The issue the high court is being asked to consider, an opt-out policy for students, comes from Montgomery County, the state’s largest county, which includes 160,500 K-12 children in Montgomery County Public Schools.
The multi-parent lawsuit, Mahmoud v. Taylor, lost on appeal in May. On behalf of the parents, attorneys at Becket Law have appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. Becket filed its Petition for Certiorari Sept. 12 and will learn this fall if the high court will hear it.
In 2022, the school board approved 20-plus LGBT-themed books for the English language arts curriculum in an effort to promote diversity, equity, and nondiscrimination in grades K-5.
In their lawsuit, the parents submitted seven books to the court such as "Pride Puppy," a story about attending a pride parade; "Uncle Bobby’s Wedding," when a niece meets her uncle’s boyfriend; and "My Rainbow," which tells the story of a mother who makes a rainbow-colored wig for her transgender child.
According to federal court documents reviewed by AFN, the LGBT-themed storybooks set off a year of controversy within the school district. Some objecting parents including the plaintiffs pulled their child from story time, with the approval of a sympathetic teacher, but teachers eventually refused to cooperate with parents because so many opt-out requests were pouring in.
Meanwhile, school administrators who were unhappy with the curriculum signed their names to a white paper that said books should not be teaching sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary school. The paper singled out one book, “Love, Violet,” for portraying elementary-age children falling in love with each other.
Despite the clear themes and purpose of the storybooks, MCPS is refusing to allow students to sit out the classroom story time because the books fall under the school district’s English language arts curriculum. That excuse is an important one since Maryland state law gives students an opt-out option in just one classroom lesson: a mandatory unit on “Family Life and Human Sexuality.”
According to MCPS, it doesn’t have to follow that state law because the books aren’t part of that mandatory unit on human sexuality.
"Nearly all of the country,” Becket attorney Will Haun tells AFN, “has some kind of opt-out or opt-in requirement for any instruction on family life and human sexuality.”
Becket is also arguing the school district policy violates the First Amendment rights of the parents to oversee their children’s upbringing.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are three sets of parents, two who are Catholic and a Muslim husband and wife, who all object on religious grounds to storybooks that violate their religious beliefs.
According to the court documents, the Muslim parents said the storybooks expose their son to “activities and curriculum on sex, sexuality, and gender that undermine Islamic teachings.”
According to the Catholic parents, they believe “a person’s biological sex is both unchanging and integral to that person’s being,” and “gender and biological sex are intertwined and inseparable.”
"Public schools are supposed to be partnering with the parents to educate children,” the Becket attorney argues. “Any authority the public schools have comes from the parents.”
