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Many school districts across the nation now are adopting mandatory LGBT indoctrination programs for students.
Sometimes described as "sex education," sometimes as "diversity," their common factor is that they promote the LGBT ideologies to young children.
It is this very issue, when it arose in Florida and Gov. Ron DeSantis and lawmakers banned it, that Disney lobbied for the ideology, provoking what now is a war between the state and the company that for decades had provided children's entertainment.
Now the fight over the issue has been escalated, with a lawsuit on behalf of parents in Maryland who are charging that the Montgomery County Board of Education simply decided to violate state law and require children to endure the leftist lessons.
According to Becket, which fights in America's courts for religious rights, it has filed a federal lawsuit against Monifa McKnight, superintendent of the board, the board itself, and members Shebra Evans, Lynn Harris, Grace Rivera-Oven, Karla Silvestre, Rebecca Smondrowski, Brenda Wolff and Julie Yang.
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The legal team explained, "A group of parents filed a federal lawsuit last night against the Montgomery County Board of Education for mandating storybooks that push extreme ideology regarding gender identity and sexuality. Maryland law and the school board’s own policies require parental notice and opportunity to opt out of any instruction concerning 'family life and human sexuality.'
"But after mandating new books that advocate pride parades, gender transitioning, and pronoun preferences for kids, the board announced it would no longer follow the law: parental notice will not be provided, and opt-outs will not be tolerated."
Becket said it is representing Muslim and Christian parents "who simply want their kids to have alternatives to storybooks that are age-inappropriate or inconsistent with their religious beliefs and sound science."
"Children are entitled to guidance from their own parents, who know and love them best, regarding how they’ll be introduced to complex issues concerning gender identity, transgenderism, and human sexuality," explained said Eric Baxter, a lawyer at Becket. "Forced, ideological discussions during story hour won’t cut it, and excluding parents will only hinder, not help, inclusivity."
The new books, purported to highlight "inclusivity" yet portraying a single agenda, were announced last fall for students in pre-K through eighth grade.
Becket reported the books don't focus on issues like civility and kindness, but instead are promotional materials for transgenderism. They focus "excessively" on children’s romantic feelings.
"For example, one book tasks three- and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes 'intersex flag,' 'drag queen,' 'underwear,' 'leather,' and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker," Becket said.
Other ideological stumbling blocks for true educational lessons are the fact that one book tells children they know "best" about gender transitioning, their decision doesn't have to "make sense" and that doctors are only guessing when they determine whether a newborn is a boy or a girl.
School officials, when adopting the agenda, claimed – falsely it turns out – that parents would be notified of those agenda-driven publications and be allowed to opt their children out.
"It repeated that assurance to parents as recently as March 22, 2023. But the very next day, everything changed. After announcing that the books would be mandatory for all elementary school students, one school board member accused concerned parents that opting out their child 'is just telling that kid, ‘[h]ere’s another reason to hate another person.,'" Becket reported.
Shortly after that, the board said it would ignore the state of Maryland's opt-out law, triggering resistance from a long list of parents including Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox Christians and more.
Baxter pointed out, "Like states nationwide, Maryland has long recognized that parents have the right to opt their children out of school activities that conflict with their religious beliefs or push sham science,. When it comes to kids, it’s still ‘mom and dad know best.’ Schools can best help kids learn kindness by teaming up with parents, not cutting them out of the picture.”"
The complaint accuses the school district of imposing – by fiat – books that "promote one-sided transgender ideology, encourage gender transitioning, and focus excessively on romantic infatuation."
It accuses the school district of requiring "kids" to be more "LGBTQ-Inclusive."
However, under "longstanding precedent, government schools are not 'empowered … to 'save' a child from himself or his [religions] parents' by imposing 'compulsory' education to 'influence … the religious future of the child.'"
The schools' action "violates not just Maryland law and board policy and practice but also the United States Constitution," the complaint warns. "Specifically, the First Amendment's Religion and Free Speech Clauses and the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause guarantee the parental right to opt children out of classroom instruction on such sensitive religious and ideological issues."
The case seeks court rulings that the board's decision to forcibly indoctrination students in its ideology is unconstitutional, as well as actual damages to parents "forced to pursue other educational opportunities."
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