Parents of numerous religions and even children mobilized to listen to their opinion by the school board, with about 1,000 people gathering for a school board meeting. At one of these meetings, a boy who identifies himself as Nick, said he liked to have stories that include LGBTQ characters.
“And we have rights,” he said. “We deserve to have books in our school to learn people about LGBTQ and other things. It doesn’t touch you, hurts you physically … I don’t know why you hate it so much.”
In the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the parents who object to the books make two important points. First, that the Supreme Court has long ordered parents to lead the values of their children, and secondly, to force these books for their children in the state school is a violation of the Constitution’s guarantee for the free exercise of religion.
As Morrison said, the mother of the young man with special needs, said: “It is just very heartbreaking to me how many parents feel as if they should choose between their child’s education and raising their children in their faith.”
While she has left her job as an oral surgeon at home in her daughter, she notes that many parents cannot do it and cannot afford a private school.
Eric Baxter, a lawyer at the Beckett Fund for Religious Freedom, who represents the reviving parents in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, will tell the judges that schools have been refusing for religious reasons for decades.
“Most people believe that their children should have a period of time when they do not have to deal with such more severe topics,” he said. “This applies to the very identity of their children, how they will form families, have children. Things most people think are some of the most important decisions you will make in your life.”
So how should school districts draw the line? Should parents be able to choose their children from a scientific class when there is a discussion about Darwin’s evolution theory? Should they be able to give up a history class that includes a female movement section and the fight for equality in the workforce? Some religions object to both things.
Considering the question of the evolution of teaching, Baxter replies: “And what if a child wants to abandon dissect frogs during biology? Many states actually have laws that allow these types of refusals.”
The position of the school board
These decisions regarding the State School curriculum have traditionally been left to local school councils, notes Yale Professor Justin Driver, author of The School Gate: Public Education, the Supreme Court and the Battle of the American MindS He and Stanford Law Professor Emerit Emerit Voloch, who wrote in detail about the first amendment, filed a court friend, coming to the school council in this case. In their bigger part, they say that the courts have been postponed to local school councils, unless there is evidence that students are forced to accept a basic religious faith.
The two scientists maintain that there is no evidence of coercion here. More recently, as the driver says, “It seems to me that … the process (e) works properly. People have raised objections, the school neighborhood has heard these objections and changed his practice.”
This is not a case that children are forced into religious beliefs, he claims. The case is some parents who want to avoid their children to even be exposed to a wide variety of ideas in class, including a book, for example, in which a child visits his uncle’s wedding with another man.
“The public school is intended to be for a broad group and some people will express concerns about the decisions of the curriculum,” the driver said. “But it is not the court’s tradition of allowing these persons to wear the day … In a large, religious country such as the United States, local public schools are not required to afford these refusals due to concerns about public school processing.”
In fact, since school tips reflect the views of their voters, there are places, such as San Francisco, where some books with LBGTQ+ topics are needed in the curriculum.
“It is important to evaluate which is the correct formation for teaching decisions,” Driver adds. “Is this a public school or is it federal judges?”
This said the chances of the Supreme Court using this case to require some refusals for religious objects are quite high. The present court, dominated by many conservative judges, including three Trump appointed, is increasingly focused on the Constitution’s Guarantee for Separation between Church and State, But on the first amendment guarantee of free exercise of religionS
