(LifeSiteNews) — Joining me on this episode of The John Henry Westen Show are Grace Morrison, a Catholic mother of seven and a plaintiff in a key parental rights case before the Supreme Court, along with William Haun, senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who is representing the plaintiffs.
We discussed their fight at the U.S. Supreme Court to allow parents to opt their children out of reading radical pro-LGBT books, her experiences raising a devout Catholic family, which includes two sons who are now Catholic priests and one currently in seminary, and more.
After discussing some of Morrison’s insight into raising a faithful Catholic family, I turned to the Mahmoud v. Taylor case currently before the Supreme Court in which she is a plaintiff. Morrison and the other plaintiffs are fighting for the right of Montgomery County, Maryland, parents to opt their children out of reading pro-LGBT books that promote same-sex romance and gender “transitioning” in public schools.
READ: Supreme Court signals support for parents fighting to opt out of LGBT school lessons
I asked her what she found when she reviewed the content of these books. Morrison explained that when her daughter was just 10 years old, she heard from a neighbor about these LGBT books being introduced into their children’s curriculum, which prompted her to investigate further.
“I quickly went and started to investigate what was going on and found out that, in fact, Montgomery County had decided that they were introducing these books. And originally, there was an opt-out/in notification in place, and they made an overnight, brazen decision that they were removing the opt-out parental rights, and they were not going to notify us,” she said.
Morrison highlighted some of the inappropriate themes she found in these LGBT books.
“I was astounded that they would be presenting these materials to three, four, five [year-old] elementary school children where one of the books is called Pride Puppy,” she said. “And this one was presented in my daughter’s class, but I kept her home because, by the grace of God, I found out.”
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“[The book] goes through the alphabet, where it’s basically a family of two moms and some children going to a pride parade, and they have them go through the alphabet,” she added. “Well, some of the things that they are having them identify and look for are, ‘U is for underwear,’ ‘L is for leather.’”
Morrison emphasized that while these inappropriate books being taught to children is concerning enough, the teachers would then discuss these books with the children without informing the parents what those discussions entailed.
“The teachers and the schools would not let us know what the lesson plan is that goes along … with the book,” she said. “So it was one thing that this content is so inappropriate and another that the teachers were instructed … to advocate for this gender ideology.”
“So it wasn’t that they were remaining neutral, [they were] advocating for this too,” she added.
I turned to Haun and asked him if not allowing parents to opt out of this curriculum is even legal, to which he immediately responded, “No.” He dove into how Montgomery County allows parental opt-outs from nearly all school curriculum, except oddly enough, these LGBT books.
“It really is extraordinary. Montgomery County had allowed opt-outs to these books initially, just like they allow opt-outs to everything in their curriculum: Halloween parties, Valentine’s Day, band class. You can get alternative reading assignments in some cases,” he said. “And like I said, initially, you could even get opt-outs as to these books. But then … without any public explanation in March of 2023, the rug was just pulled out from underneath the parents. And going forward, they wouldn’t even be told when these books would be read.”
“That was for a reason. It’s not because the children are just learning literacy, as the board is now trying to tell the Supreme Court, or helping with sentence structure, as it’s also said in court,” he added. “What was actually told to the teachers by the board is that the goal of these books is to disrupt a child’s ‘either/or’ thinking on sex and gender.”