Federal Court: No Parent Notification on Gay-Themed Books OK 

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Joan Oleck -- School Library Journal, 2/6/2008 2:05:00 PM

A federal appeals court in Massachusetts has ruled that an elementary school may use children's books that encourage tolerance for gays without notifying caretakers in advance.

The parents of three children in Lexington, MA, had argued that such notification was justified under the U.S. Constitution's Free Exercise Clause and their parental and privacy due-process rights.

At issue were the books King and King (2002) by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland; Who's in a Family? (1995, both Ten Speed) by Robert Skutch and Laura Nienhaus; and Molly's Family (Farrar, 2004) by Nancy Garden and Sharon Wooding.

Two couples, David and Tonia Parker, and Joseph and Robin Wirthlin, who have children attending Estabrook Elementary School, argued in U.S. District Court that their families' religious views had been undercut. Their objection centered on the lack of notification, not the issue of using the books as part of a nondiscrimination curriculum. 

The court's Jan. 31 decision in Parker v. Hurley rejected the notification argument, finding no precedent for a constitutional right to exempt children in public schools from exposure to books about gays. "There is no free-exercise right to be free from any reference in public elementary schools to the existence of families in which the parents are of different gender combinations," the court wrote.

Sarah Wunsch, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, which filed an amicus brief in the case, said in various interviews that school administrators and teachers might "take heart from the decision and not be afraid in the future to use materials showing diverse families."