Federal Court Rejects Muslim Parents Lawsuit to Opt Kids Out of LGBTQ+ Ideology in Montgomery County (MD) Schools
“You feel like your rights as a parent are just being stripped away”
Parents in Montgomery County in Maryland, many of whom are Muslims, wanted the ability to opt their children out of school lessons that include LGBT content and gender ideology.
A federal judge just ruled against them.
FOX News reports:
Maryland Court says parents can’t opt kids out of LGBTQ+ curriculum: ‘Not a fundamental right’
A federal court in Maryland decided Thursday that parents can’t opt their kids out of reading books with LGBTQ+ content in Montgomery County Schools.
In Tamer Mahmoud v. Monica B. McKnight, parents sought to reinstate a MCPS policy that would allow them to opt their children out of reading and discussing books with LGBTQ+ characters in elementary schools. The parents argued the content in these books was a form of indoctrination that violated their families’ religious beliefs.
The court disagreed. Judge Deborah L. Boardman, a Biden appointee, concluded that the parents’ “asserted due process right to direct their children’s upbringing by opting out of a public-school curriculum that conflicts with their religious views is not a fundamental right.”
The judge denied the parents’ request for a preliminary injunction that would allow them to opt-out their kids when school begins on August 28.
“Because the plaintiffs have not established any of their claims is likely to succeed on the merits, the Court need not address the remaining preliminary injunction factors. Nonetheless, because a constitutional violation is not likely or imminent, it follows that the plaintiffs are not likely to suffer imminent irreparable harm, and the balance of the equities and the public interest favor denying an injunction to avoid undermining the School Board’s legitimate interests in the no-opt-out policy,” the judge determined.
NBC News in Washington has more:
Some of the books at the center of the clash include “Pride Puppy,” geared toward preschoolers and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” geared toward students in kindergarten through 5th grade.
Those rallying Thursday to support MCPS said they believe the approach will benefit students once they graduate and enter into the real world.
“Our young folks now are growing up with a lot more representation in the media and out there in the world,” said Lee Blinder, the co-chair for the Coalition for Inclusive Schools and Communities.
Philip Alexander Downie, the other co-chair, added, “Queer people exist in every facet of every part of our society, in every religion.”
The parents suing the school district filed the lawsuit because they believe MCPS is infringing on their religious rights.
They wanted to be able to immediately opt their children out of lessons involving LGBTQ+ books, “to represent the right of parents to protect their religious training and upbringings of their children,” said Eric Baxter, attorney for the group of parents.
“We want to be able to be in control of what our children are learning in school,” father Dagmawi Lakew said on Aug. 9 in an interview outside the federal court.
“You feel like your rights as a parent are just being stripped away,” he said.
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
This IS interesting. Especially when dealing with Leftist controlled government bodies [the school district], it is the norm for them to stomp on the rights of parents, especially if they are white or Judeo-Christian. That does not hold for protected classes and Muslims are a protected class. Not only that, but a protected class that has at least a fraction of their people willing to violently protest anything that they find offensive to their faith.
Subotai Bahadur
Very true. We have the beginning of a multi group crash and pile up of conflicting group identities in the intersectional intersection. The diversity olympics may not survive in its present form. IMO, the radicals of the alphabet movement and radical d/prog politicians are still in the eff around stage. They gonna find out just how few folks are onboard with the practical impacts of bowing down to the radicals in the alphabet mob who demand they be allowed to indoctrinate/groom children.
The radicals in the alphabet mob are also getting called out by what might be termed the ‘traditionalists’ of the alphabet movement. This helps blunt the vitriolic labeling of the Parents and others also opposed to much of the trans ideology as it relates to children and public schools. Hard to claim those opposed are bigots or intolerant rubes and get traction when folks within the alphabet movement also disagree with indoctrination of children.
Parents need to start taking their kids out of school.
This is outrageous.
It really is beyond belief. Since when can’t parents have a say in what their own kids learn? Especially about sexuality and genders and made-up bs?!
That’s what elected school boards are for. Unfortunately, as with a lot of low level, off-year elections, most people don’t know anything about the candidates until they’re already in office.
All, and I mean ALL, of these sexually-based school programs should be structured as OPT-IN only. The idea of OPT-OUT puts the burden on the wrong party. This of course is intentional by the lefties.
With OPT-IN the burden of persuasion is on the proponent of the controversial program. And if the program/s are so wonderful, the lefties will have no problem getting attendees.
Now this judge has removed even OPT-OUT, meaning the default setting of Democrats takes hold. And what is that setting – FORCE. Not persuasion, but raw force.
Hey, when you say education is a “right” you are effectively removing the rights of parents to control what education their kids receive. Maybe revisit the view that people have a “right” to an education?
In many States the State Constitution sets out a ‘right to education’.
Then those states should repeal it.
Good luck with that. Care to explain how you gonna craft the message to convince folks to do so? Why not simply clarify in the State Constitution that Parents have the ultimate say in what their children are exposed to in schools?
I ask b/c the very well funded, very well organized teachers unions and their allies are tell folks you are trying to ‘Get rid of Schools’ and that ‘only Private Schools for rich folks kids’ will be left.
Maybe Muslims will have the fortitude to do what whites only type about.
The law will eventually be overturned…. but only after several federal judges mysteriously disappear after supporting the law. The feds have just brushed up against Islam and the Koran.
Typing gets people on lists and triggers red flag laws.
Draw a picture of Mohammed as a tranny- see what happens.
I have a feeling school board meetings and elections will get real hot real soon. May even carry over to the public lives of some judges.
The Maryland Muslims are enjoying the fruits of wokeness.
Wokism Akbar. Keep voting Dem!
Judge Boardman has been described as being of Palestinian descent on her mother’s side.
Homeschool!
I can easily imagine the creation of a muslim equivalent of parochial schools.
With concentrations on wife-beating (Surah 4:34) and subjugating the infidel for fun and profit (Surah (9:5, 9:29).
Already happening big time in the Chicago area.
They got what they voted for, they should be happy.
I’m honestly surprised there isn’t ample existing case law that supports the parent’s position. Or, perhaps the District Court simply ignored that case law to advanced the trans ideology.
I have TREMENDOUS sympathy for parents who can’t afford to send their kids to reliable private schools or have the ability to home school. It’s gotta be tough to be a parent right now. The school my wife and I sent our kids is almost $6K a year more than it was a half-decade ago. Private school in some markets is supremely expensive, ATM.
Abandon hope on that front.
Biden Names Thirty-Sixth Round of Judicial Nominees:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/27/president-biden-names-thirty-sixth-round-of-judicial-nominees/
Say, where’s that “Senate genius” McConnell when you need him?
He’s minority leader, because your golden calf threw away the Republican majority to satisfy his own injured pride. That’s where he is. When he was majority leader this did not happen.
Try parochial schools – parish member costs of roughly $7,500 per child in expensive NJ.
I’m getting less and less enamored with that idea as I see how often the word “Catholic” is figuring in entirely bizarre cases of educational wokeness:
The St. Rochus Catholic Family Centre in Kerpen, which features a childcare facility with dedicated masturbation rooms for toddlers.
The government claims the right to indoctrinate children into the cult of queerism. How is this not a violation of the Establishment Clause?
Because it’s not a religion, let alone an established church. The notion that the government is not allowed to have opinions on any subject is a weird idea that has no support in the law. Governments at all levels are entitled to have opinions on all sorts of subjects and to promote them. All the first amendment prohibits is an official state church; the Supreme Court has since extended it to prohibit any endorsement of a religious doctrine, or even a perceived endorsement; but other than that governments can have, endorse, and promote any opinions they like. They just can’t punish people who disagree with those opinions.
Why, it’s almost as if Dems took Muslims on as a favored victim class just to score cheap political points against America after 9/11. Certainly don’t have any qualms about riding roughshod over them and their rights now.
Another exhibit in the case proving that Progressives are irredeemable reprobates. Psychos in fact.
The left will toss any group under the bus as soon as a more favored group comes along. Women are now finding that out where transgender ideology is concerned and blacks will find it out as they are replaced by Hispanics.
There is always a choice.
In a way, this ruling is a good thing, in the sense that parents will come to realize that state schools are not acting in the best interests of their children. It is even worse than that. The state schools are actually harming children. The schools are not just misguided, they are actively promoting harmful ideologies.
The more children pulled out of state schools, the lower the cost of private tuition. State schools are paid on a per-student basis. Starve the beast.
Erronius
You can’t starve the beast when schools are primarily funded through property taxes, or piggy back taxes which are set as a percentage of a state tax.
My kids went to a parochial school. But that came out of my pocket AFTER I paid the taxes to support the “I wanna teach your kids about being gay” schools.
So, the only people that starve are the ones who pay both costs.
Unless of course the Parents and those others opposed to indoctrination of their children perform the ultimate exercise in starving the beast; pack their crap in a Uhaul and depart for sane State. Many are doing so already based on issues like high taxes, crime, out of control homeless population and indoctrination of their children may become the final straw.
Denying the blue State political system your taxes and the economic impact of your salary and investment by moving to a sane location in Red State is absolutely effective. It has the added benefit of depopulation in the blue State which impacts the census count for distribution of Federal program dollars, Congressional representation and ultimately the political power of the d/prog.
The answer to that is a state educational reimbursement plan… such as the one that has been working gangbusters in Arizona, and actually saving the state money — the one that “Governor” Hobbs and her pet teachers’ union are bound and determined to destroy.
Keep in mind that most private schools (at least the non-religious ones), are just as woke and Communist as the public schools.
Granted.
It’s a Biden judge. Just as corrupt and incompetent as the Obama judges.
Time to kill teacher union and dept of ed. time to get kids to skip call and school . No wonder county has a 50% truancy rate.
The judge held that children must be groomed!
Everyone MUST agree with Big Brother.
We all read accounts of sick, perverted men going to prison for a decade or more for just looking at photos of sexually exploited children. These people are actually sexually exploiting children, openly on an ongoing basis, and are being praised for it!
Agreed. It has to stop.
Typical Leftist Bait and Switch
We left the Emerging People’s Republic of Maryland, San Fran Montgomery County in particular, after the Democrat/Communists wrecked what had been an award winning county government.
Apart from irrational Zoning changes and destruction of the school system, we saw crime and Illegal Aliens spiral out of control – Sanctuary County crap.
So now that the Democrats assured Muslims they would be welcome and safe in Rockville, Bethesda and Gaithersburg – having lured them there they now tell the “New Americans” that their children are not safe from the County supported perverts who set policy for the school system.
Muslim New Americans will have no option but to support Sharia Law in Blue Montgomery, since they have no other option under MontCo dictates.
See Hamtramck. . . .