Indoctrination on trial

The Supreme Court has agreed to review whether a school board can compel public elementary school students to participate in LGBTQ storybook time without giving parents prior notice or an opportunity to opt out. The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, challenges the Montgomery County (Md.) Board of Education’s requirement that elementary school teachers read books celebrating gender transitions to children to disrupt what the board calls “cisnormativity.” Several parents filed suit claiming that the inability to opt their children out of instruction contrary to their religious beliefs violates the Free Exercise Clause. The Supreme Court will hear the case this spring.

The case began when the school board announced that it would introduce story books into its elementary school classrooms with the goal of changing students' minds regarding sex and gender. Parents were given notice of when a book was to be read and allowed to opt out. Then, beginning in the 2023-2024 school year, the school board changed its mind and declared that neither notice nor opt-outs would be permitted.

The denial of an opt-out for such ideological material provided to very young children by the teachers they love and trust took parents by surprise. Maryland, like the vast majority of other states, allows parents to opt-out of the sex education unit of the state-mandated health curriculum, even for highschoolers. But if parents did not like the sexual messages conveyed by the story books, they had only one option: to pull their young child from public school.

Over 1,100 parents signed a petition asking the board to restore their notice and opt-out rights and hundreds attended school board meetings trying to convince the board to reverse its no-opt-out policy. These parents testified that they had religious obligations--whether Christian or Muslim--not to subject their children to teaching on gender and sexuality that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The parents explained how impressionable young children are and how they lack independent judgment to challenge their teachers on such issues. In response, the parents were labeled “white supremacists” and “xenophobes.”

The new collection of books that Montgomery County Maryland requires to be read to and discussed by elementary school children is designed to change children’s minds about basic biology. The series starts with Pride Puppy—a picture book directed to three and four-year-old children—which depicts a Pride parade. Pride Puppy invites students to search in pictures for underwear, lip ring, and drag queen. Another elementary book requests that children ponder what it means to be “transgender” or “non-binary” and asks “[w]hat pronouns fit you best?” A third depicts a same-sex playground romance. And Born Ready tells the story of Penelope, who identifies as a boy. When Penelope’s brother says that he doesn’t understand how someone can become a boy, his mother chides him and says that “[n]ot everything needs to make sense.” 

The school board also offers guidance to teachers to guide discussions of these books. The board directed elementary school teachers to tell their young students that “not everyone is a boy or girl” and that “some people identify with both, sometimes one more than the other and sometimes neither.” During book discussions, teachers are told to tell their young and captive pupils that, at birth, people “guess about our gender,” but “[w]e know ourselves best.” And because “not everyone is a boy or girl” students shouldn’t “guess” but instead ask fellow students what pronouns to use. The guidance directs teachers to frame any disagreement with these ideas as “hurtful.”

When the school board refused to change its approach, several parents filed suit in federal court arguing that the no-opt-out policy burdens their religious exercise. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit rejected that argument by narrowly construing the parents’ free exercise rights. According to the court, there was no evidence that these parents were compelled to change their religious beliefs or “what they teach their own children.” Absent such a “coercive effect,” the court found no religious burden.

As crazy as this ruling sounds, other courts of appeals have similarly held that the Free Exercise Clause does not require notice and opt-outs for similar material. In Parker v. Hurley, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit considered the free exercise rights of parents of an elementary-age child who sought notice and opt-outs regarding classroom reading that celebrated same-sex marriage. The First Circuit found that, although the parents’ religious beliefs were sincere and deeply offended, there was no burden on their free exercise rights. Having “chosen to place their children in public schools,” the parents had to show “direct coercion.” Even requiring children to sit through a classroom reading intended to influence their views on same-sex marriage was not enough.

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. In the landmark case, Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Supreme Court struck down Wisconsin’s compulsory school attendance law because of its burden on religious exercise.” Furthermore, the Supreme Court held in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that the “child is not the mere creature of the state” and the government may not infringe on parental rights where its purpose is “not within the competency of the state.” Indoctrination on gender ideology is not within the historical competency of the state.

The need for a parental opt-out is especially urgent, not just because the curriculum teaches things that are contrary to deeply held religious beliefs (girls can “become” boys), but because the material is intended to “disrupt” the religious views the parents desire to hand down (that boys are boys and girls are girls). While there isn’t a free exercise right to opt-out of geometry, the rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children has to include the right to opt-out of the public-school indoctrination of young children to believe that girls can “become” boys.