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The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday handed down its ruling in the parental rights case of Mahmoud v. Taylor. In a 6-3 decision, SCOTUS decided that parents do have the right to opt their elementary school-aged (pre-K through 8th grade) children out of classroom instruction that may include materials on gender and sexuality. The three dissenters were Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito states that the parents involved were likely to succeed in their claim that the school system, by not allowing the opt-out on LGBTQ-themed classroom activities, was an unconstitutional burden on their religious liberties.
“We have long recognized,” Alito writes, “the rights of parents to direct ‘the religious upbringing’ of their children. And we have held that those rights are violated by government policies that substantially interfere with the religious development of children.”
More goodness from Alito:
“According to the dissent, parents who send their children to public school must endure any instruction that falls short of direct compulsion or coercion and must try to counteract that teaching at home. The Free Exercise Clause is not so feeble. The parents in Barnette and Yoder were similarly capable of teaching their religious values “at home,” but that made no difference to the First Amendment analysis in those cases.”
The case was originally brought by a diverse group of parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC, that tends to lean hard left politically. At issue was the Montgomery County Public School system’s decision not to inform parents when LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks would be used in the curriculum for students aged 3 to 14. Topics of some of these books included “Pride” parades, gender transitioning, and pronoun preferences.
MORE: Supreme Court Hears Major Parental Rights Case Over School System’s Mandatory LGBTQ ‘Instruction’
A group of parents from different religious backgrounds banded together to object to their children being exposed to ideas that were inconsistent with their values and traditions, not to mention biologically impossible. The Montgomery County School Board ignored the parents’ concerns and released a statement contending that teachers and schools “utilize a variety of resources to continue to promote an inclusive environment,” and families, therefore, “may not choose to opt out of engaging with any instructional materials” except for sex ed classes.
Mahmoud v. Taylor was argued before the Supreme Court back in May. RedState’s Mike Miller summed things up this way:
The Montgomery County Board of Education argues that public education requires a uniform curriculum, including “recognition of our society’s diversity,” and adds that allowing some students to opt out of the insanity would place an overwhelming burden on its schools.
The question before the Court was:
Do public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and with-out notice or opportunity to opt out?
In her dissent, Sotomayor quoted from a 1987 Supreme Court opinion that described the nation’s public schools as “at once the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for promoting our common destiny.” Today’s ruling, she writes, will make that idea “a mere memory,” adding her fear that it will “insulate” students “from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”
Editor’s Note: Radical leftist judges are doing everything they can to hamstring President Trump’s agenda to make America great again.
