You don't have to be Christian (or conservative) to love parental rights

Biology trumps feelings, argues this Freedom Island book not usually found in school libraries.

Parental rights apply to everyone, writes Robert P. George, a Princeton professor of jurisprudence, in First Things. Progressives should remember that before they complain about the U.S. Supreme Court's Mahmoud ruling, which gave parents the right to opt children out of pro-LGBTQ lessons and storybook readings.

In the Montgomery County, Maryland case, conservative parents of different religions complained about lessons that violated their right to raise their children by their own values.

George imagines a Louisiana district that requires all preschool and elementary students to participate in a "family life" curriculum that promotes traditional conceptions of sexuality, marriage and family.

The pre-K book is an alphabet storybook about a family whose dog gets loose as they attend a march in support of the traditional view of marriage as the permanent and exclusive union of one man and one woman. As the dog makes his way around the rally, he learns the alphabet from march attendees: C is for Chastity, F is for Fidelity, and M is for Monogamy. The third-grade book is about a brave statesman whose evil king punishes him for his principled refusal to celebrate the king’s decision to divorce the queen and marry another woman; the fifth-grade book features a boy who, after peer pressure, starts to think he might be a girl — but who, with the support of his parents, eventually realizes that his male sex is an innate and unchangeable part of who he is.

Progressive parents sue the school district. They'd lose by arguing that the curriculum is represents “indoctrination into Christian morality,” writes George. "Governments have both the right and duty to craft public policy based on substantive conceptions of morality and the human good, and the notion of morally neutral public education is in any case an utter fiction."

But they'd win by asserting the natural right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children, he writes. They would not need need, as in Mahmoud, to assert their religious rights had been infringed. "The broader principle of parental rights applies to everyone — religious and non-religious parents, conservatives and progressives, alike."

Schools worried about a "Pandora's Box" of opt-out paperwork may "remove controversial content from the curriculum to avoid confrontations with parents," writes Devin Dwyer on ABC News.

"This decision could have a chilling effect," said Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, the nation's largest union of public school teachers, "and could lead to more educators self-censoring, shelving books and lessons, and preventing some already marginalized students from being seen and acknowledged."

If lots of parents object to the curriculum -- Montgomery County officials complained of too many opt-out requests to handle before changing the policy -- then maybe it makes sense to respect their wishes. Parents who want their preschool-to-fifth-graders reading about transgender and gay children can check those books out of the public library and read them at home.