Good morning everyone,
The U.S. Supreme Court has debated and ruled on some of the most consequential issues faced by that country over the course of its history.
And next month, a children’s picture book about a puppy at a Pride parade by a Vancouver Island author will take its place among several works at the centre of a court challenge over whether parents have the constitutional right to opt their children out of lessons involving works with LGBTQ characters.
The book in question is Robin Stevenson’s Pride Puppy!, a rhyming alphabet book that features a dog that goes to a parade with its family and breaks loose. Julie McLaughlin’s colourful illustrations show the puppy bounding through the pages depicting rainbow and transgender Pride flags and characters featuring a range of ages, races, abilities and gender identities.
The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January to hear an appeal from parents who do not want their children participating in lessons using the book in preschool and prekindergarten classes. A number of other titles taught from kindergarten through Grade 5 are also part of the case. Oral arguments are set to begin on April 22.
Stevenson said she wrote Pride Puppy! based on the experiences she and her family have had at Pride celebrations.
“Sadly, that’s exactly why this book about a puppy at a parade is being challenged: because it includes LGBTQ+ families,” she said in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail’s Andrea Woo. “It has been extremely disturbing to see the campaign of misinformation and outright lies about a joyful children’s book.”
Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland’s largest school district, introduced the book at the start of the 2022-23 school year as part of its efforts to “provide a culturally responsive … curriculum that promotes equity, respect and civility,” lawyers for the district said in court documents.
But some parents objected, saying in a court document that they “object to the introduction of concepts of gender identity, sexuality, and transgenderism to their elementary-aged children”, and that these concepts are contrary to their religious convictions. With Pride Puppy!, they took particular issue with a search-and-find word list at the back of the book where young readers could look for, among other things, illustrations of a “[drag] queen,” “leather,” and “underwear.”
While initially, parents could simply opt their children out during the lessons involving the books in question, the school district later reversed course, citing high absenteeism and challenges in accommodating the requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.
The parents then sued and sought an injunction that would allow them to withdraw their children as the case played out.
A district court denied their motion and an appeals court affirmed, saying that “simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one’s religious faith requires.”
Stevenson has written 35 books and said she was surprised that Pride Puppy! would end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court.
She said she believes most authors of LGBTQ inclusive books for young readers have experienced online hate and harassment, as she has, and that it can get worse when the books are challenged.
“When far-right media outlets pick up these stories, the result is usually a flood of hateful and sometimes threatening messages on social media and e-mail,” Stevenson said.
“These vile and abusive messages have made it clear to me that book bans are not just about religious views or parental concern about what they’re reading; they are also fuelled by dangerous hatred and bigotry.”
Other books targeted in the legal challenge tell the stories of a girl meeting her uncle’s husband-to-be, a prince falling in love with a knight as they battle a dragon, a girl feeling nervous about giving her crush a Valentine, and a transgender boy sharing his gender identity with his family, according to court documents.
Mark Iype wrote this edition of the newsletter. This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to include an attributed quotation from court documents to report complaints that a group of parents made about the book Pride Puppy!