Rulings Near on Sexuality Cases

Christian religious liberties organizations are expectant that a pair of pending U.S. Supreme Court rulings will result in greater parental authority regarding sexuality.

One case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, focuses on a parent’s right to opt their child out of public school classroom readings of books promoting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LBGTQ) lifestyles. The other, United States v. Skrmetti, involves a state’s authority to prevent adolescents from accessing treatments that would enable them to attempt to change gender.

Mahmoud stems from a decision by the Montgomery County Board of Education in Maryland in 2022 that introduced a variety of “inclusivity” books for students in pre-kindergarten through fifth grade. With titles such as Pride Puppy and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, the storybooks celebrate gender transitioning, drag queens, pride parades, and pronoun preferences. Initially the district notified parents what materials would be discussed and gave an option to have children be excused from the sessions. But in 2023, after a plethora of parents opted out, the district, without explanation, announced there would be no more notification about the book readings or opt-out opportunities.

A coalition of religious and racially diverse parents, primarily Muslim and Ethiopian Orthodox, sued with help from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. They said the instruction violates their First Amendment rights to freely exercise their religious beliefs and the ability to direct the religious upbringing of their children.

“The fundamental issue in this case is who decides a child’s religious upbringing,” says William J. Haun, Becket Fund senior counsel. “Is it the parents, or is it the government?”

Haun, 38, says for many years the national consensus has allowed parents to be the first educators of their children, with 47 states explicitly providing some form of opt-out choice. He notes that Montgomery County Public Schools, the largest system in Maryland with 160,000 students, still allows parents to remove children for religious reasons for activities such as Valentine’s Day or Halloween parties.

Montgomery County teachers, who have accompanying instructional materials, read to children as young as 4. The book Intersection Allies: We Make Room for All tells first graders about being non-binary and transgender, declaring “standing together, we’ll rewrite the norms.” The book for fifth graders, Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope, features a biological girl who identifies as a boy and a mother who declares, “This is about love” and “gender doesn’t need to make sense.”

Haun, based in Washington, D.C., says the religiously diverse coalition of parents — including Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Muslims — aren’t asking for the materials to be removed or that the school adopt a new curriculum. Rather, the lawsuit seeks only to restore parental rights for notice and opt-out.

“For all of their differences, these parents agree they are the primary educators and that they have a responsibility to pass on their religious traditions to their children,” Haun says. The National Association of Evangelicals, of which the Assemblies of God is a member, joined an amici curiae brief supporting the parents in March. Oral arguments, which lasted 2½ hours, took place in April.

Since 2022, Linda A. Seiler has been executive director of ReStory Ministries, an organization endorsed by the Assemblies of God that equips local churches to address homosexuality and gender identity issues in a compassionate, yet biblical, way. She says the Maryland school district’s policy of forced instruction is harmful to impressionable children who tend to believe lessons from a teacher must be true.

“From a practical point of view, it’s preying upon the most vulnerable of our population,” says Seiler, 52. “Spiritually, it’s a crafty scheme of the enemy to shift the culture by indoctrination. It’s unconscionable that these concepts are introduced to elementary-age kids.”

Seiler, an ordained AG minister with a master’s degree and doctorate from Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, understands the harm and confusion that can occur when children in grade school are told the physical body God gave them doesn’t represent who they really are, but rather that an abstract transgender concept in their mind is what really matters. Such teaching frequently undermines what parents teach at home, she says.

“Because it comes from an authority figure, it can’t be shared neutrally,” says Seiler, who lives in West Lafayette, Indiana. “It’s propaganda.”

Haun says the government has a tremendous amount of discretion to accommodate the religious needs of people. For instance, in 2018, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in favor of evangelical baker Jack Phillips, who had been sued for refusing to create a homosexual-themed wedding cake. Haun is hopeful that justices will validate the suing parents. Haun also formed part of the legal team in 2021 that prevailed in the 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court Fulton v. City of Philadelphia ruling, which declared Philadelphia erred in shutting down a Catholic charity’s foster care program because the institution refused to consider same-sex couples as parents.

SKRMETTI CASE
The related case on the radar relates to whether a state can prohibit body-altering surgery for minors. Two dozen states have passed such laws, including Tennessee, which in 2023 approved legislation prohibiting puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and sex-transition surgery for children with gender dysphoria. Tennessee lawmakers said the law protects youth from risky, unproven medical interventions that can carry irreversible and life-altering consequences. The Biden administration, citing the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, quickly sued Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti to keep the law from taking effect. Oral arguments that went on for 2½ hours occurred in December.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in Washington, D.C., has served as co-counsel defending various states protecting children from potentially dangerous drug interventions and was among the multiple organizations filing an amicus curiae on behalf of Tennessee. In the brief, ADF’s John J. Bursch indicated the novel Equal Protection Clause argument tramples on the long-standing authority of states to regulate the medical profession. He noted the Tennessee law forbids gender transition specifically for a minor.

“It is the dangerous and experimental nature of drugs and surgeries for gender transition, not sex or gender identity, that differentiates who can obtain these drugs and surgeries,” Bursch wrote.

Seiler says research shows that the vast majority of children who struggle with gender confusion ultimately become secure in the body God gave them.

“Under no circumstances should a minor ever be allowed to transition,” Seiler says.

Seiler, who served as Chi Alpha Campus Ministries director for 13 years at Purdue University until 2020, points out that a person’s prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed until the mid-20s and that adolescents don’t have the capacity to make and understand the ramifications of decisions altering their body parts. She points out that car rental companies won’t rent to anyone under the age of 25 because youth make impulsive and risky choices.

“A minor shouldn’t make a major decision whether they are male or female,” says Seiler, who now serves as applied theology and culture specialist on the national Chi Alpha team. “Puberty isn’t a disease to be avoided.” She says cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers can result in an array of medical complications, including osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and mental illness.

Seiler’s observations are more than theoretical. In fourth grade, she started contemplating sex reassignment surgery as a way to relieve her sensations of being a male trapped inside a female body. She subsequently experienced gender confusion and same-sex attractions that drove her to the brink of suicide. After an arduous journey that took 11 years, she eventually experienced healing.

She is glad her struggles happened before the rise of social media and YouTube, which today often present transitioning as a normal and natural sexual path to pursue.

“Because of peer pressure and social influences, especially among teenage girls, a new social contagion is spreading that is similar to anorexia, bulimia, and cutting in the past,” says Seiler, author of the book Trans-Formation: A Former Transgender Responds to LGBTQ. “Now girls who never had gender dysphoria want to change because it’s trendy. That is overriding logical decision-making.”

Rulings on both cases are expected before the end of June.

Photo provided by Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.