MARC WHEAT: Conservatives Shouldn’t Get Complacent On Gender Ideology

The Left hasn’t given up on indoctrinating America’s children. After years of openly pushing gender ideology, widespread conservative opposition, channeled through President Trump, has forced gender ideologues to hunker down.  Conservatives shouldn’t get complacent in what may prove to be nothing more than the eye of the storm.

The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in a case out of Montgomery County, Maryland called Mahmoud v. Taylor. In that case, parents are challenging their local school district’s policy prohibiting parents from opting their pre-kindergarten and elementary school-aged children out of books that promote gender ideology. These books, as the school district’s attorney admitted when pushed by Justice Neil Gorsuch, were included in the curriculum to “influence” the children. Our amicus briefs in the Mahmoud case have drawn interest across the entire spectrum of the conservative movement, from a presentation at Grover Norquist’s weekly meeting of conservatives and libertarians to the WallBuilders podcast.

The parents in Mahmoud, who are from diverse religious backgrounds, are asking the Supreme Court to uphold the right of religious parents to opt their children out of school materials that indoctrinate their children in an ideology that fundamentally conflicts with their religious values. Given the Court’s recent sympathy to religious liberty arguments, the parents’ claim is likely to succeed. For several reasons, however, a religious liberty win in Mahmoud will be only one step in the right direction.

First, if the Court limits its ruling to religious parents, the children of nonreligious parents will still be exposed to gender indoctrination. Nonreligious parents have a right to protect their children from aggressive ideologues as well. As Justice Elena Kagan