New Jersey Democrats introduce a bill that would force homeschooling parents to teach pro-LGBTQ lessons

According to the great, totally-accurate (sarc) AI, around 6 to 7 percent of U.S. students are now home-schooled.  That's about 3.7 million kids--about double what it was before the Chyna virus lockdowns.

This is a HUGE vexation to the public-school regime because public schools get state and federal dollars based in part on how many students they have.  For example, the state of New York averages about $33,000 per K-12 student per year, while NYC is even more outrageous, at $44,000 per student. (The U.S. average is a bit over $17,000 per year.)

So if the public-school machine can force, say, two MILLION students to abandon home-schooling for the public machine, that's an average of $34 BILLION more per year for public indoctrination centers.  Wow!  So it should be obvious that the "public ed" machine is doing everything it can to make home-schooling harder for parents to do.

And now corrupt "lawmakers" in New Jersey have introduced a bill to do just that.  The proposal, which is still under review, would force homeschooling parents to submit a curriculum that matches state learning standards.  And by "learning" they mean being taught such bullshit as "gender identity," sexual orientation, DEI and global warming.  Ohh, sorry: "climate change."

The bill would require parents wanting to home-school to submit a portfolio of student work every year to be evaluated by either a teacher or a licensed psychologist.

This is "thought police" territory.  Most people would consider it reasonable to make kids pass the same state proficiency test (if any) that public-school students take.  But dictating indoctrination on "gender identity," sexual orientation, DEI and climate change?  No way.

New Jersey Dem lawmakers say they're "studying the proposal," but other sources say "It's a bill."  My guess is that "studying" is the soothing Narrative for "We need a few months to get our media allies to pump out a hundred stories about how bigoted and uninformed homeschooled kids are, to pump up support for this POS."

Pro-tranny, pro-gay Democrat lawmakers are accustomed to doing whatever the hell they want when it comes to religious parents (who are far more likely to homeschool their kids, for obvious reasons).  So the moment they have enough votes to pass the thing, they'll happily do so.  

What they may not realize is that barely three months ago (June) the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that parents have the right to withdraw their children from pro-LGBTQ indoctrination in schools if that indoctrination conflicts with the parents' religious beliefs.  Let's take a look:

In November of 2022 the Montgomery County Board of Education--in super-blue Maryland--approved several pro-LGBTQ books starting in pre-K and adding a new book each year thru 5th grade.  To camouflage the pro-LGBTQ thrust the books were described as "supplemental curriculum for the language arts program."   How could anyone be upset about "language arts," eh?

The school board cunningly didn't require teachers to use any of the books, knowing that no teacher would dare to NOT use them.  Clever, eh?

Now watch the as the predictable script unfolded: At first the schools notified parents before the books would be used, and allowed children to "opt out" of the indoctrination if their parents asked.  But as more parents learned about the pro-LGBTQ lessons and began to opt-out, the school board started to bristle.  And less than five months after introducing the policy (March 2023) the school board announced that no student would be able to decline the indoctrination ("opt out") "for any reason." 

The plaintiffs then petitioned a federal District Court in Maryland, claiming the school board’s new no-opt-out policy infringed their right to the free exercise of their religion.  In August 2023, judge Deborah Boardman denied the parents' request for a preliminary injunction that would restore the opt-out policy.  

Her "reasoning" is classic horseshit: "[Even] without an opt-out right, the parents remain free to...instruct their children in their faiths," Boardman wrote.  Wow, how totally kind of ya to give 'em that permission, your worship.

She continued: 

 "Even if their children’s exposure to religiously offensive ideas makes the parents’ efforts less likely to succeed, that does not amount to a government-imposed burden on their religious exercise."

Translation: Forced indoctrination, by government schools, is NOT a "government- imposed burden."

The plaintiffs appealed to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in May of last year two judges of a 3-judge panel voted to uphold the lower court's amazingly flawed ruling.  The appelate court found no evidence that the schools compelled families to either change or violate their religious beliefs (which of course was neither the claim nor the point of the lawsuit).  Judge G. Steven Agee wrote, "simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires."

So two judges ruled that schools can force your kids to listen to pro-LGBTQ indoctrination because that's "merely hearing about other views," which does NOT "necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than" the parents' faith requires.  Wow.

After two losses most parents would give up rather than continue to pay the legal costs of continuing.  But these parents continued to the Supreme Court.

But now, instead of quoting the totally worthless reasoning of the two lower courts (especially the lie that "merely" being forced to "hearing about" radical anti-religious views that the appeals court claimed didn't "necessarily exert pressure," lawyers for the school board changed tactics, this time claiming the "growing number of opt-out requests caused three problems: high student absenteeism, the infeasibility of administering opt-outs "across classrooms and schools," and the risk of exposing "students who believe the storybooks represent them and their families"--i.e. gay and trans students--"to social stigma and isolation." 

Those seem like weak arguments for forced indoctrination, but the school board went one better, saying board members decided to stop letting students opt out because schools were getting "too many requests *not* based on religion."

If I'd been a Supreme Court justice I would have said "Let's see some evidence that you had LOTS of parents objecting for non-religious reasons."  I suspect the board never asked the parents their reasons.  Would have been amusing to watch. 

I think the lawyers for the school board expected an easy win, because courts have given so-called "educators" almost unlimited power over students and parents.  But this time something was different: the case was Mahmoud v. Taylor, and the named plaintiff represented a LOT of local Muslims.

Had the case been brought solely by Christian parents, chances are good that the Supreme Court would have upheld the two lower courts and ruled for the school board.  But with Muslims as plaintiffs, the Court seems to have looked more closely, to avoid charges that it was anti-Muslim.  And it voted 6-3 that the school couldn't make children listen to pro-LGBT lessons if their parents objected.

Sotomayor's dissent is a classic strawman.  She wrote,

"This Court has made clear that mere exposure to objectionable ideas does not give rise to a free exercise claim.  Simply being exposed to beliefs contrary to your own does not “prohibit” the “free exercise” of your religion.  Countless interactions that occur every day in public schools might expose children to messages that conflict with a parent’s religious beliefs."

Of course what plaintiffs are objecting to isn't casual "mere exposure to objectionable ideas."  Nor did the plaintiffs ever claim that exposure (forced or otherwise) prohibited students from the free exercise of their religion.  But unlike the "countless interactions that occur every day in public schools," this is forced, and then there will be tests with only certain answers being "right."  Those were the issues, which Sotomayor's dissent totally avoided.  Instead it knocked down claims the plaintiffs didn't make.

The decision in Mahmoud seems squarely on point with the proposed New Jersey law that would force parents of homeschooled kids to teach the same pro-LGBTQ lessons to their kids that the schools were teaching--which would seem to violate the parents free-speech rights just as the court ruled in Mahmoud v. Taylor.  (Hint: compelled speech isn't free speech.)  

You might think that at least a few New Jersey lawmakers would examine the court's 6-3  decision and avoid passing a law compelling speech just after the court ruled against that in Mahmoud.  But leftist governments have a huge advantage of not having to pay the legal costs of defending a bad law in court.  Instead the taxpayers are forced to cover the costs.  So my guess is that the liberal moonbats who run New Jersey will pass this law even if it's likely to be overturned on appeal.

Democrats want to force all children to submit to LGBTQ indoctrination by schools.  And if parents don't like it, school boards don't care.  And if New Jersey passes a law to force indoctrination--as seems likely--and that law is overturned by the SC, I suspect Dem-ruled school boards will keep trying--forcing taxpayers to pay the legal bills--since the school boards aren't penalized in any way.

Source for SC decision: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_v._Taylor