Supreme Court Open To Ordering ‘Religious’ Exemptions From Learning Anything

The Supreme Court yesterday heard arguments on a Maryland case in which a group of parents and a rightwing “parents’ rights” group are suing the Montgomery County School Board over the optional inclusion of LGBTQ+ friendly story books in the reading curriculum. The lawsuit claims that the parents’ ability to freely exercise their religion will be unfairly burdened if the school doesn’t provide a formal opt-out process whenever a teacher might read aloud one of the books including LGBTQ+ characters. Just the existence of gay or trans characters in a storybook, the suit claims, will “indoctrinate” kids with “gender ideology” unless they can flee the classroom at the hint of a rainbow flag or a drawing of two men holding hands.

Let’s be clear on the content here: The books at issue here are aimed at first through fifth grade, and do not contain any discussion of sex, genitalia, tearing down heteronormativity, or gender-affirming medical care. They’re also not a formal, mandatory part of the reading curriculum, but as the school argues in its brief to the Court, the district decided in 2022 to add

a handful of storybooks featuring lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer characters for use in the language-arts curriculum, alongside the many books already in the curriculum that feature heterosexual characters in traditional gender roles.

The schools initially provided parents advance notice if the books were going to be read and offered an opt-out, but dropped both policies because they proved unwieldy to administer, led to a lot of absences, and posed “the risk of exposing students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families to social stigma and isolation.”

So what are these terrible faith-destroying books? The four that are upsetting the parents the most are:

• Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, a story about a little girl who frets she’ll “lose” her favorite uncle when he gets married, but then he and his fiancé tell her she’ll be gaining a second uncle who loves her too. The fact that Bobby is marrying a man isn’t even presented as a problem; it’s about the girl’s realizing that families may change but are still family. After that, all families in America are destroyed and worship Satan.

• Prince and Knight, a good old save the kingdom from a dragon story where the brave prince falls for a knight who helps him defeat the dragon (they capture it; no slaying) and then everyone celebrates. No sex, but one racy scene of the prince holding the knight in a hug, egad. They live happily ever after and get a sequel too. Then everyone in America becomes unable to fight wars and the nation is destroyed.

• Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, about a trans boy who wants to be a ninja and wins a martial arts competition. His older brother scoffs that “You can’t become a boy. You have to be born one,” but their mom explains, “Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.” And then western civilization collapses.

• Love, Violet, about a girl who gets a crush on another girl in her class and doesn’t know what to do on Valentine’s Day, and then they both become Wiccans, start a farm, and take all the agriculture subsidies, destroying America.

The county last fall dropped another book, Pride Puppy, an alphabet book about a runaway puppy whose owners follow it through a Pride parade, after wingnuts complained about one page that asked readers to find pictures of the intersex flag, a drag king, leather, a lip ring, and “underwear,” OH NO NOT A LIP RING. Needless to say, much of The Discourse continues to be about how that book is “pornographic” and will destroy America even though it’s now just in the library, not even an option on the supplemental reading list.

Like most states in the country, Maryland allows parents to opt their kids out of sex education classes, but opt-outs from the English curriculum are new, and could pretty obviously lead to parents demanding their precious children be exempt from having to learn about evolution, the Civil Rights movement, the women’s rights movement, or anything else that offends religious fundamentalists, which seems to be endless.

The case lost at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals last May, because, as the majority opinion held, the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that they were really burdened by an optional selection of books, and hadn’t shown that “the storybooks are being implemented in a way that directly or indirectly coerces the parents or their children to believe or act contrary to their religious faith.”

But apparently the Supreme Court, since the Hobby Lobby case always eager to side with people who insist they’re being oppressed by things that don’t directly affect them, took up the appeal, and worse, several of the justices appear ready to impose a new precedent for opt-outs from school instruction.

Several of the justices, Law Dork Chris Geidner notes, sounded less like judges than like they too “were among the parents fighting the school board’s policy.”

Kavanaugh, noting that he had lived in Montgomery County throughout his life, told the school board’s lawyer, Alan Schoenfeld, about how “Maryland was founded on religious liberty and religious tolerance, a haven for Catholics escaping persecution in England going back to 1649.”

He then said that he was “surprised” that “this is the hill we’re going to die on, in terms of not respecting religious liberty, given that history.“

But is not carving out class time to avoid mention of LGBTQ people really a denial of religious liberty? The Court has long held that the Establishment Clause isn’t violated by the slogan “In God We Trust,” so where exactly is the difference?

Many of the arguments also focused on “instructional materials” that the district provides to help teachers handle class discussions, although the record doesn’t show whether any teachers anywhere in the district ever used them in class, which seems like it might matter.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett thought those materials sounded pretty indoctrinatey, particularly the line “people of any gender can like whoever they like,” which sounds to us like an objective statement of reality but apparently struck her as an imperative. Barrett also quoted the materials about trans people, which say

When we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us boy or girl based on our body parts. Sometimes they’re right; sometimes they’re wrong. When someone’s transgender, they guess wrong. When someone’s cisgender, they guessed right.

That sounds to us like an attempt to explain what being transgender means, but Barrett was pretty certain it was “more about influence, right, and shaping of ideas and less about communicating respect” because it told children “how to think about sexuality.” We’re kind of stumped there. Is it possible to define “transgender” in a way that respects them but doesn’t “indoctrinate” kids into thinking trans people are not defined solely by their physical/genetic characteristics at birth?

As to how this will all fall out when the Court rules, it seems likely the Supremes will mandate some kind of “opt out” policies. The only question is how broad it might be. Justice Elana Kagan asked plaintiff’s attorney Eric Baxter where those lines should be drawn, and by whom. Would schools have to provide an opt-out any time anything in a class might conflict with a student or parent’s religious beliefs, once they say it’s a conflict?

Yup, Baxter agreed. That was exactly what he wanted. Parents decide, schools must comply, no matter what the allegedly offensive material might be.

If the Court goes that far, there’s no telling what sort of Pandora’s box could be opened for schools. Like for instance, maybe kids would have to be excused for any lesson mentioning Pandora and her box, since Pagan gods and stories conflict with the one true faith, the end.

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[Law Dork / Bay Area Reporter / NYT]

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