The Supreme Court judge sounded ready on Tuesday.
The issue is a new use for classroom reading for kindergarten through fifth grade in Montgomery County, a suburb of Washington, where three justice resides.
In recent years, six conservatives in the court have invoked “free exercise of religion” to protect Catholic schools from illegal employment claims from teachers, giving parents equal rights to use state grants to send their children to religious schools.
During discussions on Tuesday, they strongly suggested expanding the right to religious freedom to parents along with public school children.
“They don’t want to change what is being taught in the classroom,” Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh told court attorneys.
“As a lifetime resident of the county, I have made a mystery how it led to this. They had promised their parents that they would be notified and allowed them to opt out,” he said. “But the next day they changed the rules.”
Judges John G. Roberts Jr. and Neil M. Golsh also reside in Montgomery County, both of whom were reliable supporters of religious freedom claims.
There are almost every state, including Maryland, and there are laws that allow parents to opt out of sex education classes for their children.
When a new storybook was introduced in the fall of 2022, parents were told they could remove young children from those lessons. However, in the absence of a “non-sustainable number” of children, the Board of Education has revoked the opt-out rule.
They explained the state’s rules that apply to older students and sex education, but not to read lessons for elementary school students.
In response, a group of Muslim, Catholic and Ukrainian orthodox parents filed a lawsuit in federal courts and asked for an order that allowed children to be excluded from class during reading lessons.
They said the book contradicts the religious and moral views it taught children.
A federal judge and the Fourth Circuit refused to intervene. Those judges said that the “free movement” of religion protects people from being forced to change their actions and beliefs, but neither of them were in question in school cases.
However, the Supreme Court
On behalf of his parents, lawyer Eric Baxter emphasized that “I am not opposed to books on shelves or on libraries. I have no right to tell the school which books to choose.” “This is where the school board imposes indoctrination on these children.”
School Board lawyer Alan Shoenfeld said the goal of the new storybook is to “promote mutual respect. The lesson is that they should treat their peers with respect.”
He warned the court with the addition of a wide range of new rights for parents and students to oppose ideas and messages that anger them.
Becket’s lawyers described seven books that their legal outline lawyers found undesirable.
One of them is a picture book for 3 and 4 years old. It “explains a parade of pride and what kids find there,” they said. “This book invites students old enough to tie their shoes to search for images of “underwear”, “leather”, “lip ring”, (drag)king”, and (drag)queen. ”
Another “Love, Violet” is about a romance of a playground for two young girls and the same-sex.
“Born Ready” tells the story of a biological girl named Penelope, who identifies as a boy.
“Allies at the Crossing” is a picture book intended for early elementary school classes.
“Would you ponder the meaning of being ‘trans’ or ‘non-binary’ and ask your kids what pronouns are right for you?” they said. The teacher was told “to tell the students “) to instruct the doctor’s guess about our gender.”
They said the teacher was instructed to “disrupt” the elementary school students’ thinking about biological sex.
After the case arrived at the Supreme Court, two of the seven books were withdrawn by the Board of Education, including “Pride Puppy.”
