Biden-appointed Judge Deborah L. Boardman said that 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," Fox News reported.
Last year, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) introduced 22 new books into elementary-aged classrooms that featured LGBTQ characters and radical gender theory topics and then stopped parents from opting their children out of gender and sexuality instruction in March. The move sparked outrage from many religious parents who, along with Becket Law, filed a lawsuit challenging the district’s decision in May. Concerned parents requested a preliminary injunction that would allow them to opt their children out of the LGBTQ curriculum when school begins next week.
The district’s LGBTQ curriculum is intended to be taught to pre-k through 8th-grade students and includes references to sex change procedures, drag queens, "intersex" identity, gay pride parades, and preferred pronouns, according to National Review. One of the books also says that doctors simply "guess" a baby’s sex when it is born.
"Today, the district court decided parents have no right to notice when extreme ideology is pushed on their elementary-age children during story hour," Becket senior counsel Eric Baxter posted to X Thursday. "With the new school year beginning, the case is on the fast track to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals—and the parents plan to appeal the decision."
"Children are entitled to enjoy a period of innocence and be guided by their own parents on how and when to approach the complex and sensitive issues being pushed by the School Board," he added.