Supreme Court seems to back letting parents opt kids out of LGBTQ stories

Philly Today: Main Line School Board Un-Bans Banned Books

The Radnor school board just voted to reverse a decision that banned the library books Gender Queer, Fun Home, and Blankets.

Education Freedom Meets Religious Freedom

Two important developments in education occurred over the last week. One was a sign of the problem we have. The other was a sign of the solution. The sign of the problem, to which hopefully the U.S. Supreme Court will provide the correct answer, falls under the headline of sex education. The court has just heard Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which families from a variety of faiths -- Muslims, Jews, Christians -- are fighting imposition by the Board of E…

Supreme Court Open To Ordering 'Religious' Exemptions From Learning Anything

A Good Dog at the NYC Pride parade, 2009. Image (cropped) by Steve Hardy, Creative Commons License 2.0The 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 b…

Uncle Bobby's Wedding: Let’s Take a Look at the Children’s Books Sam Alito Is So Afraid Of

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court will answer a question that feels like it should not be difficult: whether the Constitution gives parents a de facto veto over any aspect of public education that does not, in their view, adequately support their religious beliefs. Because the Court is controlled by six conservative Christians who believe the most urgent crisis of our time is discrimination against conservative Christians, the activists wh…

US Supreme Court hears arguments on viability of religious opt-outs from LGBTQ+ curriculum in public schools

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday heard oral arguments in the Mahmoud v. Taylor case concerning the viability of religious opt-outs from LGBTQ+ curriculum in public schools. In the brief for the petitioners, the parents argue that “gender and sexuality are topics of enormous religious importance” and that “decisions related to these topics can have life-changing and lifelong impacts.” The brief for the respondents notes that without proof of coerc…

SCOTUS likely to side with parents who object to LGBT propaganda in elementary classrooms

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in the case Mahmoud v. Taylor, concerning Maryland parents' right to shield their children from LGBT propaganda in elementary school classrooms. Unlike liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, the high court's conservative-leaning justices appeared receptive to the argument that Montgomery County Public Schools, the state's largest school district, violated the…