Article Nonreligious Parents Have Rights Too
Article Nonreligious Parents Have Rights Too
Apr 22 2025, 3:21 PM
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/nonreligious-parents-have-rights-too-secular-constitution-law-politics-supreme-court-sexual-ideology-lgbtq-81d1047a
Quote:In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court should hold that no declaration of faith is required to opt children out of sexual indoctrination lessons.
Quote:Does the government have the authority to indoctrinate children in controversial sexual ideology even when parents object? The Supreme Court will take up this question on Tuesday in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
The Mahmouds and other parents wanted to opt their children out of public-school lessons promoting “gender transition” and pride parades to kindergartners and grade-schoolers in Montgomery County, Md., but the government didn’t allow it. Parents are asking the Supreme Court to defend their rights. But which rights should the court vindicate?
The parents’ lawyers argue primarily that the government’s refusal to allow opt-outs from these lessons violates the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. This argument is strategic. Recent Supreme Court rulings have held that the state unconstitutionally violates religious freedom when it forces people to choose between forgoing a public benefit and forgoing the exercise of their religion, unless it is the least restrictive means to a compelling state interest.
[...]
What about nonreligious parents? When I told my father, who is secular and a staunch Democrat, about this case, he said that you don’t have to be religious to object to telling 3-year-olds that doctors only “guess” a baby’s sex at birth or giving them a “Pride Puppy” storybook instructing them to search for images of things they would find at a pride parade, such as a drag queen, leather and an intersex flag. He thinks that parents having the right to opt their children out of such indoctrination is just common sense.
Discussion on Ovarit.
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The Wall Street Journal, April 21 2025.
https://www.wsj.com/opinion/nonreligious-parents-have-rights-too-secular-constitution-law-politics-supreme-court-sexual-ideology-lgbtq-81d1047a
Quote:In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Supreme Court should hold that no declaration of faith is required to opt children out of sexual indoctrination lessons.
Quote:Does the government have the authority to indoctrinate children in controversial sexual ideology even when parents object? The Supreme Court will take up this question on Tuesday in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
The Mahmouds and other parents wanted to opt their children out of public-school lessons promoting “gender transition” and pride parades to kindergartners and grade-schoolers in Montgomery County, Md., but the government didn’t allow it. Parents are asking the Supreme Court to defend their rights. But which rights should the court vindicate?
The parents’ lawyers argue primarily that the government’s refusal to allow opt-outs from these lessons violates the First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. This argument is strategic. Recent Supreme Court rulings have held that the state unconstitutionally violates religious freedom when it forces people to choose between forgoing a public benefit and forgoing the exercise of their religion, unless it is the least restrictive means to a compelling state interest.
[...]
What about nonreligious parents? When I told my father, who is secular and a staunch Democrat, about this case, he said that you don’t have to be religious to object to telling 3-year-olds that doctors only “guess” a baby’s sex at birth or giving them a “Pride Puppy” storybook instructing them to search for images of things they would find at a pride parade, such as a drag queen, leather and an intersex flag. He thinks that parents having the right to opt their children out of such indoctrination is just common sense.
Discussion on Ovarit.
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
Apr 22 2025, 11:17 PM
nina from canada eh
Apr 22 2025, 11:17 PM #2sexualizing babies is disturbing.. gender ideology is sexual harassment of everyone else, as well as denying ordinary human senses
Apr 23 2025, 5:35 AM
I don't think it's a question of parental rights, as this article claims. Adults (i.e. college students) shouldn't be subjected to it either.
Edited Apr 23 2025, 5:35 AM by Berry.
The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology. So teaching it in public schools is a violation of the Establishment clause, NOT just the free exercise clause.
I don't think it's a question of parental rights, as this article claims. Adults (i.e. college students) shouldn't be subjected to it either.
Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM
(Apr 22 2025, 11:17 PM)nina from canada eh sexualizing babies is disturbing.. gender ideology is sexual harassment of everyone else, as well as denying ordinary human sensesThat's the same arguments the opposition makes.
In theory, there isn't anything sexual about gendersouls, and it is certainly not sexual to acknowledge being male or female, otherwise you get the "why are you thinking about babies' genitals?" BS.
As for denying ordinary human senses, human senses are subject to a whole host of biases. Hell, many TIFs pass very well and can trick these ordinary human senses easily.
Quote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
Edited Apr 23 2025, 8:51 AM by YesYourNigel.
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
YesYourNigel
Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM #4(Apr 22 2025, 11:17 PM)nina from canada eh sexualizing babies is disturbing.. gender ideology is sexual harassment of everyone else, as well as denying ordinary human sensesThat's the same arguments the opposition makes.
In theory, there isn't anything sexual about gendersouls, and it is certainly not sexual to acknowledge being male or female, otherwise you get the "why are you thinking about babies' genitals?" BS.
As for denying ordinary human senses, human senses are subject to a whole host of biases. Hell, many TIFs pass very well and can trick these ordinary human senses easily.
Quote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
Apr 25 2025, 11:15 AM
(Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM)YesYourNigelQuote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
I went to public school, and I don't recall religion being brought up in any sort of context where we're learning about the religion, maybe we only brought it up when we were talking about history and the Catholic Church controlling stuff, but I can't recall, it's been a while. Certainly no lessons focused on religion. I have read that people who go to private Catholic schools actually sometimes do get a fairly decent education about world religions. As in, the teacher would take a fairly unbiased anthropological analysis of world religions, as a way to teach morality and ethics. I think that could be the way to go about it. The issue is that transgender ideologists would not want that, because they want people to actually believe in their claims. They don't want teachers to tell students "there are some people who believe that male people can feel like female people and feel better in society dressing and acting like the societally imposed stereotypes of the female population." They want teachers to tell students "there are people who are born male, who feel like they should be female, and they actually are female." They do not want their belief to be treated like a belief, they want it to be treated like a fact. They don't want people to look at a transgender-identifying man out in public and think "that's a man who is pretending to be a woman," they want them to think "that is a woman." They refuse to accept that they have a quasi-religious opinion, and that other people don't have to share that opinion. In this sense, there will always be a conflict between people who do not share their belief and those who do.
Overall, I don't necessarily think humans need to bring up religion in order to teach about morality. In the same way I don't think it's a public schools place teach students about religion, I similarly don't think it's a place to teach children about gender ideology. Unless it's like... A history or politics/civics class, I suppose. Indoctrination vs education is key. It's okay for students to be taught "this is what some people believe," it's not okay for students to be told "this is what to believe."
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
(Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM)YesYourNigelQuote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
I went to public school, and I don't recall religion being brought up in any sort of context where we're learning about the religion, maybe we only brought it up when we were talking about history and the Catholic Church controlling stuff, but I can't recall, it's been a while. Certainly no lessons focused on religion. I have read that people who go to private Catholic schools actually sometimes do get a fairly decent education about world religions. As in, the teacher would take a fairly unbiased anthropological analysis of world religions, as a way to teach morality and ethics. I think that could be the way to go about it. The issue is that transgender ideologists would not want that, because they want people to actually believe in their claims. They don't want teachers to tell students "there are some people who believe that male people can feel like female people and feel better in society dressing and acting like the societally imposed stereotypes of the female population." They want teachers to tell students "there are people who are born male, who feel like they should be female, and they actually are female." They do not want their belief to be treated like a belief, they want it to be treated like a fact. They don't want people to look at a transgender-identifying man out in public and think "that's a man who is pretending to be a woman," they want them to think "that is a woman." They refuse to accept that they have a quasi-religious opinion, and that other people don't have to share that opinion. In this sense, there will always be a conflict between people who do not share their belief and those who do.
Overall, I don't necessarily think humans need to bring up religion in order to teach about morality. In the same way I don't think it's a public schools place teach students about religion, I similarly don't think it's a place to teach children about gender ideology. Unless it's like... A history or politics/civics class, I suppose. Indoctrination vs education is key. It's okay for students to be taught "this is what some people believe," it's not okay for students to be told "this is what to believe."
Kozlik's regular member account. 🍀🐐
Apr 25 2025, 9:35 PM
(Apr 25 2025, 11:15 AM)Clover(Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM)YesYourNigelQuote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
I went to public school, and I don't recall religion being brought up in any sort of context where we're learning about the religion, maybe we only brought it up when we were talking about history and the Catholic Church controlling stuff, but I can't recall, it's been a while. Certainly no lessons focused on religion. I have read that people who go to private Catholic schools actually sometimes do get a fairly decent education about world religions. As in, the teacher would take a fairly unbiased anthropological analysis of world religions, as a way to teach morality and ethics. I think that could be the way to go about it. The issue is that transgender ideologists would not want that, because they want people to actually believe in their claims. They don't want teachers to tell students "there are some people who believe that male people can feel like female people and feel better in society dressing and acting like the societally imposed stereotypes of the female population." They want teachers to tell students "there are people who are born male, who feel like they should be female, and they actually are female." They do not want their belief to be treated like a belief, they want it to be treated like a fact. They don't want people to look at a transgender-identifying man out in public and think "that's a man who is pretending to be a woman," they want them to think "that is a woman." They refuse to accept that they have a quasi-religious opinion, and that other people don't have to share that opinion. In this sense, there will always be a conflict between people who do not share their belief and those who do.
Overall, I don't necessarily think humans need to bring up religion in order to teach about morality. In the same way I don't think it's a public schools place teach students about religion, I similarly don't think it's a place to teach children about gender ideology. Unless it's like... A history or politics/civics class, I suppose. Indoctrination vs education is key. It's okay for students to be taught "this is what some people believe," it's not okay for students to be told "this is what to believe."
My point wasn't related to religion at all, actually. Rather that it's not as simple as "Schools should only teach science and concrete things, not beliefs" because our secular ideas on ethics are also beliefs, including our ideas that women are equal human beings to men. I think schools should at least explain our basic ideas on ethics because frankly, most people don't really understand them. But that invites the question of where to draw that line. Obviously I would want people to have feminist awareness drilled into them, but the fact is that teaching beliefs like that can be slippery slope, as we've seen.
Trans activists don't see their beliefs in gendersouls as religious, they see it as ethics. Lying about someone's sex is just politeness, because you wouldn't throw a racial slur in someone's face (nevermind that calling someone a slur is different from recognising neutral, objective reality). Gendersouls are real and true because it would be rude to refer to a random man as a woman (nevermind that there is no actual reason to lie about someone's sex unless you were trying to make a patriarchal evaluation of the person that supposedly trumps the neutral reality of one's sex, which is offensive for different reasons than "confronting reality offends me so you better engage in my delusion to make me feel better").
It's all purely an emotional appeal that has equal validity when applied to religion. After all, religion also makes people feel bad or even have an existential crisis when it's criticised, and many claim religion to be their life's purpose. Or heck, any offensive group could cry foul if it wanted to - white supremacists and incels also revolve their identities around their bigotry, meaning you make them depressed and suicidal when you invalidate their identity (actually incels already accuse women of killing them because they won't date or fuck them lmao), but trans is not treated as comparable just because it has the enlightened progressive umbrella to hide behind which automatically gives it validity, the same umbrella that shields it from accusations of misogyny.
At the end of the day I think the key distinction is that our regular beliefs, as imaginary as they are, acknowledge the simple fact that all human beings have a certain set of needs and dignity that should be met and who should be encouraged to reach a higher standard of human development, and the insistance on entertaining pure fiction for no reason other than making a delusional person feel better (as in the case of religion, trans or even bigotry) most certainly does not fall under that. But because people are stupid, and because liberalism has so many contradictions or just shoves its head in the sand as a solution, its ethics just get reduced to "It's mean to criticise anyone or make anyone feel bad because that's unkind" which, alongside opression Olympics, gets used to tell women to shut up when they talk about their human rights because misogyny is boring and normal, whereas transphobia is so exotic because NO-ONE gets it due to how absurd it is.
Edited Yesterday, 5:29 AM by YesYourNigel.
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
YesYourNigel
Apr 25 2025, 9:35 PM #6(Apr 25 2025, 11:15 AM)Clover(Apr 23 2025, 8:47 AM)YesYourNigelQuote:The way I see it, gender ideology is a quasi religious belief. It's metaphysical - you can't prove the existence of a female soul anymore than you can prove the validity of astrology.
What I'm wondering is where the limit is in regards to ethics. It's good to educate people and esp children on ethics and morality. In fact we could use a whole lot more education on things like racism and sexism so people are aware of how consistently harmful these ideologies are. Morality is a made-up societal concepts, but very valuable. We accept made-up ideas that claim everyone, regardless of background and appearance and interests, has certain human rights that are inalienable, even if we hate the individual. Furthermore we agreed that treating certain groups as inferior based on arbitrary and superficial qualities was bad, which eventually (via liberalism's boundless permissiveness and discouragement of criticism) morphed into the idea that it's oppressive to tell anyone what they don't like to hear and especially calling certain groups out on being harmful and dysfunctional. Which got us to this shitfest where literally compelling everyone to lie about someone's sex is portrayed as an integral part of human rights.
My question is where is the limit between (quasi)religious indocrtination and teaching morality. This line being sort of gray is why we're having these problems.
I went to public school, and I don't recall religion being brought up in any sort of context where we're learning about the religion, maybe we only brought it up when we were talking about history and the Catholic Church controlling stuff, but I can't recall, it's been a while. Certainly no lessons focused on religion. I have read that people who go to private Catholic schools actually sometimes do get a fairly decent education about world religions. As in, the teacher would take a fairly unbiased anthropological analysis of world religions, as a way to teach morality and ethics. I think that could be the way to go about it. The issue is that transgender ideologists would not want that, because they want people to actually believe in their claims. They don't want teachers to tell students "there are some people who believe that male people can feel like female people and feel better in society dressing and acting like the societally imposed stereotypes of the female population." They want teachers to tell students "there are people who are born male, who feel like they should be female, and they actually are female." They do not want their belief to be treated like a belief, they want it to be treated like a fact. They don't want people to look at a transgender-identifying man out in public and think "that's a man who is pretending to be a woman," they want them to think "that is a woman." They refuse to accept that they have a quasi-religious opinion, and that other people don't have to share that opinion. In this sense, there will always be a conflict between people who do not share their belief and those who do.
Overall, I don't necessarily think humans need to bring up religion in order to teach about morality. In the same way I don't think it's a public schools place teach students about religion, I similarly don't think it's a place to teach children about gender ideology. Unless it's like... A history or politics/civics class, I suppose. Indoctrination vs education is key. It's okay for students to be taught "this is what some people believe," it's not okay for students to be told "this is what to believe."
My point wasn't related to religion at all, actually. Rather that it's not as simple as "Schools should only teach science and concrete things, not beliefs" because our secular ideas on ethics are also beliefs, including our ideas that women are equal human beings to men. I think schools should at least explain our basic ideas on ethics because frankly, most people don't really understand them. But that invites the question of where to draw that line. Obviously I would want people to have feminist awareness drilled into them, but the fact is that teaching beliefs like that can be slippery slope, as we've seen.
Trans activists don't see their beliefs in gendersouls as religious, they see it as ethics. Lying about someone's sex is just politeness, because you wouldn't throw a racial slur in someone's face (nevermind that calling someone a slur is different from recognising neutral, objective reality). Gendersouls are real and true because it would be rude to refer to a random man as a woman (nevermind that there is no actual reason to lie about someone's sex unless you were trying to make a patriarchal evaluation of the person that supposedly trumps the neutral reality of one's sex, which is offensive for different reasons than "confronting reality offends me so you better engage in my delusion to make me feel better").
It's all purely an emotional appeal that has equal validity when applied to religion. After all, religion also makes people feel bad or even have an existential crisis when it's criticised, and many claim religion to be their life's purpose. Or heck, any offensive group could cry foul if it wanted to - white supremacists and incels also revolve their identities around their bigotry, meaning you make them depressed and suicidal when you invalidate their identity (actually incels already accuse women of killing them because they won't date or fuck them lmao), but trans is not treated as comparable just because it has the enlightened progressive umbrella to hide behind which automatically gives it validity, the same umbrella that shields it from accusations of misogyny.
At the end of the day I think the key distinction is that our regular beliefs, as imaginary as they are, acknowledge the simple fact that all human beings have a certain set of needs and dignity that should be met and who should be encouraged to reach a higher standard of human development, and the insistance on entertaining pure fiction for no reason other than making a delusional person feel better (as in the case of religion, trans or even bigotry) most certainly does not fall under that. But because people are stupid, and because liberalism has so many contradictions or just shoves its head in the sand as a solution, its ethics just get reduced to "It's mean to criticise anyone or make anyone feel bad because that's unkind" which, alongside opression Olympics, gets used to tell women to shut up when they talk about their human rights because misogyny is boring and normal, whereas transphobia is so exotic because NO-ONE gets it due to how absurd it is.
I refuse to debate two obvious facts: 1. the patriarchy exists 2. and that's a bad thing
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