Maryland school district pulls LGBTQ books amid legal battle before Supreme Court

Parents protest the Montgomery County School Board’s policy blocking them from opting out their children from pro-homosexual and transgender materials. / Credit: Photo courtesy of Becket

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Oct 24, 2024 / 12:30 pm (CNA).

A Maryland school district has pulled two books with “LGBTQ+” characters from its curriculum amid an ongoing legal battle launched by concerned parents vying for the right to opt their children out of classroom lessons they say conflict with their religious faith.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that it had discovered two books, “Pride Puppy” and “My Rainbow,” had been pulled from the Montgomery County Public Schools’ curriculum after school officials determined that the use of the texts “could require teachers to explicitly teach vocabulary terms outside the context of the lesson.” The administrators have not clarified what they took issue with in the texts.

Both books remain available in school libraries.

Parents from diverse faith backgrounds — including Catholicism, Islam, and Orthodox Christianity — filed suit in May 2023 after the district announced it would no longer allow parents to opt out of lessons featuring literature that touches on homosexuality, transgenderism, and other aspects of gender ideology.

Becket, the religious freedom law firm representing the parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor, argued that the policy infringes upon parental rights and religious freedom that are guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, Maryland law, and even the board’s own policies.

In May, a federal appeals court ruled that the parents of children in the district did not have the right to opt out or receive notification of lessons featuring the books in advance. Becket has since appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court, which will decide later whether it will be on the docket. 

According to the school district’s database cited by the Washington Post, “My Rainbow” had been used by teachers to help kindergarten through third-grade students “determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development” and to “summarize the key supporting details and ideas.” Based on the life of its authors’ Deshannah and Trinity Neal, the book follows the story of a mother who crafts a rainbow-colored wig for her trans-identifying child. 

Designated for pre-K through fifth-grade students, “Pride Puppy” follows the story of a family who attends a pride parade and has been used in the classroom to “ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of a text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.” 

The books are among 20 sexuality and gender-related children’s books added to the school district’s curriculum in the fall of 2022.