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It’s Not Your School System, Normies
A group of parents in my home county (Montgomery County, MD) has lost a suit in federal court (Mahmoud v. McKnight) to restore an opt-out option for parents who do not want their kids indoctrinated in “inclusive” dogmas regarding LGBTQ. Citing several precedents, the court ruled that merely being compelled to be exposed to ideas contrary to religious beliefs is not a violation of the First Amendment. Some of those precedents involved oddball religious groups, such as plaintiffs who opposed the use of social security numbers on theological grounds. The new oddball cult is comprised of the plaintiff group–Christians, Muslims, Jews, and anyone who does not bow to the new gods.
The fiction that, in this instance, kids are not required to expressly endorse beliefs that offend their religion and the fact parents can always offer counter-instruction at home means there is no constitutional violation, according to the court.
The stated goal of the Montgomery County School Board is to “create and normalize a fully inclusive environment for all students” and “support a student’s ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with diverse peers and encourages respect for all.” (There is something a tad chilling about the use of “normalize.”)
It is pretty clear that this goal does not mean what it says regarding respect for “diverse peers.” Imagine what would happen if instead of Pride Puppy (lost puppy at a pride parade) or Uncle Bobby’s Wedding (girl comes to like her uncle’s new husband) as reading for elementary school kids, the school required Suzie’s First March for Life or Inaya Gets a Hijab. Under the conveniently flexible rubric of hate crimes, entire cultures and peoples can be excluded from “normalized” respect.
It is no longer possible for any of us to be innocent of the charge of blanket hatred of all persons of alternate sexual orientations if one does not approve of drag queen story hour.
The left seizes institutions and makes ruthless use of them. Most normals are still in denial about the loss of virtually every local and national American institution. Only when we recognize the enemy, unite, and become willing to dissolve and replace what they steal does it end. Education is possible (and likely vastly improved) in a world without Harvard or the Montgomery County School Board.
Published in General
Yes. Most normals will still proudly send their kids to public school and wear “I support our schools” booster badges. Or in our case, they will keep sending the same El-Jibbity Jihadists back to the school board, election after election, even when there are excellent candidates running against the woke incumbents.
Locally our public schools just made the news again. A high school (and I think middle school) teacher is “transitioning” to female, and so all the students were given some kind of information or announcement about this, all the way down to elementary school level. And when parents asked exactly what their students were told, or more properly how they were indoctrinated about this transition, the school told parents it was none of their business. The public school had to be sued — and lost — for parents to learn what their students were told. And even though the school lost, parents will still have to file for some kind of public records access to find out.
Most Normies have no clue this is going on. And even local, small-city media will make it sound like you’re some kind of bigot if you object. You can’t even hide from this in rural America because of centralized control of our education system.
(Though you certainly have a better chance of schools not complying with Big Edu out in the hinterlands.)
Good post overall, OB. One part gives me pause:
Why do you find it “a tad chilling” that a school district would try to “normalize” schoolchildren?
Is your objection to normalizing them in this particular ideology, or to normalizing schoolchildren in principle?
While I fully expect my kids to be exposed to the sexual diversity perversion parade at some point, putting it off as long as possible protects my kids’ innocence.
Having my kids in school (vs homeschooling) to begin with already pushes the need for me to hit key issues with my kids before their peer group starts educating them. I’m a firm believer in what you hear first sticks best… and I believe the left knows that, hence why teaching kindergartners about same sex relationships is such a big deal. For mom and dad at home, 5 year old Sally’s only sex education need be that mommy and daddy love each other and baby Bobby grew in mommy’s tummy. Maybe they’ll teach rudimentary birds and bees, but it doesn’t need more than that.
Minor quibble: the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction, but the case is not over.
Of course, this judge wrote that one reason they could not win the injunction was that she could not see they were likely to prevail on the merits of their claim (which is one of the requirements to get an injunction before trial), so one can easily predict the outcome. Then, there are appeals. Thus, the kids of these plaintiffs will likely be in high school, at least, before the final results are in.
Yeah, like I put on another post/thread, by the time things like this get worked out, it’ll be up to President Biden – President NAVY Biden – to deal with the results.
(Yes, I know they don’t want her to have the Biden name. Lucky for her!)
It’s not the children being normalized. They want particular “environments” to be normalized. Like the environment of the gay pride parade or same sex marriage. That’s what they are normalizing.
Spot on!
They camels nose was when it was decided that sex was a proper subject in elementary school.
The teacher’s union has been clear on this: parents have no rights when it comes to their children’s education. Where are all The Handmaid’s Tale costumes? To them we’re breeders who better provide materially, but otherwise the kids belong to them.
The hurdle that exists for all parents attempting to do as these parents attempted is this one: The US Constitution has established that there must be a separation between church and state.
So since any time such parents take the necessary step of putting the issue before a court, the court will take quite seriously if any of the parents are church goers.
Of course, the group of people who the parents have been trying to prevent from taking over the school’s ability to indoctrinate their children is also a church. They are a religion. Their religion is one of Climate Change Crisis Doctrines, which lack scientific grounding.
Their religion also includes the dogmatic idea that there is nothing wrong with “simply” addressing a child’s need to have sex education at a much younger age than what previously occurred.
This new religion has also established that no matter how pornographic the material that is used to “benefit the ability of young children to have a healthy attitude about their bodies and about sex,” then it follows that any established principles regarding pornographic material must fall by the wayside.
Notice how this young man explains in under 90 seconds why it is crucially important for the adherents of this new religion to take the approach they have been taking:
https://youtu.be/aemTB-U1oYc
I would guess that Bathos is stating that his concern is about normalizing school children in particular about the idea that very young children are being given such a “comrpehensive” sex education that parents who have opposed it are told by their city council or county board of supervisors to quit reading from the very text book that the teacher is using to read to the kids because the material is pornographic and “not fit for a discussion in polite society.” Even though the people at that meeting are all adults!
Also no one needs children normalized beyond the idea that young children should remain in their clothes, learn to follow a teacher’s direction, keep quiet as necessary, not have tantrums during school hours if young, and not have violent tantrums, including the attempted use of a knife or gun, if older.
How about this kind of normalizing?
Huxley was pretty danged prophetic, wasn’t he?
This has been done before…
The only way the parents win is the recognition of a zone of parental authority. I don’t see that happening.
After Hitler came to power, the first formal, open conflict between the pope and Hitler was over Hitler Youth. Aside from the other poisonous indoctrination content, the kids were taught that their primary duty was to the state, not family, not faith and kids should be willing to rat out family for holding dissenting opinions. Keeping parents out of loop and vulnerable to charges of hate crimes or sedition has a long, dishonorable pedigree. Our public schools are carrying that (tiki) torch.
I pitch this organization as often as I can (I am not an official member in any way, just an admirer):
ParentalRights.Org
Their goal is to get the Parental Rights Amendment passed, to wit:
It is beyond ridiculous that we need this, but we do. And please read “parent” as “parent or guardian.”
In the early 1980s, I was appointed by the Massachusetts probate court to be the guardian of a mentally ill person. My children were quite young, and the person I was assuming the responsibility for was an adult. But the judge’s words affected me as a parent and created a useful framework within which to think about my parental responsibilities. He said, paraphrasing, that it would be my duty to protect this person from people who might harm her in some way.
This is the point that is always lost in these debates. The issue is not the parent’s right to protect his or her child. It is the child’s right to the protection of the parent.
Okay, now hear me out, maybe it’s time for another COVID school closure… And not open again until all illness is eradicated.
Maybe, but in terms of legalese etc it seems like they would have an easier time abridging a child’s rights than a parent’s.
This is out and out grooming, isn’t it?
We often use the expression “battleground states” when discussing politics. I believe that we should recognize that in the fight for the future, public schools are the battle ground institutions.
School board elections have short-term consequences.
Voters have a better understanding of the interplay of taxes, budgets, and programs.
Quality school board candidates gain experience and are better prepared to run for other offices.
First it was morality, dangers, mechanics.
Then ethics, dangers, mechanics.
Now nouveau morality, dangers, extended mechanics, and the correct way to think and speak about it (don’t tell your parents!)
To my mind, it is this last thing that is the most important, and it has to do with a lot more than sex-‘ed’.
It is long past time that we asserted control over what children are taught. No more secrets. No more ‘you can’t opt out’.
Communists states own children.
Republics do not.
Montgomery County, alas… Spent twelve years in that school system (Go Barons!) Best in the USA once… and plenty of private options for parents who didn’t want their precious offspring mingled with our kind… Alas, what has happened? Only the commies were left after everyone who could afford those private schools sent their kids thus?
Yes.
Actually, the Constitution didn’t establish a separation between church and state. That was a statement in a private letter by Jefferson. Supreme Court precedent did not apply this rule to the states until around 1950. At the time the First Amendment was adopted, there were established churches in some states.
I do agree that we’re facing an alternative religion, but in my view, that alternative religion is Liberalism, with multiple variants — including the view stated at the outset of your comment about the separation of church and state.