by
Julie
McLaughlin
and
Robin
Stevenson)
According
to
six
Supreme
Court
justices,
this
is
pornography.
In
fact,
the
very
existence
of
LGBTQ+
people
is
somehow
so
inherently
sexual
that
mentioning
it
to
children
amounts
to
indoctrination.
That
is
the
holding
of
Mahmoud v. Taylor,
which
the
Court
dropped
on
June
27,
the
last
day
of
term,
right
before
getting
the
hell
out
of
Dodge.
The
decision
isn’t
exactly
a
surprise
— during
oral
argument,
Justice
Neil
“Turmeric”
Gorsuch
purported
to
believe
that
drag
queens
were
definitionally
sex
workers.
A
pre‑K
Pride
book
turned
fetish
narrative?
Are
we
sure
this
man
isn’t
a
replicant?
As
Jay
Willis
points
out
at
Balls
and
Strikes,
Gorsuch
grossly
mischaracterized
this
children’s
picture
book,
just
as
he
did
with
the
facts
in
Kennedy
v.
Bremerton
School
District,
AKA
the
praying
football
coach
case.
And
just
as
she
did
in
that
prior
“religious
liberty”
case,
Justice
Sotomayor
was
forced
to
include
an
appendix
full
of
pictures
to
disprove
the
florid
lies
told
by
her
conservative
colleagues.
This
time
she
included
every
page
of
the
children’s
picture
book
Uncle
Bobby’s
Wedding,
a
story
about
a
little
girl
named
Chloe
who
is
sad
that
her
beloved
gay
uncle
is
getting
married.
In
writing
for
the
majority,
Justice
Alito
claimed
that
Uncle
Bobby’s
Wedding
“is
coy
about
the
precise
reason”
for
Chloe’s
distress.
This
is
either
an
outright
lie,
or
a
sign
that
this
Supreme
Court
justice
is
unable
to
comprehend
a
book
aimed
at
kindergarteners.
(Yet
another
reason
parents
shouldn’t
be
able
to
opt
their
kids
out
of
English
class!)
Chloe
is
sad
because
she
worries
that
her
uncle
will
have
no
time
for
her
if
he
gets
married
and
has
a
family
of
his
own.
Here’s
what
the
book
actually
says:
Once
she
realizes
that
she’ll
have
two
gay
uncles
to
spend
time
with,
they
all
live
happily
ever
after.
But
for
a
handful
of
parents
in
Montgomery
County,
Maryland
who
filed
this
lawsuit,
the
problem
wasn’t
not
enough
time
with
Uncle
Bobby
and
his
husband.
The
problem
was
their
kids
meeting
Uncle
Bobby
at
all.
In
their
telling,
it’s
“coercive”
for
teachers
to
read
stories
featuring
LGBTQ+
characters
to
their
children,
because
normalizing
behavior
they
find
personally
offensive
supposedly
violates
their
religious
freedom.
“These
books—and
associated
educational
instructions
provided
to
teachers—are
designed
to
‘disrupt’
children’s
thinking
about
sexuality
and
gender,”
Alito
warns
ominously,
adding
“Like
many
books
targeted
at
young
children,
the
books
are
unmistakably
normative.
They
are
clearly
designed
to
present
certain
values
and
beliefs
as
things
to
be
celebrated
and
certain
contrary
values
and
beliefs
as
things
to
be
rejected.”
And
he’s
right!
It
is
affirmatively
the
job
of
public
schools
to
teach
children
American
values
like
tolerance
and
kindness.
Roughly
one
in
eleven
American
adults
identifies
as
LGBTQ+,
and
it
is
entirely
appropriate
for
educators
to
include
lessons
that
“normalize”
them,
particularly
in
light
of
entrenched
prejudice
against
LGBTQ+
people
in
culture
and
law.
But
some
religious
parents
demand
the
right
to
continue
this
stigma
by
shielding
their
kids
from
lessons
that
say
bigotry
is
wrong.
Of
course,
American
parents
are
entitled
to
teach
their
children
any
vile,
horrible
stuff
they
like
in
their
own
homes.
But
the
plaintiffs
here
want
to
veto
lessons
about
LGBTQ+
people
for
everyone’s
kids
—
or
at
least
slap
a
giant
NC-17
sticker
on
them
to
identify
them
as
weird
or
dirty
or
second
class.
And
the
Supreme
Court’s
conservatives
said
YES,
THAT.
“We
conclude
that
the
Board’s
introduction
of
the
‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’
storybooks,
combined
with
its
no-opt-out
policy,
burdens
the
parents’
right
to
the
free
exercise
of
religion,”
they
agreed.
The
logic
here
is
confounding.
The
majority
relies
on
the
1972
case
Wisconsin
v.
Yoder,
in
which
the
Court
held
that
the
compulsory
school
attendance
until
age
16
violated
the
religious
freedom
of
Amish
parents,
who
wanted
to
keep
their
children
home
after
age
14.
But
the
Yoder
plaintiffs
never
demanded
that
the
public
school
system
conform
to
their
religious
beliefs;
they
wanted
to
pull
their
kids
out
of
school
two
years
early
so
they
could
work
on
the
farm.
From
this
majority
infers
a
right
for
these
parents
to
keep
their
kids
in
Montgomery
County
public
schools
and
receive
religious
accommodations.
The
Court’s
conservatives
reject
the
idea
that
the
religious
parents
should
educate
their
children
at
home
or
in
private
schools
if
they
want
to
inculcate
bigotry.
Instead,
building
on
prior
cases
where
they
ruled
that
it
did
not
violate
the
Establishment
Clause
to
require
states
to
offer
tax
subsidies
to
private
religious
schools,
the
majority
recasts
public
school
attendance
as
a
“public
benefit,”
and
says
parents
are
entitled
to
access
it
while
demanding
it
conform
to
their
religious
beliefs.
As
we
have
previously
held,
when
the
government
chooses
to
provide
public
benefits,
it
may
not
“condition
the
availability
of
[those]
benefits
upon
a
recipient’s
willingness
to
surrender
his
religiously
impelled
status.”
Trinity
Lutheran
Church
of
Columbia,
Inc.
v.
Comer,
582
U.
S.
449,
462
(2017)
(internal
quotations
marks
and
alterations
omitted).
That
is
what
the
Board
has
done
here.
Public
education
is
a
public
benefit,
and
the
government
cannot
“condition”
its
“availability”
on
parents’
willingness
to
accept
a
burden
on
their
religious
exercise.
Ibid.
Moreover,
since
education
is
compulsory
in
Maryland,
see
Md.
Educ.
Code
Ann.
§7–301(a–
1)(1),
the
parents
are
not
being
asked
simply
to
forgo
a
public
benefit.
They
have
an
obligation—enforceable
by
fine
or
imprisonment—to
send
their
children
to
public
school
unless
they
find
an
adequate
substitute.
§§7–301(a)(3),
(e).10
And
many
parents
cannot
afford
such
a
substitute.
But
this
logic
inverts
the
holding
in
Yoder
entirely.
The
parents
in
Yoder
weren’t
trying
to
force
the
public
school
to
cancel
“worldly”
lessons
and
teach
everyone’s
kids
how
to
churn
butter.
They
wanted
out
of
the
project
entirely.
Here
the
religious
parents
want
to
keep
their
kids
in
taxpayer-funded
schools,
while
exempting
them
from
lessons
of
general
applicability.
The
majority
makes
much
of
Montgomery
County’s
other
opt-outs,
where
parents
can
exempt
their
kids
from
things
like
sex-ed
and
religious
observances,
such
as
singing
Christmas
carols.
But
that
framing
bakes
the
stigma
into
the
question.
There’s
nothing
inherently
sexual
about
gay
people
getting
married,
which
they
are
entitled
to
do
in
every
state
of
the
union.
And
the
opt-outs
from
the
Christmas
concert
are
designed
to
protect
children
from
narrow,
sectarian
religious
coercion.
Acknowledging
that
trans
people
are
entitled
to
respect
isn’t
a
tenet
of
one
particular
religious
sect
—
it’s
basic
human
decency.
Seen
in
this
light,
Gorsuch
pretending
to
be
confused
about
drag
queens
seems
a
lot
less
funny.
Because
this
isn’t
parody,
it’s
precedent.
Likening
a
puppy
in
a
Pride
bandana
with
leather
daddies
and
equating
drag
with
sex
work
reduces
LGBTQ+
identity
to
mere
kink.
And
treating
gay
people’s
very
existence
as
something
presumptively
risqué
is
inherently
stigmatizing.
Indeed
that
was
the
animating
logic
of
the
Court’s
decision
in
Obergefell
v.
Hodges,
where
the
majority
held
that
relegating
gay
couples
to
second-class
marriages
or
domestic
partnerships
“demeans
the
dignity
of
these
couples
for
no
legitimate
reason”
and
“humiliates
tens
of
thousands
of
children
now
being
raised
by
same-sex
couples.”
Here
the
Court
demands
that
schools
do
just
that,
segregating
lessons
about
LGBTQ+
characters
like
pornographic
magazines
and
dehumanizing
queer
kids
and
students
with
gay
parents
by
slapping
them
with
a
giant
warning
sticker
to
label
them
as
second
class.
In
Obergefell,
Justice
Kennedy
wrote
that
“there
is
dignity
in
the
bond
between
two
men
or
two
women
who
seek
to
marry
and
in
their
autonomy
to
make
such
profound
choices.”
Just
ten
years
later,
the
Court
is
snatching
that
dignity
away.
In
truth,
Mahmoud
v.
Taylor
is
no
victory
for
religious
liberty.
It’s
a
win
for
moral
panic
masquerading
as
constitutional
protection.
Now
that
LGBTQ+
representation
itself
has
been
effectively
defined
as
pornographic,
the
likely
next
step
will
be
heavy
self-censorship.
Fearful
that
they
will
be
sued
by
parents
seeking
to
vindicate
this
newly-discovered
right
to
shield
their
children
from
anything
that
offends
their
religious
sensibilities,
schools
will
start
stripping
their
curricula
and
libraries
from
anything
that
normalizes
queer
people.
Books
with
LGBTQ+
characters
shouldn’t
require
a
trigger
warning
in
the
classroom
just
because
some
parents
insist
on
imposing
their
religious
prejudices
on
everyone
else.
And
Gorsuch’s
weird
fetish
fantasies
shouldn’t
distract
us
from
the
fact
that
the
Court’s
conservatives
just
enshrining
a
right
to
impose
bigotry
on
public
school
students
by
blaspheming
against
the
Establishment
Clause.
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