Friends,

Parents all over the country are dropping their children off for the first day of school. These August days always carry their share of anxieties. “Will my child make friends?” “Will they succeed?” But no parent should have to worry about their child being taught lessons that are age-inappropriate or that directly undermine the religious values being instilled at home.

Unfortunately, in Montgomery County, Maryland, public school parents have been facing those very concerns. But they are fighting back. In May, Becket filed a lawsuit on behalf of Muslim, Catholic, and other Christian parents of Montgomery County school children who simply want to opt their children out of mandatory lesson plans based on “Pride” storybooks. These books, being assigned to children as young as 4 years old, promote a one-sided gender ideology, encourage gender transitioning, and focus excessively on sexuality and romance.

For example, one book tasks three- and four-year-olds to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “[drag] queen,” “underwear,” “leather,” and the name of a celebrated LGBTQ activist and sex worker. Another encourages fifth graders to discuss what it means to be “non-binary.” Other books advocate a child-knows-best approach to gender transitioning, telling students that a decision to transition doesn’t have to “make sense” and that doctors only “guess” when identifying a newborn’s sex anyway.

When the Montgomery County School Board first rolled out its “inclusivity” curriculum, it assured concerned parents they would be notified when the books were read and could opt their children out. But after realizing just how many families were uncomfortable with the Pride storybooks, in March 2023 the School Board announced it would no longer honor requests to opt-out or even notify parents about the lessons.

In doing so, the Board violated the parents’ First Amendment rights, as well as Maryland law and their own school board policies. Yesterday a federal district court ruled that parents have no right to be notified when their elementary school children will be taught lessons about complex and sensitive issues of gender and sexuality. With the school year beginning, the case is on a fast track to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Becket will continue fighting until Montgomery County parents feel assured that their parental rights and religious freedom will be respected when they drop their kids off at school.

What's happening at Becket

Will they ever learn? Last week we filed a lawsuit against the state of Colorado for implementing a universal preschool program that excludes religious schools. We represent St. Mary's and St. Bernadette's Catholic parishes that operate preschools now disadvantaged by having to compete with the State’s subsidy. The Supreme Court has three times in the past six years affirmed that states cannot cut off generally available funding from religious schools. Parents should be free to send their children to schools where they will be formed in the faith as well as the secular subjects without having to forego a government benefit.

Playing keep-away. A Catholic school’s 10-year legal battle just drew to a favorable close with a win from the New Jersey Supreme Court. The court ruled that, under state law, the school is permitted to require teachers to abide by Catholic teaching. This win for church autonomy demonstrates the trickle-down effect of our Supreme Court victories. As counsel for the plaintiff explained in the New York Times, there will be no appeal “because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s record on similar issues” and because the New Jersey Supreme Court decided the case under state law. Becket had a hand in the victory, arguing the case before the New Jersey Supreme Court in April.

Keep your distance. Earlier this month we filed a cert petition before the Supreme Court in a case called Vitagliano v. County of Westchester. We represent a pro-life sidewalk counselor who was prevented by a local law from coming within 8-feet of a person entering an abortion clinic to offer her message of hope. The law is a clear violation of the First Amendment, but it is permitted thanks to a bad Supreme Court precedent called Hill v. Colorado. In Vitagliano we intend to take down Hill and restore First Amendment rights to sidewalk counselors who wish to engage with vulnerable women outside of abortion clinics the same way a Planned Parenthood rep might approach you on any other sidewalk in America. After we filed the case, I published a piece about it in National Review and our client told her story in Newsweek.

Becket's Burke case in the news

Earlier this month we launched a case in defense of a Catholic couple in Massachusetts, Mike and Kitty Burke. They were denied a foster care license by the state because of their religious beliefs about marriage and sexuality, despite the state admitting they were otherwise stellar candidates to meet the foster care crisis in Massachusetts, with children being kept in hospital rooms because there aren't enough loving homes. The case made such a splash in the media, I thought I’d bring you the highlights:

 “No Catholics Need Adopt.” Bill McGurn’s weekly column featured the Burke’s story with a special shoutout to Becket Board Chair Bill Mumma.

 “A new puritanism is turning Catholics into Salem’s witches.” The Washington Post’s Kathleen Parker gave a stirring rebuke of Massachusetts’ discriminatory treatment.

“There is no way that state governments can exclude whole groups of religious people for having the supposedly wrong religious beliefs about sex…It’s illegal, it’s unconstitutional, and it’s going to lose.” I gave a prime time interview to Judge Jeanine Pirro on FOX News last Wednesday.

“No one’s First Amendment rights are subjected to a popularity contest.” Becket Senior Counsel Will Haun masterfully vanquishes Massachusetts’ misstep in a CNN interview.

What we’re reading

"Unity in Our Liberties”. In his response to Yuval Levin’s recent essay, “Constituting Unity”, friend-of-Becket John Inazu suggests that mutual defense of our expressive civil liberties is the best hope for American unity. In doing so, he gives a shoutout to Becket’s Supreme Court cert petition, Vitagliano v. County of Westchester, which seeks to restore constitutional speech protections for pro-life sidewalk counselors but is bafflingly not supported by historical defenders of free speech, like the ACLU. 

Where did that pesky wall come from? I’ve written before about the distortion of the proper relationship between church and state. As you may know, the “wall of separation” that is often used to justify keeping religion out of public life is not from our First Amendment or any of our founding documents but instead from a later letter written by Thomas Jefferson. That Jeffersonian view came to erroneously dominate First Amendment jurisprudence until recently. Becket has been working to restore a proper understanding of the religion clauses for many years. Natan Ehrenreich explores this tension in National Review in the context of the debate over the first Catholic charter school, opening in Oklahoma.