Fourth Circuit: Maryland Parents Have No Right to Opt Their Children Out of ‘Trans’ Instruction

The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has made a ruling in a case of a Christian and a Muslim family who sued the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland for violating their right to opt their children out of “transgender” instruction.

Becket Law represents these families.

Parents used to receive notice about such instruction, with the right to opt out. Maryland took way both notice and the opt-out option.

Religious parents do not want their kids exposed to the homosexual agenda, with its attendant adult and peer pressure for children to “identify” as someone of the opposite sex. Adherents to Christianity and Islam oppose homosexuality, and the God of the Bible calls this particular sin an abomination.

(Homosexuals seem to seek out Christian establishments to sue for refusing to provide services for same-sex “weddings” or “transitioning” celebrations — but not Muslim establishments. I wonder why.)

A three-judge panel of the Fourth Circuit just denied the parents’ motion for a preliminary injunction to stop enforcement of Maryland’s policy, despite the policy burdening their free exercise of religion.

“For the reasons set out above, we agree with the district court that the Parents have not satisfied the extraordinary showing necessary to obtain a preliminary injunction,” the court wrote (PDF). Therefore, we affirm the district court’s order denying the Parents’ motion.”

One of the reasons the district court denied the parents’ motion for a preliminary injunction was because, among other things, they “failed to demonstrate a cognizable burden to their free exercise of their religion.” The Fourth Circuit agreed with this claim.

The dissenting Fourth Circuit judge wrote that the parents “have shown the board’s decision to deny religious opt-outs burdened these parents’ right to exercise their religion and direct the religious upbringing of their children by putting them to the choice of either compromising their religious beliefs or foregoing a public education for their children.”

According to Becket Law, the parents will appeal the decision.