Maryland, My Maryland

Tyler O'Neil at Da Signal, Supreme Court Rules on Parents’ Religious Freedom in LGBTQ School Book Opt-Out Case

The Supreme Court upheld the religious freedom of Maryland parents who challenged a school district policy that prevented them from opting their children out of lessons involving LGBTQ books. The court ruled, 6-3, that the Maryland parents were entitled to a preliminary injunction.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involved Maryland parents of various faith backgrounds—Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, and Muslim—asking the court for a temporary injunction, allowing them to opt their kids out of instruction that utilize LGBTQ books that Montgomery County Public Schools has mandated schools teach.
. . .
Justice Samuel Alito delivered the Supreme Court’s opinion, in which Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Thomas filed a concurring opinion, and Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissenting opinion, which Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson joined.

Ace gives it red italic font and the flaming skull, Supreme Court Rules that Public Schools Cannot Preach the Gay/Trans Agenda to Children Without Alerting Their Parents and Allowing Them an Opt-Out

You probably remember this dispute. Maryland, as deranged a progressive cesspit as there is, insists on teaching kids to be gay in grade school. Not middle school, grade school.

Initially, they permitted parents an opt-out of Lessons In Homosexuality, but then reversed themselves, denying parents that opt-out. It seems too many parents wanted to opt their children out, and that defeats the whole point of their gay and trans grooming.

Also, they said they couldn't just excuse kids when they were going to give lectures about changing your gender, because these lectures could come at literally any moment and who could plan for when teachers were going to start grooming children?

Which leads to a question that should be asked and answered: Just how often are teachers engaging in grooming behavior such that they cannot even say when the groomings will begin and end? Maryland's position seems to be that teachers are going to groom children nigh-constantly, so it's too much of a bureaucratic chore to excuse children every time a groomer teacher wants to tell them that gender is infinitely mutable and just "assigned at birth" as a guess by a bigoted doctor and isn't it wonderful to have gay sex?

The Court rejected these arguments, and found that bureaucratic convenience did not overrule the protections of the First Amendment, which guarantees parents the right to decide their children's religious upbringing.

And note that all parents are forced to pay for public school and also that schooling until age 16 (or whatever) is compulsory, so parents cannot just "remove their children from school," as -- guess who? -- Ketanji Brown Jackson asserted in oral arguments.

Good for the Montgomery County parents.