The U.S. Supreme Court on Jan. 17 agreed to hear a request from a group of Maryland parents to opt their young children out of having storybooks that promote LGBT lifestyles read to them.
The petition was filed on Sept. 12, 2024, after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit turned away the parents’ request for an injunction to halt the Montgomery County Board of Education’s policy of promoting the books.
The case goes back to November 2022, when the board mandated new “LGBTQ-inclusive” storybooks for elementary school students that promote gender transitions, Pride parades, and same-sex romance between young children.
The board instructed employees responsible for selecting the books to use an “LGBTQ+ Lens” and to question whether “cisnormativity,” “stereotypes,” and “power hierarchies” are “reinforced or disrupted,” the petition said.
Parents were initially told they could opt out on behalf of their children when the storybooks were read, according to the petition. The board changed its policy in March 2023. Beginning with the 2023–2024 academic year, the opt-out policy would no longer be in effect.
“If parents did not like what was taught to their elementary school kids, their only choice was to send them to private school or to homeschool,” the petition said.
Hundreds of parents, largely Eastern Orthodox Christians and Muslims, showed up at board meetings and testified that their respective religions required that young children not be exposed to instruction on gender and sexuality that was inconsistent with their religion.
After “parents emphasized how impressionable young children are and how they lack independent judgment to process such complex and sensitive issues,” the board members accused parents of promoting “hate” and likened them to “white supremacists” and “xenophobes,” according to the petition.
The parents sued after the board declined to accommodate them, arguing that they had a constitutional right to opt out of such instruction.
On Aug. 24, 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman denied the parents’ application for an injunction to block the cancellation of the opt-out policy.
The panel also found that there was no evidence that the policy change burdened the parents’ right to free exercise of religion.
Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the parents, welcomed the Supreme Court’s decision to take the case.
“Cramming down controversial gender ideology on 3-year-olds without their parents’ permission is an affront to our nation’s traditions, parental rights, and basic human decency.
“The Court must make clear: parents, not the state, should be the ones deciding how and when to introduce their children to sensitive issues about gender and sexuality,” he said in a statement.
It is unclear when the Supreme Court will hear the case.
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to the attorney for the Montgomery County Board of Education, Alan Schoenfeld of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale, and Dorr in New York City. No reply was received by publication time.
