District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis denied a motion to dismiss as to a school district’s “official” twitter “StaffPride” account. Why, you may wonder, would a school district have an official Pride account. That was at the heart of the matter.

In October 2022, the School Board announced the introduction of LGBTQIA+-themed books into the MCPS [Montgomery County Public Schools] curriculum. In response, several parents sought permission from MCPS for their children to “opt out” of any classroom instruction involving these books.

At first, it appeared that MCPS would permit this opt-out alternative. On March 22, 2023, MCPS confirmed that parents could choose to have their children read other material in lieu of the LGBTQIA+ books. But the next day, the School Board reversed course and informed parents that no such opt-out alternative would be available, nor would MCPS notify parents when classroom instruction would involve LGBTQIA+-themed materials.

Parents and pundits who thought the district’s action wrong sought to challenge the district’s denying them access to a school board meeting and being blocked by the school’s Pride twitter account. They lost the former, but prevailed as to the latter. The question that remains is why the Montgomery County school district would introduce LGBTQIA+-themed books at all. Had there previously been a mandate to introduce heterosexual themed books which needed undoing?

Assuming this has nothing to do with math or science, which may be a terribly wrong assumption, why not mandate that students read great literature without regard to sexuality?

But as dubious a choice as the Montgomery County school board made, it pales in comparison to the mandate of a new law in Louisiana.

In June, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, a Republican, signed a bill mandating that all public school classrooms display a poster of the Ten Commandments. Just over a week later, Oklahoma’s State Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters declared that “every teacher, every classroom in the state will have a Bible in the classroom and will be teaching from the Bible in the classroom,” later telling PBS News Hour, “the separation of church and state appears nowhere in the Declaration of Independence or Constitution.”

It’s true that the words “separation of church and state” appear nowhere in the Constitution. It’s also true that the First Amendment Establishment Clause prohibits this, and there’s no doubt given the Supreme Court’s 1980 decision in Stone v. Graham. Are they worried that they will lose in court? No. No they are not.

“Look, there are people that don’t believe in our Constitution and we can post that on the walls,” Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told Newsmax in June. “This is a document that has historical roots in our country’s foundations. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that.”

“If we get sued and we get challenged, we will be victorious,” Walters told PBS News Hour. “The Supreme Court justices [Donald Trump] appointed actually are originalists that look at the Constitution and not what some left-wing professor said about the Constitution.”

This is the depth of legal analysis that comes from sniffing one’s own farts. But I digress. Both teams have turned classrooms into a battleground for the hearts and minds of children. Both teams have introduced “subject matter” that has no place in the classroom under any circumstances.

Sure, reading and writing and ‘rithmatic may be a bit too simplistic to dictate the curriculum anymore, but the fact remains that students aren’t doing all that well with these core academic subjects. And yet, the concern isn’t whether Johnny can add two plus two and come up with four, but whether he can come up with anything at all.

One of the most potent arguments for extreme change is to “do it for the children.” Most of the time, it’s a logical fallacy, an appeal to emotion in order to divert attention from the wrongfulness of the “fix” the proponent is trying to sell. Nevertheless, I’m going to employ the mantra and contend that the unduly passionate on both sides keep their mitts off the kids and their noses out of the classroom. It’s deeply disturbing that we’re raising a generation of students who can recite dogma from memory but have never read Shakespeare or heard of an isosceles triangle.

It’s bad enough that putative adults are at war over their respective ideologies. But when these ideologies produce students graduating from public schools without the ability to read, write or solve simple math problems, we have failed them and failed ourselves. Take this battle to bias our babies out of the classroom. Do it for the children.