Parents protest school district’s no opt-out policy for LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2023/07/parents-protest-school-districts-no-opt-out-policy-for-lgbtq-inclusive-curriculum/

Gay and trans people exist, get over it!   Gay and trans kids exist.  LGBTQ+ people are real and in every part of society.  We deserve equality and our civil rights.  We deserve representation in media as much as white religious people.  These programs are not sexual acts or positions instructions.   These programs do not teach kids how to change their genders and flaunt their parent’s god.  What they do is give kids information on what some feelings they are having might be, they teach that different people exist.  These programs increase understanding, acceptance, and tolerance for people that are different.   That is what really is horrifying to these religious bigots.  They seem to think if they deny that LGBTQ+ people are real, if they wipe out any representation of them in media of all kinds, they can make the LGBTQ+ disappear.  Poof, gone.  It doesn’t work that way!  It is like claiming that redheads don’t exist and removing books and movies that have redheads in them that redheads will disappear.  Do they think if they ignore people of color, they will just stop existing?  It doesn’t happen that way.  Like red hair and skin color being LGBTQ+ is something you are born as, it is not learned or a lifestyle choice.  Remember there have been gay and trans kids / people in all the history of the human existence. I grew up in a time and place where there were no books about gay kids, there were no movies with gay kids, there were no out gay people among anyone I knew.  Yet I was gay, I knew it in every part of me that I was attracted to boys growing up.  I felt it, I was experiencing it, but I had no understanding of what it was.  As I got near my teens, I thought I was the only one in the world that felt this way.  How great it would have been for me in school to have been able to see a movie with a gay boy and have it be accepted as normal.  How great it would have been to read stories of gay boys instead of straight boys and girls only all the time.  It is like if you were black and had to watch movies or read books with only white people in them.  And think how great it would have been had a teacher explained to me and my classmates what those feelings were, and that there was a world of good role models for people like me.   Think of the years of teenage bullying that could have been avoided or tempered if the schools / teachers had inclusion and acceptance programs.  These religious bigots want their kids to be able to shame and insult / bully LGBTQ+ kids without any push back or consequences.  These bigots have to learn to coexist with others.   They are not living in a bubble, in isolation.  They are like the Amish except they are not happy with themselves being allowed to ignore advances / changes in the world but they are demanding that everyone else do so also.  They are demanding that everyone live as they do and the world pretend that only they are real.     Hugs

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A group of parents is suing the school board to allow them to opt their children out of LGBTQ+-inclusive lessons.

By John Russell Tuesday, July 25, 2023

Parents protest Montgomery County Public Schools no opt-out policy.Photo: Screenshot/WUSA9

Parents are demanding that a Maryland school district allow them to opt their children out of its LGBTQ+-inclusive curriculum.

As Axios reported last month, in March, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Rockville, Maryland, ended a policy allowing parents to opt their students out of the district’s pre-K–12 language arts curriculum, which had been updated to include books featuring LGBTQ+ characters.

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According to a district statement on its “Inclusive and Welcoming Learning” initiative, the LGBTQ+-inclusive materials are part of the district’s efforts to cultivate “an inclusive and welcoming learning environment” and “to create opportunities where all students see themselves and their families in curriculum materials.”

In a Frequently Asked Questions section of the statement, the district notes that there is no “explicit instruction on gender and sexual identity in elementary school as part of content instruction,” adding that the LGBTQ+-inclusive books “include a diversified representation of people.”

The decision to end the opt-out policy, which the district instituted last October, led to an outcry from religious groups and members of the community. Protesters began showing up at Montgomery County School Board meetings in late March.

In May, a group of Christian and Muslim families sued the Montgomery County school board and superintendent, arguing that not allowing them to opt out of the lessons violates their First Amendment rights.

“Our clients represent families from all across Montgomery County with diverse religious faiths,” Will Haun, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty which is representing the families, told KATV in May. “And while they have differences on those issues, they share one thing in common, which is the right of parents to direct their children’s religious upbringing and their education, especially when it comes to sensitive issues, like a person’s identity, their child’s own identity.”

According to WUSA9, the lawsuit points to a Maryland law that requires school systems to establish opt-out policies for students. But in its own court filing, MCPS said that the school administrators are allowed to deny opt-out requests if they become too burdensome.

“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,” MCPS’s response read.

Last Thursday, both protesters and counter-protesters again descended on a Montgomery County School Board meeting. As WUSA9 reported, the protest against the no opt-out policy was led by Muslim parents, one of whom argued that religious children were being bullied and labeled as bigots by their peers.

“You say you want to protect the rights of trans children and their families while simultaneously you violate the rights of other children and their families,” Nadhira Rasheed said.

Rachel Hull, the parent of a non-binary child, was among the counter-protesters. “Much of the opt-out arguments are couched as parental rights and religious freedom,” she told WUSA9. “But what it boils down to is that the LGBT+ community is being told that their very existence is abnormal. And that their identity should be a source of shame.”