WASHINGTON (BP) – The U.S. Supreme Court issued a win for parental rights Monday (March 2) when it blocked, for now, a California state law that bans automatic notification of parents if their child changes pronouns or gender expression at school.
A federal judge had blocked the law last month, claiming it harmed potentially vulnerable students as well as their parents “by depriving them of the long-recognized Fourteenth Amendment right to care, guide, and make healthcare decisions for their children, and by substantially burdening many parents’ First Amendment right to train their children in their sincerely held religious beliefs.”
Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission celebrated Monday’s Supreme Court decision.
“This emergency appeal ruling rightly put parents, and not school officials or the state of California, back in the driver’s seat regarding their children’s sexual and gender identity,” said ERLC Chief of Staff Miles Mullin. “This is right and proper, conforming to what the Bible teaches regarding the role of parents in raising their children, something the ERLC has been advocating for both in the legislature and the courts for years.”
The Thomas More Society, a religious liberty law firm that represented the parents challenging the law, called it “the most significant parental rights ruling in a generation.”
“This is a watershed moment for parental rights in America,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society and partner at LiMandri and Jonna LLP. “The Supreme Court has told California and every state in the nation in no uncertain terms: you cannot secretly transition a child behind a parent’s back. The Court’s landmark reaffirmation of substantive due process, its vindication of religious liberty, and its approval of class-wide relief together set a historic precedent that will dismantle secret gender transition policies across the country.”
The six-justice majority said in the ruling: “The parents who assert a free exercise claim have sincere religious beliefs about sex and gender, and they feel a religious obligation to raise their children in accordance with those beliefs. California’s policies violate those beliefs.”
The court’s three liberal justices said there was no need for the Supreme Court to weigh in at this stage of the process and the court “owes it to a sovereign State to avoid throwing over its policies in a slapdash way. …”
This week’s decision essentially keeps in place the lower court’s January ruling and puts a hold on the law while it continues to work its way through the courts.
The law will likely end up at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and possibly back to the Supreme Court for a full hearing.
“This is a good signal from the court regarding where they stand on this issue and leaves us hopeful that they will agree to hear either Foote v. Ludlow or Littlejohn v. School District of Leon and rule on this issue once and for all,” Mullin said.
Mullin recommended the ERLC resource ‘‘Teach Them Diligently to Your Children: A Biblical and Theological Foundation for Parental Rights’” for anyone looking to learn more about the issue.
