Let me start with a simple declaration: Parents should have the final say in matters regarding their children's education. For example: When I was a kid, the Iowa schools instituted the first "health" curricula, which included some very elementary education on sexual matters. Parents were, as a matter of course, informed that they had the right to opt their kids out. Some did; others didn't. Parental rights were considered supreme in these decisions.
What's amazing is that this is controversial in some quarters. One such place is Maryland, where parents have been engaged in a legal battle to be able to opt their children out of gender-based classes in the schools. There are parental rights issues, and there are constitutional issues here, in a case where Christian, Jewish, and Muslim parents are objecting to Maryland schools' reversing a policy that allowed parents to opt their kids out of classes that include gender ideology. It's important to note that the parents are not challenging the schools teaching these classes; all they ask is the right to opt their kids out.
Families in Maryland’s largest school district asked the Supreme Court to reinstate their right to opt out of controversial sexuality and gender curriculum on Thursday, continuing a fight Christian, Muslim, and Jewish parents embarked on years ago to protect their religious liberties.
Represented by Washington, D.C.-based law firm, Becket Fund, the multi-faith coalition banded together in the fall of 2022, when Montgomery County Public Schools reversed a policy that had previously allowed parents to opt their children out of lessons promoting radical gender ideology. Parents did not challenge the curriculum itself; rather, they asked the district to allow parents the choice to opt their children out of such lessons. MCPS refused.
That's the really confounding part of all this. It's hard to understand why the district would refuse to allow parents to opt their kids out of a controversial topic like this — unless, of course, the district doesn't consider it controversial. That's probably more frightening than the idea that the district is teaching these matters in the first place.
“Parents shouldn’t have to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to introducing their children to complex and sensitive issues around gender and sexuality,” Becket Vice President and senior counsel Eric Baxter said. “Nearly every state requires parental consent before high schoolers can attend sex-ed. Parents should have the right to excuse their elementary school children when related instruction is introduced during story hour.”
This is as it should be; parental rights should take precedence in educational issues. For better or worse, the parents should have the final say.
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This case is now headed for the Supreme Court, and if there is any justice in the world, they will take the case and restore this decision to where it belongs — with the parents.
In the longer term, though? There's an obvious answer to all this. Privatize the lot. Get the government out of the business of education. Let a thousand flowers bloom. If parents want their kids to get the latest in Gender Theory, fine. If other parents want their kids to attend the Elon Musk STEM Academy, great. You pay your bill, and you take your chances. As for the consequences for the parents who make bad decisions, like sending their kids to the Dylam Mulvaney School for the Terminally Woke and then finding those kids can't get accepted into any decent university or can't find a job that doesn't involve asking people "Do you want that supersized" well, then on their heads be it.
