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A Loss for Parental Rights at the Supreme Court: SCOTUS Will Not Rule on Parents’ Constitutional Right to Know Child’s Request for LGBTQ Pronoun or Name Use
These days, some of the most important news comes from the courts, some of the most important action undertaken by the courts. Most importantly, the federal courts. And, of course, there you’re looking at the District Courts going up to the Courts of Appeal, and then eventually you get to the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, from time to time, we discuss what takes place at the District Court level or at one of the U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal. Most importantly, we look at decisions and issues as they arise at the Supreme Court of the United States, simply because that is the ultimate Court of Appeal. That is the Supreme Court of the United States. But as we’re looking at some issues, it’s also important to remember that the Supreme Court has a great deal of latitude in terms of which cases it decides to hear.
The court listens to petitions, receives those petitions, and decides from a vast number of cases on appeal, which cases it will take. Now, some are almost automatic simply because of their massive constitutional urgency. Others are matters of choice. The court grants in conference, and we have no access to that conference, that’s entirely a private affair among the justices. The justices in conference look at the cases sent for appeal and they take the cases they want to take. The magic number is four. It is often referred to as the rule of four. If four justices vote to take the case, the court will hear the case and eventually decide the case, or at least hand down whatever rulings are appropriate to the case. Again, the rule of four. If four grant a writ of certiorari or vote that the court should do so, the court announces that it’s going to take the case and then it puts it on its own docket.
Now, looking at some of the most important cases, it’s interesting to note that the court has decided to take the vast majority of these cases. The court could have taken other cases, could have declined to take these cases, but the court chose the cases from what comes to them in terms of issues addressed to the federal courts. They take it because they believe it to be their proper stewardship and authority. Again, four of the nine justices are all that’s required for one of these cases to be taken. But if you have less than four, guess what? The case isn’t taken up by the court. Thus, we had big news just in recent days. When a case failed to achieve that number, we don’t know how many justices, if any, wanted to take the case. We do know that the headline passed down, for instance, as reported by USA today on Tuesday. Here’s the headline, “Supreme Court Sidesteps Pronouns Case on Trans Rights.”
Okay. This is a case that came on appeal from two parents in Massachusetts. Their complaint is that the local public schools allowed their child to pose as, present as a non-binary child. The child wanted to claim this gender queer identity not to identify with either sex or either gender. And by the way, in the national reporting, there’s no way to really know the biological sex simply because of the evasive way that the case is handled. But what we’re told nonetheless is that this child, who is a minor, clearly not of legal age, a student in the public schools, had presented to the public schools the request to be known by the initials BF. And the pronouns were very much the case, the gender queer identity very much the case.
The parents found out about it and they sued the school for not informing them of their child’s action. And, thus, you have a big parental case here, a parental rights case. It’s just as clear as can be. And so I think most of us would be quite disappointed to know that the Supreme Court didn’t muster the four votes to take the case, to offer a grant of certiorari and move forward. So we’re looking at the case that this is now going to settle back at the U.S. Court of Appeal, the circuit where the court found against these two parents. The two parents made the claim that the school system had violated their parental rights. It’s hard to imagine how that’s a weak case. It’s hard to imagine how that’s not a strong argument.
Now, when you look at this, you can say, “Well, when you have six conservative justices on the Supreme Court, does this mean that the six conservative justices have just sold out to the transgender agenda that they don’t recognize these parental rights?” No, you shouldn’t make that inference at all simply because even those who want to take this kind of case generally want to take this kind of case on the strongest facts possible. And so there are all kinds of considerations here. I will tell you that I think most of us who have a sain, not to mention biblical understanding of gender and, of course, of the role of parents, the authority of parents, the responsibility of parents, we certainly want to see the Supreme Court of the United States take, if not this case, then a case very much like it. And so it’s going to be interesting to see what goes forward.
It is also interesting to see that you have groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, that’s a very important group that defends religious liberty, expressing concern about this, saying, “The court should grant review and fix it,” meaning the situation there in the state of Massachusetts. We also gained some insider perspective on how the issue was handled by the public schools there in this Massachusetts district. We’re told this, “In 2021, the student identified in the lawsuit by the initials BF emailed teachers and other employees announcing they identified as gender queer and asking to be referred to by a new name and array of pronouns.” So, again, gender and an array of pronouns.
Following that, “After meeting with BF, the school counselor told staff the student was still in the process of sharing the information with the mother and father.” “The student asked that the school continue using BF’s legal name and female pronouns when communicating with their parents.” Again, here you see the corruption of the pronouns in more than one way. There refers to a single child here who is evidently a girl. “The counselor directed school employees to honor that request according to court records.” We’re then told the parents sued the school district saying the school violated their parental rights protected under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution.” I can only say I think these parents have a very strong case. I’m glad the Alliance Defending Freedom is in on this.
I’m disappointed that the Supreme Court did not decide to take this case, but given some of the very clear conservatives on that court, I have to imagine they may be looking at the facts in this case, the particulars, and they may be looking for a better case. But it is hard to imagine they want to avoid or evade this issue. And, furthermore, for the sanity of our society, for the protection of children and for the respecting of parental rights, it’s hard to imagine how this issue will not have to be taken up by the nation’s highest court, hopefully to set the matter aright.
What the Government Wants the Government Funds and Legislates: The State of Colorado is Pushing the LGBTQ Revolution on Parents by Coercion
Okay. Then we need to shift to a different case, and this time the Supreme Court decided to take the case. The Supreme Court has announced it is going to take up a case dealing with Roman Catholic preschool programs in the State of Colorado as Maureen Groppe of USA Today reports, “The Supreme Court will decide whether Catholic preschools in Colorado must admit LGBTQ+ families if they want to participate in the state’s tuition-free program. Another opportunity for the conservative court,” this is a bit of editorializing by USA Today, “to build on recent high profile rulings affirming the rights of religious groups.” Okay, this one, I promise you is really interesting.
So the State of Colorado has this program by which state funds go to certain preschool programs. The preschools associated with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese there are not qualified because they, according to the state, discriminate against LGBTQ persons as parents. And so when you have a situation in which the parents are LGBTQ, they present a child, well, the State of Colorado says, if the school is going to accept funds through this program, then it has to practice absolute non-discriminat
