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<\/picture>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\nSt. Louis Park\u2019s devout Somali Muslim community is a \u2018vibrant and growing part\u2019 of the city’s population.\u00a0 Earlier this year, national media celebrated that Nadia Mohamed became America\u2019s first Somali-American mayor. I doubt they\u2019re celebrating now.<\/p>\n
St. Louis Park\u2019s Muslims mainly hew to Islamic teaching that homosexuality is immoral<\/em>, and they don\u2019t like it much when woke schools give their young children books graphically depicting homosexual acts. So far, this story sounds a lot like other similar \u2018book banning\u2019 stories over the last couple years, like Moms for Liberty\u2019s famous\/infamous efforts to limit atypical sexualized content in public schools.<\/p>\n But the Somali parents are taking the argument all the way to its logical endpoint, setting up a vast, unpredictable battle. It is an argument that Christian parents have, for whatever reason, so far avoided making, possibly because of the implications if an eventual Supreme Court decision went the wrong way.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s start at the beginning.<\/p>\n Years ago, St. Louis Park elected several gay school board members. Since then, the district libraries have swollen with material that most parent consider gross if not outright revolting. Gay parents argue that every grocery magazine cover glorifies heterosexual content, and nobody complains about that<\/em>, so giving school kids cartoons showing little boys performing oral sex on each other is only fair.<\/p>\n \u201cLove is love,\u201d they claim.<\/p>\n (For the record, that is a demonic lie. Sex is not<\/em> love, and love is not<\/em> sex. Just ask the entrepreneurial, fifth-wave feminists on OnlyFans. But I digress.)<\/p>\n So six Somali families hired The First Liberty Institute, a conservative, Texas\u2013based law firm that has litigated several high-profile First Amendment cases, like defending a high school football coach fired for praying on the field after games, a cake shop owner who refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding, a Muslim inmate denied a religious meal, and a Jewish family trying to place a religious symbol on their relative\u2019s grave in a government-owned cemetery.<\/p>\n So far, First Liberty\u2019s lawyers have only sent the school district a demand letter, but the remarkable part of the story is the legal theory they\u2019re arguing.<\/p>\n A 1993 Minnesota law requires school districts to provide a \u201cparental curriculum review\u201d process. Under the law, districts must<\/em> allow parents to review instructional materials and, if parents object, schools must \u201cmake reasonable arrangements with school personnel for alternative instruction.\u201d<\/p>\n That language could not possibly be more clear.<\/p>\n The Somali parents want the school district to follow the law. They want some reasonable arrangements for their children to receive alternative instruction, instead of cartoon manuals instructing kids how to have gay sex. They just wanted to opt-out<\/em>:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is disheartening that these books were introduced to our children without our knowledge or consent, leaving us with no recourse to opt out,\u201d (a woman named Ilhan told the St. Louis Park school board). \u201cOur request is simply to be informed in advance when materials related to sexuality and LGBTQ identity are included in the curriculum, along with the option to exempt our children from those specific lessons.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n But school board members, advised by compliant staff lawyers, argued that the Minnesota Supreme Court has never interpreted the plain language of the curriculum statute in light of more recent Minnesota laws, like its Human Rights Act, which \u2014 to them \u2014 seem to conflict with each other, because the HRA bars discrimination against gay students.<\/p>\n In the school board\u2019s view, allowing Muslim students to opt-out of gay material might hurt some gay students\u2019 feelings, which would would be catastrophic<\/em>, thereby unconscionably discriminating against gay folks writ large. Just like Nazis<\/em>. (Except for Ukrainian Nazis, those are the good ones.)<\/p>\n This is where the stakes in the conflict got turned up to Spinal Tap\u2019s famous Number-11 setting. The Somali Muslim parents carefully and respectfully invoked their Constitutional religious liberty.<\/em> As Ilhan explained, handily wielding the awkward woke vocabulary:<\/p>\n \u201cWe wholeheartedly respect the importance of affirming LGBTQ identities, but we are troubled by the way these books have been presented to our children,\u201d Ilhan said. \u201cThe manner in which they have been taught appears to exceed the boundaries of affirmation, urging every child to delve into their own understanding of gender and sexuality. This approach, we believe, directly conflicts with our deeply held religious beliefs.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The reason this argument is so very stakes-raising is that, by invoking the U.S. Constitution, they bypassed all the potential arguments over any conflicts between parents\u2019 rights under Minnesota\u2019s curriculum statutes and the state\u2019s Human Rights Amendment preventing gay students from potentially getting their feelings hurt.<\/p>\n Unless this gets resolved soon, out of court, the dispute tees up the final conflict<\/em>\u2014 over school textbooks \u2014 between the rights of religious parents under the First Amendment and the rights of gay secular parents under the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments. After 9\/11, democrats adopted Muslims into the party\u2019s Neo-marxist coalition of victim groups. So black Somali Muslims currently wear suits of political armor (that Christian parents lack) and the case can proceed on the merits<\/em>, without all the usual character assassination and bad-motive-imputation.<\/p>\n Much can be learned from these Somali parents\u2019 strategies. I\u2019d put this story squarely into the \u2018counter-revolution\u2019 category. Will the Supreme Court find that Muslim parents\u2019 deeply-held religious convictions trump the potential<\/em> for gay students to get hurt feelings when other kids aren\u2019t required to read LGBTQ+ material in public schools?<\/p>\n