‘Leather and bondage': Supreme Court spars over details of LGBT+ children's books at center of religious freedom dispute
The Supreme Court heard arguments in a case brought by a group of religious parents from Maryland who hope to obtain the right to remove their children from classes that read storybooks featuring LGBT+ characters.
In preparation for Tuesday's arguments, the nine justices read books such as Pride Puppy, which takes readers through the alphabet while sharing the story of a girl whose puppy gets loose while at a pride parade. Also, Uncle Bobby's Wedding, a story about a girl who worries she will spend less time with her favorite uncle after he marries his boyfriend.
The content of the books – whether they 'promote one-sided transgender ideology, encourage gender transitioning, and focus excessively on romantic infatuation,' as plaintiffs allege – became a point of contention during arguments.
Those storybooks, and others, have led to a legal battle between a group of parents in Maryland, from various faith backgrounds, and the Montgomery County Board of Education. The dispute is about whether the school board must have an opt-out policy for children whose parents believe the themes of the book go against their religious beliefs.
'It has a clear moral message,' Justice Samuel Alito said of the book Uncle Bobby's Wedding.
'And it may be a good message. It's just a message that a lot of religious people disagree with,' Alito added.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor sparred with Alito over the claim, noting that the children's book was not questioning the morality of same-sex marriage nor contained any images of two men kissing.
'Haven't we made very clear that the mere exposure to things that you object to is not coercion?' Sotomayor asked.
Alito responded that there could be 'a book club' with 'a debate about how Uncle Bobby's marriage should be understood.'
Sotomayor and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson both voiced concern over how a school may implement an opt-out policy. The reason the Montgomery school district got rid of that policy was that allowing children to opt out was becoming disruptive.
Justice Elena Kagan expressed concern about a potentially broad ruling, which made it difficult to draw the line between allowing school administrators to make decisions while giving parents the right to oversee their children's upbringing.
But the details of the books became a memorable part of the arguments on Tuesday.
Justice Neil Gorsuch honed in on details of the book Pride Puppy – referring to it as 'the one where they're supposed to look for the leather and bondage things like that.' Gorsuch asked if the book, which is read to pre-kindergarten children, featured a 'sex worker.'
A lawyer for the Montgomery County Public Schools disputed the claim. He told Gorsuch that one part of the book points to a woman in a leather jacket.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who lives in Montgomery County, said he was 'surprised' that these arguments had arisen, given that the county has a diverse population. The county school board introduced the storybooks as part of an effort to better reflect the district's diversity.
"I'm surprised this is the hill to die on in terms of not respecting religious liberty," Kavanaugh said.
The case is the latest dispute involving religion to come before the court. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years.
A decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor is expected by early summer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Kenyan blogger's wife seeks answers after his death in police custody
By Aaron Ross NAIROBI (Reuters) -When the policemen came for Albert Ojwang - the Kenyan blogger whose death in custody sparked protests this week and prompted a rare acknowledgement of police brutality by the president - his wife initially thought he would be safe. Unlike the dozens of political activists abducted by suspected security agents over the last year, the 31-year-old schoolteacher was taken to a police station and officers shared their phone numbers with his family. "When they came, they were so soft. They were not violent," said Nevnine Onyango, who was present when the officers arrived, accusing her husband of insulting their "boss". "So that is what gave me even more confidence." The next morning, a family member called with the news that Ojwang, the father of their three-year-old son, was dead. In the week since, the blogger's death has become a lightning rod in a nation just one year removed from mass youth-led protests that were fuelled, in part, by disgust at pervasive police violence. Hundreds protested in the capital Nairobi this week, with vehicles set ablaze and the police firing teargas. Demonstrators cited Ojwang's death as evidence that nothing had changed one year after more than 60 people were killed in demonstrations initially sparked by proposed tax hikes. Ojwang was arrested in Homa Bay, in western Kenya, as part of an investigation triggered by a formal complaint from the deputy chief of the national police force, Eliud Lagat, according to the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, Kenya's government-funded police watchdog. Lagat had stated he had been the target of alleged false and malicious information published on X, IPOA said. Kenya's police chief initially implied that Ojwang had died by suicide but later apologised after an autopsy found that his wounds - including a head injury, neck compression and soft tissue damage - pointed to assault as the cause of death. President William Ruto said on Wednesday that Ojwang had died "at the hands of the police", which he said was "heartbreaking and unacceptable". Three people have so far been arrested in the case: the policeman in charge of the police station in Nairobi where Ojwang was found dead, a police constable and a closed-circuit television technician at the station. Reuters was not able to reach Lagat for comment, and a police spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. In the past, the police have called examples of abuse isolated incidents. SUPPOSED TO PROTECT, NOT HARM It is not clear what Ojwang posted that got the attention of the police. His social media accounts no longer appear to be active. According to IPOA, which is investigating his death, Lagat's complaint triggered a probe that led to the arrest of another blogger. Interrogations of that blogger identified Ojwang as a person of interest, IPOA said. And so, last Saturday at lunchtime, police officers arrived at Ojwang's house on motorcycles and told him "there are some remarks that he had made about their boss, that the boss is corrupt", his wife Onyango said. They did not identify their boss. They first took Ojwang to the local police station before telling his family they would transfer him to Nairobi, nearly 300 km (185 miles) away, she said. She last heard from him at around 9 p.m. (1800 GMT) the Saturday of his arrest when he called her from Nairobi's Central Police Station. She said he sounded worried and asked if she would be able to come to Nairobi. Onyango is now hoping for answers - and accountability - from IPOA's investigation. "We always see these things on television, and it actually reached my door," she said of police abuses. "These people are supposed to protect us. They're not supposed to harm us."
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
What's left for the Supreme Court to decide? 21 cases, including state bans on transgender care
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have 21 cases to resolve that were argued between December and mid-May, including a push by Republican-led states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The court typically aims to finish its work by the end of June. Here are some of the biggest remaining cases: Tennessee and 26 other states have enacted bans on certain treatment for transgender youth The oldest unresolved case, and arguably the term's biggest, stems from a challenge to Tennessee's law from transgender minors and their parents who argue that it is unconstitutional sex discrimination aimed at a vulnerable population. At arguments in December, the court's conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold the law, voicing skepticism of claims that it violates the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. The post-Civil War provision requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. The court is weighing the case amid a range of other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, Trump's administration sued Maine for not complying with the government's push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports. Trump also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming care for those under 19 and a conservative majority of justices allowed him to move forward with plans to oust transgender people from the U.S. military. Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies. At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally. Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years. The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity. The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools. The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as 'Prince and Knight' and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding.' The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries. A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time. The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life. At arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act. Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024. A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on. Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law. The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment.
Hamilton Spectator
3 hours ago
- Hamilton Spectator
What's left for the Supreme Court to decide? 21 cases, including state bans on transgender care
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is in the homestretch of a term that has lately been dominated by the Trump administration's emergency appeals of lower court orders seeking to slow President Donald Trump's efforts to remake the federal government. But the justices also have 21 cases to resolve that were argued between December and mid-May, including a push by Republican-led states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors. One of the argued cases was an emergency appeal, the administration's bid to be allowed to enforce Trump's executive order denying birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of parents who are in the country illegally. The court typically aims to finish its work by the end of June. Here are some of the biggest remaining cases: Tennessee and 26 other states have enacted bans on certain treatment for transgender youth The oldest unresolved case, and arguably the term's biggest, stems from a challenge to Tennessee's law from transgender minors and their parents who argue that it is unconstitutional sex discrimination aimed at a vulnerable population. At arguments in December, the court's conservative majority seemed inclined to uphold the law, voicing skepticism of claims that it violates the 14th amendment's equal protection clause. The post-Civil War provision requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same. The court is weighing the case amid a range of other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people , including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use . In April, Trump's administration sued Maine for not complying with the government's push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports. Trump also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming care for those under 19 and a conservative majority of justices allowed him to move forward with plans to oust transgender people from the U.S. military . Trump's birthright citizenship order has been blocked by lower courts The court rarely hears arguments over emergency appeals, but it took up the administration's plea to narrow orders that have prevented the citizenship changes from taking effect anywhere in the U.S. The issue before the justices is whether to limit the authority of judges to issue nationwide injunctions, which have plagued both Republican and Democratic administrations in the past 10 years. These nationwide court orders have emerged as an important check on Trump's efforts and a source of mounting frustration to the Republican president and his allies. At arguments last month, the court seemed intent on keeping a block on the citizenship restrictions while still looking for a way to scale back nationwide court orders. It was not clear what such a decision might look like, but a majority of the court expressed concerns about what would happen if the administration were allowed, even temporarily, to deny citizenship to children born to parents who are in the country illegally. Democratic-led states, immigrants and rights groups who sued over Trump's executive order argued that it would upset the settled understanding of birthright citizenship that has existed for more than 125 years. The court seems likely to side with Maryland parents in a religious rights case over LGBTQ storybooks in public schools Parents in the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, want to be able to pull their children out of lessons that use the storybooks, which the county added to the curriculum to better reflect the district's diversity. The school system at one point allowed parents to remove their children from those lessons, but then reversed course because it found the opt-out policy to be disruptive. Sex education is the only area of instruction with an opt-out provision in the county's schools. The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as 'Prince and Knight' and 'Uncle Bobby's Wedding.' The case is one of several religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years. The decision also comes amid increases in recent years in books being banned from public school and public libraries. A three-year battle over congressional districts in Louisiana is making its second trip to the Supreme Court Lower courts have struck down two Louisiana congressional maps since 2022 and the justices are weighing whether to send state lawmakers back to the map-drawing board for a third time. The case involves the interplay between race and politics in drawing political boundaries in front of a conservative-led court that has been skeptical of considerations of race in public life. At arguments in March, several of the court's conservative justices suggested they could vote to throw out the map and make it harder, if not impossible, to bring redistricting lawsuits under the Voting Rights Act . Before the court now is a map that created a second Black majority congressional district among Louisiana's six seats in the House of Representatives. The district elected a Black Democrat in 2024. A three-judge court found that the state relied too heavily on race in drawing the district, rejecting Louisiana's arguments that politics predominated, specifically the preservation of the seats of influential members of Congress, including Speaker Mike Johnson. The Supreme Court ordered the challenged map to be used last year while the case went on. Lawmakers only drew that map after civil rights advocates won a court ruling that a map with one Black majority district likely violated the landmark voting rights law. The justices are weighing a Texas law aimed at blocking kids from seeing online pornography Texas is among more than a dozen states with age verification laws. The states argue the laws are necessary as smartphones have made access to online porn, including hardcore obscene material, almost instantaneous. The question for the court is whether the measure infringes on the constitutional rights of adults as well. The Free Speech Coalition, an adult-entertainment industry trade group, agrees that children shouldn't be seeing pornography. But it says the Texas law is written too broadly and wrongly affects adults by requiring them to submit personal identifying information online that is vulnerable to hacking or tracking. The justices appeared open to upholding the law, though they also could return it to a lower court for additional work. Some justices worried the lower court hadn't applied a strict enough legal standard in determining whether the Texas law and others like that could run afoul of the First Amendment. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
