On this episode of Neutral World, in Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland, the school board approved LGBTQ inclusive tax to prove for instructional use.

Books with titles like Pride Puppy, Uncle Bobby's Wedding, born ready the true story of a boy named Penelope, Rainbow Revolutionaries,

50 LGBTQ plus people who made history are just a few of the approved book titles. Several parents with religious backgrounds came together to sue the school board to restore their right to opt their children out of instruction that is inconsistent with their faith.

However, a U.S. District Court judge denied their request for a preliminary injunction in August 24th. The ruling on the injunction does not mean that the lawsuit stops. The court still needs to hear the full case and issue a final decision.

Here to discuss the ongoing storybook mandate case, I'm really pleased to welcome my guest Eric Baxter. He is the vice president and senior counsel at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty and the attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case.

Eric, welcome and thank you for joining me on Neutral World.

My pleasure, thank you for having me. Can you talk a little bit about the background of the lawsuit?

Certainly, Montgomery County, Maryland is the largest county in Maryland right outside of Washington, D.C. It has long had a wonderful religious diversity policy that allows students to opt out of any instruction that would violate their religious beliefs.

That's reflective of the very diverse nature of the county. We have people from diverse faiths, immigrants from many different countries. It's a wonderful melting pot in Montgomery County and the school district has traditionally respected that by allowing opt-outs.

Maryland law itself also requires opt-outs from Indian instruction on family life and human sexuality.

Last fall, the school board in effort, what it describes as to improve inclusivity, adopted a series of books and are lost who particularly targets those geared at students in pre K through 5th grade books that all push an ideology on gender and sexuality that encourages kids to consider their sexuality, their gender identity, their pronouns to embrace gender transitioning.

And to think about childhood romances, one of the books invites teachers to discuss with kids what it means when you like like versus just liking someone, what it means when your heart goes thump when you look at someone on the playground.

And this need is to say has created quite a controversy in the county.

Why do you think the school board went this far? I think one book asks three and four year olds to search for images from a list that includes intersex flag drag queen underwear leather and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker for three and four year olds.

Yeah, it's totally age and appropriate. When the books were first announced in the fall, the school board's own principles, basically the union of elementary school principles in Montgomery County, wrote a letter to the school board saying these books are totally inappropriate.

They're age and appropriate. They're dismissive of students religious beliefs. They encourage students to respond to students concerns with comments that are shaming to students.

The principal said, you know, our teachers are not comfortable talking with children and it's inappropriate to be talking to children about playground romances regardless of sexual orientation.

And so when you have even the principles in the school opposing what the school board is doing, it does raise the question, what is the school board thinking?

And you know, they say they're doing this in the name of inclusivity, but lots of counties in Maryland promote inclusivity teaching children how to be kind and respectful to each other without pushing kind of an extreme ideology.

On gender and sexuality. If even the elementary school principles are worried, why didn't the school board back down?

I mean, it's a great question. You know, normally school board meetings are pretty sleepy affair. You don't see a lot of meetings where there are lots of parents getting involved.

Some of these meetings over the summer have had over a thousand parents attending dozens of parents lining up to give statements, students standing up to protest.

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