Parents and teachers who oppose the state policies sued, claiming their parental, free speech and religious rights were violated.
The Supreme Court on Monday barred California from enforcing state rules that restrict when schools can notify parents about students who come out as transgender and requires teachers to use children’s preferred pronouns.
The court, on a 6-3 vote on ideological lines, allowed a federal judge’s ruling in favor of parents who oppose the policy on religious grounds to go into effect. The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had put the judge’s decision on hold pending further litigation.
The court’s ruling focused on the parents’ claim that their rights under the free exercise clause of the Constitution’s First Amendment were violated. The court also said they have valid parental rights claims under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
If your kid talks to someone else about something major and important to their lives BEFORE you, you have probably already fucked up as a parent and probably betrayed trust a number of times already. Or been a raging reactionary about something and you have to deal with the consequences of your own behavior by not being a part of your kid’s personal life.
Either way, if a kid is old enough to talk about mature subjects about themselves and their lives with anyone, they’re also old enough to decide who they feel safe enough to talk to.
This society broadly is riding a really weird line between if we’re protecting our kids to the point of treating them like they have no agency at all. Parents have a knee-jerk reactionary behavior that makes them decide protecting a child also means absolutely neutering their ability to make decisions and feel like humans. Make it make sense.