By Greg Piper
Updated: July 21, 2023 - 11:22pm
An affluent liberal D.C. suburb has a simple explanation for why it won't honor parents' requests to exclude their children, some as young as 3 years old, from "storybooks" with sex workers, kink, drag, gender transitions and same-sex romance for elementary-age children: It's hard.
Maryland's Montgomery County Public Schools claims it was flooded with opt-out requests when the books were introduced in the curriculum in January, giving it legal justification, on logistical grounds, to issue a blanket policy of no exceptions and no notifications.
The district didn't provide a specific number or even vague range, however, in its memorandum opposing the motion for preliminary injunction by Catholic, Muslim and Ukrainian-Orthodox parents who filed the First and Fourteenth Amendment lawsuit in May.
The July 6 amended complaint adds plaintiff Kids First, a new unincorporated association of Montgomery County parents with children in MCPS or who would be "but for" the new policy. It includes "Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Latter-day Saints, and Jews, and is open to individuals of all faiths."
The district imposed the no-exception and no-notification policy March 23, a day after it told the media it would honor requests and issue notifications, which united parents across the religious spectrum in opposition.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a reliably liberal advocacy group on most issues, has been especially vocal and visible in challenging the policy.
"Public schools have an obligation to be inclusive and neutral," Maryland Director Zainab Chaudry said at a multifaith rally Thursday. "They can't be favoring one group over another."
MCPS is the only known district nationwide to go this far, setting "a dangerous precedent for more bullying, more harassment, more intimidation for children within schools," according to Chaudry. "We can't teach children allyship and tolerance and inclusion by forcing them to assimilate" and give up "their own diverse identities."
MCPS "cannot plausibly claim that an opt-out policy that is both required by state law and was willingly followed until March 2023 could somehow harm the public interest if followed for the duration of this case," the parents' June 12 memorandum in support of a preliminary injunction states.
Maryland law requires districts to honor "family life and human sexuality" curriculum opt-outs "for any reason," and MCPS policy directs schools to "accommodate requests" from students and parents for classroom content "they believe would impose a substantial burden on their religious beliefs," the memo also states.
In addition, the storybooks go beyond "basic civility and kindness toward all," explicitly encouraging children to "question sexuality and gender identity, focus on romantic feelings, and embrace gender transitioning," the memo reads.
Pre-kindergarten students, for example, are required to read Pride Puppy, which "promotes pride parades as family-friendly events without cautioning about the frequent nudity and sexually explicit conduct that many parents find objectionable –especially for children."
MCPS policy never guaranteed parents exemptions from the storybooks, just "reasonable and feasible adjustments" specifically for religious beliefs, while expressly warning they may be refused if requests become "too frequent or too burdensome," the district's July 12 memo against the injunction states.
"Through conversations with principals, MCPS became aware that individual schools could not accommodate the growing number of opt-out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment and undermining MCPS’s educational mission," according to the memo.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/education/school-district-says-it-banned-opt-out-lgbtq-lessons-because-too-many