US Appeals Court Affirms Ruling that Maryland Parents cannot opt their Children out of School Lessons that Promote LGBT Ideology
The Fourth US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against parents in Maryland who sued their local school board for refusing to let them opt their child out of required book readings that supported transgenderism and gender transitioning in K-5 classrooms.
The court’s 2-1 decision upheld the Montgomery County Public Schools board’s refusal to allow parents to opt their children out of these readings or be notified in advance.
The lawsuit, filed by The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, argued that the school board’s inclusion of over 20 new “inclusivity” books in the fall of 2022 focused not on general civility and kindness, but on promoting “pride parades, gender transitioning, and pronoun preferences for children.”
Among the contentious materials was a book that encouraged children as young as three and four to find images from a list that included terms like “intersex flag,” “[drag] queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of an LGBT activist and sex worker. Another book prompted fifth graders to discuss what it means to be “non-binary.”
After a district court initially ruled against the parents, they appealed for a preliminary injunction, which the appeals court denied.
The court stated, “We take no view on whether the Parents will be able to present evidence sufficient to support any of their various theories once they have the opportunity to develop a record as to the circumstances surrounding the Board’s decision and how the challenged texts are actually being used in schools. At this early stage, however, given the Parents’ broad claims, the very high burden required to obtain a preliminary injunction, and the scant record before us, we are constrained to affirm the district court’s order denying a preliminary injunction.”
This ruling means that, for now, Montgomery County Public Schools can continue using these inclusivity books without offering parents an option for their children to opt-out of learning material that affirms radical gender ideology.
