Pride Day

True or false: Angry Muslim parents in Maryland have joined the Religious Right?

True or false: Angry Muslim parents in Maryland have joined the Religious Right?

Faced with a throng of worried parents, Montgomery County Councilmember Kristin Mink met with a few Muslim protestors to hear their objections to the "LGBTQ+ inclusive texts" that school teachers would be using with their children.

The Maryland Democrat was not amused by what she heard.

"This issue has unfortunately put … some, not all of course, Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots," said Mink, in early June. "The folks I have talked with here today, I would not put in the same category as those folks, although, you know, it's … complicated."

Public-school efforts to promote equity, she added, are "not an infringement on, you know, particular religious freedoms."

This public statement stunned a coalition of Muslims, Orthodox Christians, evangelicals, Jews and others committed to a Maryland policy that allowed students to avoid some activities focusing on family life, gender change and same-sex relationships. These parents, for starters, objected to the use of books such as "Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope," "Rainbow Revolutionaries: Fifty LGBTQ+ People Who Made History" and "Pride Puppy!", an ABC book familiarizing preschool and kindergarten children with the sights and sounds encountered when attending Pride marches.

In the spring, Montgomery County officials limited use of the opt-out policy, while releasing a notice stating that "teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future."

Council on American-Islamic Relations leaders -- citing documents from an open-records request -- noted that officials also encouraged teachers to "scold, debate or 'disrupt the either/or thinking' of … students who express traditional viewpoints" on gender, family life and sexuality. Also, students should be instructed not to use "hurtful," "negative" words.

This parental rights battle has now moved to courtrooms, like so many other religious liberty cases that have recently reached the U.S. Supreme Court.


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Looking in a journalism mirror again: Lots of atheists will visit Bible Belt city at Easter

It's time for another look at a mirror-image question linked to religion reporting.

However, before we get to the story of the day (ignore the nearby art, please), let's start by creating a news-mirror option that turns today's journalism equation on its head.

Let's say that Pride Day is just around the corner in San Francisco and, of course, everywhere else in modern culture. But, obviously, San Francisco is at the heart of LBGTQ culture, so let's focus there. Pride Day is a holiday that approaches holy day status.

So, what would happen at some point in the future if a large convention of religious conservatives -- people who believe that sex outside of traditional marriage is a sin -- decided to hold a national convention in San Francisco that coincided with Pride Day? What if this group included people who consider themselves (trigger warning) ex-gays?

This mirror-image scenario raises two questions: (1) How would LGBTQ leaders react? And (2) how would this potential conflict be framed in local media?

Now, what about the real news story that we need to look at? Here is the top of a recent Oklahoman story -- "Christian leaders say they aren't fazed by atheists' metro gathering" -- that inspired a note from a veteran GetReligion reader:

Holy Week and Easter Sunday in the Oklahoma City metro area will not be tarnished by a national gathering of atheists, several Christian leaders said recently.
"We ought not to be threatened by people who don't believe," said the Rev. A. Byron Coleman, senior pastor of Fifth Street Missionary Baptist Church, 801 NE 5. "It doesn't reshape the narrative of the Christian Church to have an atheist convention coming to town. We're still going to have Resurrection Sunday and we're still going to eat ham after church."


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