by WorldTribune Staff, April 29, 2025 Real World News
A Christian student is being blocked from graduating from a Maryland public school because she refuses to take an "LGBTQ+ affirming" class that is mandated by one of the most liberal county school boards in the nation.
The student, referred to in a Fox News report as "Jane," has amassed a 4.76 weighted GPA. She also scored a 1450 (96 percentile) on the SAT.
"She's pretty distraught about not being able to graduate with all her friends and experience that rite of passage," Jane's father told Fox News Digital.
The family said the student refuses to take the "religiously discriminatory" health course which is mandated by the Montgomery County Board of Education.
The family has filed a petition with the Maryland Supreme Court in hopes of bringing relief to their daughter as her senior year in high school approaches its conclusion.
The "LGBTQ+ affirming" course work had previously been limited to the schools' Family Life and Human Sexuality unit, which parents were notified of and could opt their children out of.
Jane's parents did not object to the LGBT content in the Family Life and Sexuality unit. They objected to its inclusion throughout the year-long health course.
"We are trying to get MCPS (Montgomery County Public Schools) to keep that teaching restricted to the Family Life and Human Sexuality part of the curriculum so we can get notice of it and opt-out our daughter, or if MCPS is allowed to spread LGBTQ+ instruction throughout the entire health class, as its teacher instruction materials say it is doing, it follows that MCPS should allow us to opt-out our daughter from the entire class" they wrote in a March 2024 letter to the Maryland State Board of Education. "We are trying to get MCPS to refrain from discriminating against religion."
The parents suggested Jane take the health class at a local, accredited Catholic high school or through independent study supervised by a former teacher in the MCPS system with a health education background.
MCPS rejected the suggestion, saying that Jane must be taught by a current MCPS teacher or fulfill the requirement through dual enrollment in a community college course, which her parents said was not an option because it conflicted with her high school class schedule, and it still would not have provided her protection as a minor from the curriculum they are objecting to.
Screenshots of alleged teacher training documents obtained by the parents and shared with Fox News Digital ask teachers to "review LGBTQ+ resources to incorporate more inclusive language" throughout the entire course.
The teacher guide also allegedly provides teachers with a list of "privileged" and "oppressed" people groups, in which it names "Christians" as privileged and "Non Abrahamic Religions/Spiritualities" as oppressed. A lesson invites teachers to have students identify people groups impacted by health inequities, such as "trans or gender-expansive," LGBTQ+, and "people who identify with non-Christian faiths."
The parents said they chose not to transfer their daughter out of the district in order to fight for the rights of all religious students in the district who are being compelled to take this class to graduate and whose families cannot afford the costs, transportation and time to attend private or home school.
Montgomery County Public Schools is currently involved in another high-profile religious liberty case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case surrounds the school board removing its "opt-out" for parents challenging LGBTQ story books in the classroom.
A coalition of Jewish, Christian and Muslim parents of school-age children have brought a lawsuit against the school board, alleging it is violating their religious freedoms protected under the First Amendment, by forcing their young children to participate in instruction contrary to their religious beliefs.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Tuesday in the case that could set a precedent for parents’ rights in schools across the nation. The high court’s conservative majority offered strong support to parents presenting the religious liberty case.
Support Free Press Foundation
