Kudos to AGs Andrew Bailey and Kris Kobach for supporting anti-LGBTQ book lawsuit | Opinion

Kindergarteners’ and second graders’ hearts and minds shouldn’t be a battleground in the culture war. I am grateful for the Republican attorneys general of Missouri and Kansas for standing up for that commonsense principle.

Andrew Bailey and Kris Kobach have done that by joining a friend of the court brief in a Maryland case where Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents have argued that they should have the right to opt their children out of LGBTQ-themed lessons and books. Two of the named plaintiffs have second graders in Maryland public schools. The dispute has echoes of local fights across the Midwest about how these topics are introduced.

The parents make their case on three grounds. The law in Maryland, like many states, says they can opt their kids out of sex education. Second, they have the right of religious freedom and the Supreme Court has recognized that parents have a right to direct the upbringing of their children. That’s not unreasonable.

At issue in the case is a handful of books adopted by a local school board as appropriate for use in classrooms of young children. I wasn’t able to read them all, but I did find some available in full online in videos where librarians read them as the pages are turned.

One such book is “Pride Puppy,” an alphabet book targeted at the preliterate set in pre-K and kindergarten. It introduces these children to the bright-colored, happy and exciting world of a gay Pride parade. Among the recurring characters in the story is a black man wearing an orange dress, green knee-highs and black stilettos. Kids are introduced to him as a “queen in a beautiful dress.” Another Q word appearing multiple times in the book is “queer.” Don’t even get me started on “two spirit,” which has something to do with Native Americans who feel like they are neither a man nor a woman, sometimes one or the other and sometimes both.

When raising my own kids, I had a hard enough time explaining why they had to eat vegetables and go to bed in the pre-logic days of Barney and the Wiggles.

Is it so unreasonable to want to let your kids grow up a little before you have to explain what a queen is and why some men like to wear dresses or why some people who used to be thought of as men are now women? How do you explain to a 5-year-old that “queer” is a word you shouldn’t say unless it applies to you; that it is simultaneously a slur and a word that is OK to be used in a kids’ book about the alphabet?

If you think I am cherry-picking, focused too much on the little details of a book whose theme is the laudable idea that the LGBTQ community deserves a safe and welcoming space in our society, I will point you to the marketing copy that says kids will be obsessing over the details themselves. “This rhyming alphabet book … will have readers poring over every detail as they spot items starting with each letter of the alphabet.” I did exactly what the publisher said the target audience will do.

While grappling with “queer” and “queen” is not appropriate for kindergarten and second grade, it sure is appropriate for high school. You can’t be a functioning adult in 21st-century society without understanding the nuances of the LGBTQIA+ community when 1 in 5 young people today say that’s what they are.

That’s why it is disappointing that conservatives have sometimes gone too far in objecting to the indoctrination of babes. Florida, for instance, took a reasonable stand with what was derisively dubbed the “don’t say gay” law when it applied to children in third grade and younger. Then with a victory in hand, they decided to apply it all the way through 12th grade which is insulting to the young adults in our schools who deserve a complete education.

Of course, if public schools were doing a stellar job of teaching the 3 Rs — writing, reading and ‘rithmetic, maybe more parents would trust them with the 2 Qs — queen and queer.

David Mastio, a former editor and columnist for USA Today, is a regional editor for The Center Square .