Court Rules Maryland Parents Cannot Protect Children from Homosexual Propaganda
Despite national attention and thousands of protesting parents, a federal court is refusing to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBT courses in school. The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decided on Wednesday that Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland does not have to allow parents to opt their children out of LGBT-themed lessons. Judge G. Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, claimed that the parents seeking to opt their children out of the lessons in question did not provide sufficient evidence to justify a preliminary injunction.
In March of last year, MCPS added nearly two dozen "LGBTQ+ inclusive texts" to the pre-K through 8th grade curriculum. According to a lawsuit filed in May, parents were told that "no notice will be given" of when LGBT-themed lessons will be taught and that "no opt-outs [will be] tolerated because [students] must learn to be more 'LGBTQ-Inclusive.'" The federal lawsuit was brought by a group of Christian and Muslim parents who wished to remove their children from LGBT-themed lessons on religious grounds. Over 1,000 parents - including Catholic, Ethiopian Orthodox, evangelical, Muslim, and Jewish parents - attended a subsequent MCPS board meeting to protest the decision to rescind parental opt-outs.
Then, in August, Biden-appointed U.S. District Court judge Deborah Boardman ruled against Maryland parents, claiming that mandatory LGBT lessons do not constitute a religious liberty infringement. She wrote that reading books about transgenderism, drag queens, and bondage fetishes to children as young as three "is not indoctrination" and does not "directly or indirectly" coerce children into activity "that violates their religious beliefs." Instead, she suggested that concerned parents - who, according to the policy Boardman sanctioned, have no notice of when these lessons are being taught - discuss the lessons with their children at home after school...
A dissenting opinion was penned by Trump-appointed Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr. "The parents have shown the board's decision to deny religious opt-outs burdened these parents' right to exercise their religion and direct the religious upbringing of their children by putting them to the choice of either compromising their religious beliefs or foregoing a public education for their children," he wrote. "I would reverse the district court and enjoin the Montgomery County School Board of Education from denying religious opt-outs for instruction to K-5 children involving the texts."