precisely to stigmatize conservative beliefs.
During Court proceedings, the disturbing goals of leftist activists in the district to stigmatize conservative beliefs were exposed:
These books—and associated educational instructions provided to teachers—are designed to “disrupt” children’s thinking about sexuality and gender.
More specifically,
As one email sent by MCPS principals reflects, the Board selected the books according to a “Critical Selection Repertoire” that required selectors to review potential texts and ask questions such as: “Is heteronormativity reinforced or disrupted?”; “Is cisnormativity reinforced or disrupted?”; and “Are power hierarchies that uphold the dominant culture reinforced or disrupted?”
Just curious, are elementary school teachers in Montgomery County hired to “disrupt” the thinking of other people’s minor children on sexuality and gender? If so, have taxpayers in this ethnically and religiously diverse community been notified about that?
It was also revealed that classroom discussion of these highly controversial picture books was expected:
In anticipation of such discussion, the Board hosted a “professional development workshop” in the summer of 2022, where it provided teachers with a guidance document suggesting how they might respond to student inquiries regarding the themes presented in the books. … For example, [i]f a student claims that a character “can’t be a boy if he was born a girl,” teachers were encouraged to respond: “That comment is hurtful.” … And if a student asks “[w]hat’s transgender?”, it was recommended that teachers explain: “When we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us ‘boy’ or ‘girl’ based on our body parts.
Since assumptions about sexuality and gender are inextricably linked to biology, psychology, epistemology, ontology, teleology, ethics, morality, and—for religious people—theology, are elementary school teachers experts or even minimally trained in those areas?
The dumbest Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson, claimed that there was no coercion because parents are free to homeschool or send their children to private school. The irony in that statement is that leftists are continually trying to wrest control of homeschooling from parents.
Moreover, private schools are cost-prohibitive for most parents, and leftists like Jackson oppose vouchers that would enable more parents to afford them.
It’s arrogant and offensive that any school would seek to deny parents’ rights to determine when and what their children will be taught about an issue as complex and sensitive as sexuality. It is outrageous for public servants paid by all community members to try to compel captive audiences of other people’s minor children to be exposed to images and ideas embodying arguable moral presuppositions—presuppositions that many people correctly believe are evil.
Here are a few of the arguable presuppositions adults necessarily hold in order to believe five year olds must be read picture books that positively depict two men marrying, or a prince falling in love with a knight, or children who “know” they are the sex they are not, or that preach the use of “gender inclusive pronouns.”:
- Homosexuality per se is either morally good or morally neutral.
- Cross-sex identification is healthy and good.
- When children feel uncomfortable with their bodies or prefer clothing and activities stereotypically associated with the opposite sex, the problem rests with their bodies—not their subjective, internal feelings.
- Compassion demands people use incorrect or invented pronouns when referring to opposite-sex identifying persons.
- Marriage is constituted solely by erotic and romantic feelings, rather than sexual complementarity and reproductive potential.
- Legal marriage between two people of the same sex is morally good or neutral.
- It is appropriate to introduce the topics of homosexuality and cross-sex identification to children at ages 5-11.
- It is morally, ethically, and pedagogically wrong for any parent to disagree with these presuppositions, and, therefore, those parents should be legally prohibited from opting their young children out of exposure to material based on these presuppositions.
Justice Alito writing for the majority defended the parents’ right to the free exercise of religion against the burden imposed by the onerous policy of the district:
A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses “a very real threat of undermining” the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.
While Mahmoud v. Taylor centered on elementary schools in Maryland, it has legal implications for all public schools that serve minor children. Any public school district that prohibits parental notification and opt-outs of their children’s exposure to “LGBTQ+” lessons and materials will now risk costly lawsuits that they will lose.