Supreme Court rules parents must have option to opt children out of LGBTQ-specific lessons

The U S Supreme Court on Friday ruled that citizens schools must give advance notice to parents and allow them the opportunity to opt their children out of lessons or classroom instruction on matters of gender and sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs Mahmoud v Taylor was decided - along party lines with conservative Justice Samuel Alito authoring the majority opinion and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown-Jackson in dissent Parents from diverse religious backgrounds sued to challenge the protocol in Maryland s Montgomery County Citizens Schools when storybooks featuring LGBTQ characters were added to the elementary school English curriculum in The school board argued in the brief submitted to the Supreme Court that the storybooks themselves do not instruct about gender or sexuality They are not textbooks They merely introduce students to characters who are LGBTQ or have LGBTQfamily members and those characters experiences and points of view Advocacy groups dedicated to advancing free speech and expression filed amicus briefs in assistance of the district PEN America argued the circumstance should be viewed in the context of broader efforts to censor and restrict what is available and allowable in community schools for instance by passing book bans and Don t Say Gay laws The ACLU explained the initiative of not allowing opt-outs is religion-neutral writing that the Supreme Court should apply rational basis review which requires only that the school district show that its conduct was rationally related to a legitimate regime interest LGBTQ groups also objected to the challenge against the district s strategy with several submitting amici briefs including the National Center for Lesbian Rights GLAD Law Family Equality COLAGE Lambda Legal the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights PFLAG and the National Women s Law Center The Human Rights Campaign did not submit a brief but did issue a report by the group s President Kelley Robinson LGBTQ stories matter They matter so students can see themselves and their families in the books they read so they can know they re not alone And they matter for all students who need to learn about the world around them and understand that while we may all be different we all deserve to be valued and loved she revealed All students lose when we limit what they can learn what they can read and what their teachers can say The Supreme Court should reject this attempt to silence our educators and ban our stories The post Supreme Court rules parents must have option to opt children out of LGBTQ-specific lessons appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta