{"id":35671,"date":"2025-04-20T13:21:11","date_gmt":"2025-04-20T13:21:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/35671\/"},"modified":"2025-04-20T13:21:11","modified_gmt":"2025-04-20T13:21:11","slug":"supreme-court-case-pits-religious-rights-versus-schools-use-of-lgbtq-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/35671\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court case pits religious rights versus schools’ use of LGBTQ books"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A prince lassos a dragon, saving a knight in shining armor from certain death. But the prince slips and as he falls, the knight and his steed race to return the favor.<\/p>\n

Then the two men fall in love.<\/p>\n

That story, \u201cPrince and Knight,\u201d is one of five children\u2019s books featuring LGBTQ characters and aimed at kindergarten through the fifth grade that have roiled a diverse suburban Maryland school district and led to a Supreme Court<\/a> case that the justices will hear on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Parents in Montgomery County who object for religious reasons want to pull their children from elementary school classes that use the books.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n AP AUDIO: A prince and knight fall in love and the Supreme Court is asked to intervene\n <\/p>\n

AP correspondent Julie Walker reports on a fight over LGBTQ books going to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n

The county school system has refused and lower courts have so far agreed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But the outcome could be different at a high court dominated by conservative justices who have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years.<\/p>\n

The parents argue that public schools cannot force kids to participate in instruction that violates their faith. They point to opt-out provisions in sex education and note that the district originally allowed parents to pull their children when the storybooks were being taught before abruptly reversing course.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s labeled as a language arts, you know, reading and writing program, but the content of the material is very sexual,\u201d said Billy Moges, a board member of the parents group Kids First that formed in response to the addition of the books to the curriculum. \u201cIt is teaching human sexuality and is confusing kids, and parents are not comfortable having their children exposed to these things at such an early age.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of parents testified at school board hearings about their religious obligations to keep their impressionable young children from lessons on gender and sexuality that conflicted with their beliefs. <\/p>\n

Moges said she pulled her three daughters, now 10, 8 and 6, from their public schools as a result. They were initially homeschooled and now attend a private Christian school, she said.<\/p>\n

The school system declined to comment, citing the ongoing lawsuit. <\/p>\n

But in court papers, lawyers for the schools wrote that the handful of storybooks are not sex-education materials but \u201crather tell everyday tales of characters who experience adventure, confront new emotions, and struggle to make themselves heard.\u201d The books touch on the same themes found in classic stories that include Snow White, Cinderella and Peter Pan, the lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n

In \u201cUncle Bobby\u2019s Wedding,\u201d a niece worries that her uncle will not have as much time for her after he gets married. His partner is a man. \u201cLove, Violet\u201d deals with a girl\u2019s anxiety about giving a valentine to another girl. \u201cBorn Ready\u201d is the story of a transgender boy\u2019s decision to share his gender identity with his family and the world. \u201cIntersection Allies\u201d describes nine characters of varying backgrounds, including one who is gender-fluid.<\/p>\n

The books were chosen \u201cin order to better represent all Montgomery County families\u201d and teachers may not use them \u201cto pressure students to change or to change or disavow religious views,\u201d the schools\u2019 lawyers said.<\/p>\n

The school system abandoned the option of letting parents take their kids out of the lessons because doing so \u201cbecame unworkably disruptive,\u201d the lawyers told the court.<\/p>\n

The writers\u2019 group Pen America<\/a>, which reported more than 10,000 books banned in the last school year, said in a court filing what the parents want is \u201ca constitutionally suspect book ban by another name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The difficulty of providing alternative lessons for some children anytime the books are used probably would force the county to pull the books from the curriculum, said Tasslyn Magnusson, senior adviser with the Freedom to Read program at PEN America.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really hope people read these books. They\u2019re just lovely examples of experiences that kids have in school and they\u2019re perfectly fine storybooks to have as part of an educational curriculum,\u201d Magnusson said.<\/p>\n

One book that was originally part of the curriculum and then pulled for unexplained reasons is \u201cMy Rainbow,\u201d co-written by Delaware state Rep. DeShanna Neal and daughter Trinity.<\/p>\n

The story tells of Trinity\u2019s desire for long hair as a transgender girl and her mother\u2019s solution, knitting a rainbow wig.<\/p>\n

Neal has grown used to having the book taken out of circulation at libraries, including in Florida, Ohio and Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cSchool is a place to learn about why the world is different and how it\u2019s different,\u201d Neal said. \u201cWhat I had hoped would come out of this book was, listen to your children. They know their own bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 A prince lassos a dragon, saving a knight in shining armor from certain death. But…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[20608,3444,18319,389,30,8522,2266,77,5566,4179,5763,4977,20606,20605,7796,20607,857,7143,16,15,10673],"class_list":{"0":"post-35671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-billy-moges","9":"tag-books","10":"tag-censorship","11":"tag-children","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-discrimination","14":"tag-education","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-gender","17":"tag-general-news","18":"tag-lgbtq","19":"tag-maryland","20":"tag-maryland-state-government","21":"tag-md-state-wire","22":"tag-royalty","23":"tag-school-curricula","24":"tag-schools","25":"tag-u-s-news","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom","28":"tag-washington-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114370503375388572","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}