Re: Two cases asserting free exercise of religion heard at Supreme Court

BTR1701 <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

Apr 22, 2025 at 2:03:09 PM PDT, Adam H. Kerman <ahk@chinet.com>:

I'm a lot less concerned about the other case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, which
is about parents objections to school curriculum and that it's become
mandatory for public school children to be instructed in LGBTQ+ themes.

I've argued before that it's a freedom of the press issue if parents
seek to remove books on subjects they don't approve of from school and
public libraries to "protect children".

Since no library can possibly stock every book currently in print
or printed in the past, then *every* library engages in censorship
by deciding which books it will stock and which books it chooses not
to stock. If choosing not to stock a book is the equivalent of "book
banning" as both the Left and the Right have claimed in the past, then
every library bans the vast majority of books in existence as a matter
of normal business.

That's an argument the library might use to defend itself against an
accusation of censorship.

In my hypothetical, it's the parents engaging in book banning whom
I've accused of censorship. You didn't offer a defense on their behalf.

However in this case, that's not even the issue. The plaintiffs weren't
seeking to pull books off shelves or eliminate curriculum. All they wanted
was an opt-out option for their kids with regard to the tranny curriculum
the school is pushing on very young children-- an option they actually
*had* to begin with until most of the kids in the school were opted-out
by their parents, at which point the school revoked the opt-out option.

I know it's not the issue in Mahmoud v. Taylor. I said so in the very
mext sentence, which you cut from the quote.

I don't see parental objections to curriculum as censorship. Libraries
offer reading material as a choice but curriculum is imposed.

Is this a free exercise of religion issue, or is the issue that parents
should be free to raise their children as they see fit as long as they
aren't violating child welfare laws?

Parents could have a reasonable objection to curriculum with no religious
basis at all. When I was in junior high, the text books were so old that
there were illustrations of electrons orbiting the nucleus of an atom
in a fixed eliptical orbit like planets in a solar system. I knew this
wasn't the latest thinking, but there's no religious objection to raise.