Lexington C.A.R.E.S.The lawsuit filed last week against Lexington school officials is a baseless, discriminatory effort by a few parents to frighten teachers, interfere with public education, and censor classrooms and books to suit one religion over others.
The American Civil Liberties Union has long defended freedom of religion for a variety of religious groups. But that right has never meant that individual parents could demand prior notice of discussions in the public schools that might be at odds with one group's religious views.
The plaintiffs in the case are parents who claim that their right to religious freedom is violated when the Lexington schools include gay or lesbian people in discussions, or depict them in books. The parents object to any discussion that mentions same-sex couples, alleging that such speech violates the parents' religious views which are governed by the "laws of the God of Abraham."
This case at its core is about the freedom of the public schools to act in their best judgment to educate all of our children, regardless of where that child comes from or who her parents are. Public education cannot function if there has to be prior notice to fit every parent's individual religious beliefs. And prior notice, like any other prior restraint on speech, has a chilling effect on our classrooms and teachers.
If schools have to cater to the competing religious beliefs of all parents, there would be no end to the number of books that would be off limits or require advance notice before being discussed. The Harry Potter series - which some object to on religious grounds because it includes magic and sorcery - is a prime example.
And consider religions that prohibit the portrayal of images that depict men and women together. Would we provide prior notice and opt out to someone who objects on moral or religious grounds to the use of any discussion about or book showing heterosexual parents or a heterosexual couple getting married? And by such logic, couldn't parents demand advance notice and an opt-out before our children read or discuss such tales as Sleeping Beauty - a story about an unmarried princess who is awakened by a kiss and runs off with a prince she's hardly met?
Nor is there any merit to the plaintiffs' claim that Lexington school officials violated state law by not giving the parents prior notice of the use of two children's books, one about two men who marry and one about the diversity of families, including one family headed by a same-sex couple. Massachusetts' law requires prior parental notice and the right to opt out when a school will use a curriculum that primarily involves human sexual education or human sexuality issues.
Most people can see that a book about different kinds of families is not sex education. Imagine if parents who objected to interracial marriage had filed a lawsuit against a school using a book about a black person marrying a white person. No one would say that book was about sex or sexuality issues simply because it portrays two people as getting married.
Moreover, many Lexington students have parents or relatives who are lesbian or gay, and it's unfair for the school to be denied the ability to teach books that includes families like theirs. All students deserve to have their families represented in classroom reading materials, and not to have something as fundamental as their basic family structure singled out as being "off limits" for some in a classroom discussion by their peers.
Fortunately, courts have uniformly held that parental rights are not violated by mere exposure of public school students to ideas that certain parents find offensive or objectionable.
In 1995, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected a similar claim, cautioning "If all parents had a fundamental constitutional right to dictate individually what the schools teach their children, the schools would be forced to cater a curriculum for each student whose parents had genuine moral disagreements with the school's choice of subject matter. We cannot see that the Constitution imposes such a burden on state educational systems, and accordingly find that the rights of parents ... do not encompass a broad-based right to restrict the flow of information in the public schools."
The ACLU of Massachusetts was co-counsel in this case, representing a parent and a physician who had been sued for helping to bring an AIDS education assembly to Chelmsford High School. That lawsuit was thrown out as without merit.
I might object to some of the ideas that my children are exposed to in school, or the way history or biology is taught. My options are to voice my disagreement with school officials and, if I can't convince them that my ideas about the curriculum are right, I can talk to my kids about how my views are different. I can give them alternative materials that convey our family's values and beliefs.
Ultimately if my disagreements are severe enough, I can take my kids out of the public schools. Parents have a constitutional right to send their children to private schools or home school them. But they cannot use their personal religious beliefs to demand prior notice of everything that will be discussed or read in the classroom. If we go down that road, our schools and our children will be the poorer for it.
Carol Rose is a Lexington resident and executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.