Federal Judiciary

First Rejects Claims from Parents Angry Over Homosexuality in Elementary Schools

By Robert Loblaw

Parker v. Hurley, 07-1528 (1^st Cir., Jan. 31, 2008)

Massachusetts was a national leader on the issue of gay marriage, and now some elementary schools are apparently following suit. This does not sit well with all of the parents of school-aged children, including the plaintiffs in this suit against Lexington school officials.

The Parkers complain that their kindergarten-age son was sent home with a “Diversity Book Bag,” which included a book that showed same sex couples as parents. Meanwhile, the Wirthings complain about the story King and King, which was read in their second-grade son?s classroom. From the opinion:

This picture book tells the story of a prince, ordered by his mother to get married, who first rejects several princesses only to fall in love with another prince. A wedding scene between the two princes is depicted. The last page of the book shows the two princes kissing, but with a red heart superimposed over their mouths.

Both sets of parents wanted the right to opt out of any classroom activities or materials that would expose their children to homosexual conduct. But the school districts refused to give the parents any say in the classroom, or even to give them a heads up about the activities in question. So the parents sued under the First Amendment and the Due Process Clause, claiming that the schools were indoctrinating their kids in the homosexual agenda, in violation of the families? religious beliefs.

The district court threw out their claims, and the First Circuit affirms. The Court explains that parents traditionally have little say in the public schools? curriculum choices, and “[p]ublic schools are not obliged to shield individual students from ideas which potentially are religiously offensive, particularly when the school imposes no requirement that the student agree with or affirm those ideas, or even participate in discussions about them.”

Here, the Parkers have no basis for complaint because their son was simply given the option of reading a book that exposed him to same sex parenting. Although the Wirthings? case is a little closer since their son had to sit through a classroom reading of a book that affirmatively endorses homosexuality, there is no evidence to suggest that their second grader was asked to affirm gay marriage.

I?m not sure how to square this reasoning with cases that have rejected non-mandatory school prayer in light of the impressionability of young children and the coercive nature of a classroom, and the opinion does not really try. Perhaps the Supreme Court will. But whether or not this decision was correct from a constitutional perspective, it?s remarkable to me that elementary schools are pushing the envelope this way. Reading King and King aloud to second graders seems pretty extreme, even for Massachusetts.

Full post as published by Decision of the Day on February 01, 2008 (boomark / email).