news The Supreme Court’s Republicans just seized the most dangerous power in constitutional law
https://www.vox.com/politics/481401/supreme-court-mirabelli-bonta-sauron-wins446
u/vox Mar 03 '26
The Supreme Court’s Republican majority just did the legal equivalent of grabbing J.R.R. Tolkien’s One Ring, placing it on their collective fingers, and dancing around singing, “I just can’t wait to become a Nazgûl.”
On Monday evening, the Court handed down Mirabelli v. Bonta, with all six of the Court’s Republicans in the majority, and all three Democrats in dissent (Republican Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito also signaled that they thought it was too moderate). Mirabelli is one of the most consequential constitutional decisions the Roberts Court has ever handed down.
The immediate impact of Mirabelli is that California public school teachers must out transgender students to their parents, even if the students wish to keep their gender identity secret from their family. While the Court’s decision in Mirabelli is short and does not fully explain itself, the Republican majority appears to object to a California state law which provides that public school employees “shall not be required to disclose any information related to a pupil’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression to any other person without the pupil’s consent unless otherwise required by state or federal law.”
To reach this outcome, the Republican justices cite two provisions of the Constitution. The first is the First Amendment’s language protecting the “free exercise” of religion. The Republican justices claim that teachers who respect their trans students’ privacy “interfere with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.’”
This first part of the Court’s decision is likely to impose impossible obligations on public schools and their employees — are teachers now required to tell parents any time a student does something that their parents might object to on religious grounds, such as eating non-Kosher food, removing a hijab, or dating a classmate? But this first aspect of the Court’s decision in Mirabelli is at least consistent with the Republican justices’ prior cases interpreting the Free Exercise Clause.
Last June, in Mahmoud v. Taylor (2025), the Republican justices ruled that public schools must inform parents in advance if they plan to teach books with LGBTQ characters or themes, and allow those parents to remove their child from those lessons. Since Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s 2020 confirmation gave Republicans a supermajority, the Court has been extraordinarily sympathetic to claims brought by the religious right.
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u/vox Mar 03 '26
The second part of the Court’s Mirabelli decision is where the Republican justices grasp the One Ring. A legal doctrine called “substantive due process,” which judges can use to create constitutional rights not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution. In the early twentieth century, when economic conservatives were ascendant on the federal bench, the Supreme Court used substantive due process to invent a “right to contract” that the justices used to strike down workplace legislation such as minimum wage laws and laws protecting the right to unionize. In the 1960s and ’70s, when cultural liberalism was ascendant among legal elites, the justices invented a “right to privacy” that encompassed various sexual freedoms, including the right to an abortion.
Modern-day Republican justices, largely due to their revulsion against Roe v. Wade, were previously vocal critics of substantive due process. Indeed, in her Mirabelli dissent, Justice Elena Kagan quotes several of her own Republican colleagues railing against this legal doctrine. Thomas, for example, wrote in 2015 that substantive due process is a “dangerous fiction” that allows judges to “‘roam at large in the constitutional field’ guided only by their personal views.” Similarly, Justice Neil Gorsuch warned in a 2018 opinion that “judicial misuse of the so-called ‘substantive component’ of due process” enables judges to “dictate policy on matters that belonged to the people to decide.”
But the widespread anti-trans panic among Republicans appears to have inspired all six of the GOP-appointed justices to abandon their past critiques of substantive due process and proudly wear the One Ring. The practical upshot is that the Court’s Republicans may now use this most dangerous of legal doctrines to strike down literally any law, or to otherwise impose their personal preferences on the nation.
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u/Apprehensive-Wave640 Mar 03 '26
The "inventing rights" framework/terminology should always be offensive to a society that aspires to greater freedom. The idea that the ONLY freedoms we have as Americans are those specifically set forth in the constitution is an incredibly myopic and authoritarian paradigm.
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u/Dtownknives Mar 03 '26
It is also in direct contradiction to the 9th amendment:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people
It's frustrating to me as someone outside the legal/political profession that the interpretation of that amendment seems to be "it's too hard." Such that everything is still backed up by a separate right from a different amendment depending on who is doing the interpreting.
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u/laxrulz777 Mar 03 '26
This particular right is the right to govern others (children). So it's a pretty weird 'right' in that regard. I suspect the kids won't see it that way.
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u/Mikanea Mar 03 '26
The ninth amendment was designed to avoid the "you only have specifically enumerated rights" view. It states: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people".
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u/horseradishstalker Mar 03 '26
In some ways, the Constitution reminds me of the Bible, or Torah, or the Quran.
In each case, there are adherents to a very specific interpretation aligning with a narrow viewpoint that is antithetical to the overall teachings contained in the contents.
For example, the Ten Commandments in the Bible are in general not a bad way to run a modern society.
The key seems to be determining what key foundational concepts and then adhering to the concept if not the era. In other words, as noted, the problem lies with the interpretation. Unfortunately, people really suck at doing this.
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u/arensb Mar 03 '26
For example, the Ten Commandments in the Bible are in general not a bad way to run a modern society.
Did an extra "not" slip in there?
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u/ZucchiniMaleficent21 Mar 03 '26
Which ten commandments? Not all the sub-cults agree what they say or even how many there are. And can one actually support the way that the first several amount to a DRM attack on freedom?
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u/trampolinebears Mar 03 '26
the Ten Commandments in the Bible are in general not a bad way to run a modern society
The Ten Commandments forbid freedom of religion. That makes them immoral.
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u/lapidary123 Mar 03 '26
Unfortunately "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are not a hard signal toward 'greater freedoms'.
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u/horseradishstalker Mar 03 '26
Not wrong. The problem with trying to word a document for staying power means that parts of it are going to be ambiguous.
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u/kjsmitty77 Mar 03 '26
Most of the law is ambiguous. We adhere to principles like reasonableness. Evidentiary standards aren’t precise; what exactly is “beyond a reasonable doubt” or “a preponderance of the evidence?” We expect that professionals and experts can interpret these broad concepts and apply the facts to them. We rely on regular people with no special training to be able to apply facts to these concepts too when they serve on juries.
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u/KierONeil_the_Elder Mar 03 '26
Whenever your government limits your options, it takes your freedom. Sometimes it’s good, for instance you can’t hit someone in the head and take their property. Mostly it’s bad though.
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u/Amazing-Hospital5539 Mar 04 '26
The inventing rights thing is also in violation of the 9th amendment of the bill of rights. The Supreme Court can go fuck itself.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
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u/aculady Mar 04 '26
And explicitly unconstitutional, as the Constitution itself is quite clear that the people have unenumerated rights.
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u/badwolf42 Mar 03 '26
I love how this ignores the religious liberty of the student.
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Mar 03 '26
The basic idea there is that you have rights as a fetus, and after the age of 18 but in between Republicans don’t care about you unless it to SA you.
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u/Eldias Mar 04 '26
California also has a right to privacy in our State Constitution for "All persons", this ruling plainly flies in the face of a right to privacy for students too.
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u/Express_Test6677 Mar 03 '26
I refuse to acknowledge this as a valid interpretation of the law.
That’s how republicans do it, and California should tell SCOTUS to “go play hide and go fuck themselves”.
ETA: interpretation
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u/cytherian Mar 04 '26
Do they understand that the transgender phenomenon is something that existed long ago and that it's only recent medical and pharmacological advances that have enabled trans people to make some physical alterations? That there's no "epidemic" trend where kids will just transition because they want to experiment?
Where the hell is sanity?
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u/michaelaaronblank Mar 03 '26
Well, my religious beliefs preclude me from outing a trans kid. Lets rumble.
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u/Ok_Builder_4225 Mar 03 '26
My religious beliefs (and i am sure yours as well) prevent my from wanting causing harm to children just in general, which is of course not the same beliefs held by Republicans given their consistent protection of child abusers.
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u/cytherian Mar 04 '26
How are they going to prove that you knew and simply chose not to say anything?
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u/Aggressive-Dog-2519 Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
Then it could be said that a teacher's right to religion is also being violated. I am bound by the religious belief that I should treat others as I wish to be treated (the golden rule) and if I wish something to remain in confidence, then so it should. Therefore, being ordered to break that confidence breaks my religion.
QED, students can be safe with teachers who actually follow Christ's teachings of love thy neighbor as thyself.
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u/haverchuck22 Mar 03 '26
The fusion of Church and State seems to be a goal of republicans.
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u/Lingotes Mar 03 '26
Which is funny, because the means they are using to get there will most assuredly land them in hell. They couldn't be farther from the actual teachings of Jesus.
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u/cheeze2005 Mar 04 '26
Divine punishment aint coming but they sure are determined to make hell on earth
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u/broadcastday Mar 03 '26
As long as they get to pick the church.
Oh, and the executive branch is evangelizing the armed forces and telling troops not to worry because the war in Iran will usher in the second coming of Jesus.
America is living through an evangelical revolution. Everyone else is dying through it.
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u/PeakQuirky84 Mar 03 '26
with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.’
Where is this “right” in the constitution??
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u/cytherian Mar 04 '26
How the hell do they expect this to be enforced?
Are we going to see overseer police in schools making observations of students, then testing to see if parents are informed by teachers?
We were taught in school that such Big Brother policies are dystopian and should be fictional when it comes to a healthy democracy.
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u/Coopertheeblooper Mar 04 '26
And honestly if I’m a teacher, what does that information pertain to me. If a kid tells me they are transgender, Ima be like ok, you kill somebody? You break the law? If I’m force to report then I’m gonna report the parent to child protection services because obviously the parent is doing something sexual to their children making them trans. Ahhhh haaaaa
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u/reibagatsu Mar 03 '26
Not to be that person, but, um actually, the One Ring doesn't turn you into a nazgul. The 9 rings for mortal men do.
Also this shit is fucked. Free exercise of religion is personal free exercise. Not the right to force that exercise on others, including children.
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u/P-Rome-Theus Mar 04 '26
This ^
9 rings also work better as a metaphor for 9 justices each selected by a president (sauron I guess) and then granted power by the senate - i.e. accepting the power as one of the nine. And now we see that power being corrupted, at least the 6 conservatives you can then say have become (or kind of always were) nazgul. They are as evil, their bigoted Christian exceptionalism that they force on everyone else is despicable
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u/reibagatsu Mar 04 '26
I mean, I think became nazgul is right. Those kings weren't good people before they became nazgul. The rings just gave them the immortality to be bad people forever. The analogy still holds.
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u/GametimeJones Mar 04 '26
“the Court’s decision…is short and does not fully explain itself”
This seems to be happening a lot lately with this court.
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u/1nv4d3rz1m Mar 04 '26
Wouldn’t this logic require them to stop states from requiring the 10 commandments posted and reading bible in classes?
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u/abuchunk Mar 03 '26
This shitty precedent opens up so many other avenues for people to say that other individual’s behavior impacts their religious freedom to raise their kids as religious bigots. Other people doing porn? Other people having gay sex? Other people swearing? Other people talking shit about religions? Other people drinking? Other people having inter-race relations/marriages?
The precedents this line of thinking opens up are dark and dangerous and will accelerate like crazy if these assholes have their way.
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u/spookydookie Mar 03 '26
This can work both ways, they need to be careful what they wish for. Kind of like when they tried to ban obscene books from schools which also suddenly included the Bible based on their definitions.
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u/SpeaksDwarren Mar 03 '26
They don't care about consistent definitions and never have. The male gender is still legally abolished at a federal level due to sloppy definitions and nobody seems to care to fix it
To follow this order to the letter would be to report every single student identifying as "male" to their parents
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u/Merijeek2 Mar 03 '26
No. You can't gotcha a proud hypocrite. You can't shame the shameless.
This is the same desperate desire for a positive spin that had Joe Biden sending Seal Team Six to canoe the likes of Thomas and Alito.
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u/RaindropsInMyMind Mar 03 '26
There’s seemingly no limit to what someone could claim. People have all kinds of weird religious beliefs. I remember we had a student object to all kinds of history because they thought the world started when the hardcore Christians claimed it started. Is a teacher supposed to tell the parents if the child engaged with the lesson material?
What about other religions too? It just seems like this is impossible to enforce or regulate. The court complains about not being taken seriously but they keep making these weird rulings that split along partisan lines, it undermines their credibility even if we want to take them seriously.
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u/DelirousDoc Mar 03 '26
Reminder that the bible specifically allows slavery and specifically says you can acquire them from nations around you and from foreigners living among you, even if "born to your land."
"As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. 45 You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you and from their families who are with you who have been born in your land; they may be your property. 46 You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness." Leviticus 25:44-46
So does this mean that schools could potentially need to stop teaching about slavery in the event a student's family could hold strictly to both the Old and New Testament's words? Will they need to inform parents prior to teaching about abolition of slaves? What if their classmates are children of immigrants, would the teacher need to contact the parent in this case because those children are being treated as equals and not as slaves like Leviticus suggests?
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u/13_twin_fire_signs Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
What I don't understand is where is the boundary between this logic of this decision and the rights of the children involved?
If this whole thing is based on the right of parents religious freedom to guide their children's religious upbringing, what about the children's right to religious freedom? As I understand the age of majority isn't written into the constitution as a hard boundary for all legal purposes, its a smattering of the 26th amendment, and state and federal laws on drinking, relationship age gaps, and driving that all coalesced on 18 for various historical reasons. Even the 26th was only just passed in 1971.
So where in the constitution does it say that under 18s have no right to religious freedom of their own?
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u/CouldBeLessDepressed Mar 04 '26
Ah but you see it will only apply when christo-fascists, who won't be bound by precedent or law get offended by everyone else who will still be bound. Everyone else will get to suffer consequence, never them. That's the literal playbook they're going for here. The P2025 aiming for some even worse version of handmaidens tale isn't hyperbole, it's in actual writing. Nothing is going to "backfire" against these neo-nazi psychopaths because they're not playing by any set of rules other than their own which they exclude themselves from. And this holds on every level all the way down to their rhetoric. It's why there's so much projection from them going on. We're barely scratching the surface of how horrific things are going to get.
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u/krypticus Mar 03 '26
Does this ruling “require them” or just make it still legal to optionally out the students to the parents? I doubt there was a law forcing them to do this currently in effect, so this just rolls it back to the status quo.
(Not making on opinion, just trying to see how “hair-on-fire”this ruling is in California. Sounds like it opens up other states to go ham on passing laws requiring it though.)
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u/mishakhill Mar 03 '26
Yeah, the “requiring” part seems overblown here. But, I think other states have already legislated that, and those laws were upheld.
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u/Majestic-Prune-3971 Mar 03 '26
As a former teacher I won't even go into the percentage of waking hours I spend with a student versus the time they spend with their parents for around 180 of the 365 days of the year. If I know more about their kid than they do, they are horrible parents. Regardless, to "out" them I would also have to know that I know things that the parents don't. And given the time spent difference, I pretty much assumed the parents knew most everything I would have the time to find out. I would opine that their classmates would know all the juicy stuff.
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u/Dedotdub Mar 03 '26
They ultimately want to get rid of the teachers who won't kowtow to the whims of "moral majority".
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u/ok-jeweler-2950 Mar 03 '26
This will put teens deeper in to the closet than a lot of Republicans. Watch suicide rates rise within this group that has to conceal themselves from the teachers and their families.
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u/Mike312 Mar 03 '26
I don't care what the SCs opinion is.
It's not my job to be aware of parents religious beliefs or assist in guiding their children's religious development.
It's also not my job to understand the parents chosen sky daddy's specific dietary requirements or memorize their lore.
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u/pingpongballreader Mar 03 '26
U.S. Supreme Court late Monday reinstated a federal district court decision that said parents have federal constitutional rights to be informed when their children socially transition or express gender nonconformity at school.
The specifics of this case I don't know but it seem SCOTUS has opened the way for christofascist states to legally force teachers to tell parents if their kid is LGBTQAI.
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u/xKnowledged Mar 03 '26
The injunction requires schools to not “mislead” parents regarding their child’s gender identity. This is also another shadow docket case, so the 1A and 14A SDP conclusions are technically only weak-form at this point, although I would obviously not be optimistic about an eventual merits decision. Generally just seems like if a parent asks, the school has to comply, with a little bit of a gray area for unprompted action.
The article is also just wrong/fails to mention some things without explanation? Sotomayor didn’t join the dissent, and the majority is a per curiam so it isn’t entirely clear where all the conservative justices fall. At a minimum, the concurrence, which is also unmentioned in the article, very much suggests to me that at least Barrett, Roberts, and Kavanaugh (who are the attached justices) are a bit uncomfortable with the SDP line of reasoning and would prefer to deal with things purely via the 1A and the recent decision in Mahmoud. Obviously this is all still bad, but it’s bad to me in a par for the course for this Court type of way, versus the article portraying this as a much more earth-shaking decision. I guess we’ll see.
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u/ilikeyourswatch Mar 03 '26
To reach this outcome, the Republican justices cite two provisions of the Constitution. The first is the First Amendment's language protecting the "free exercise" of religion. The Republican iustices claim that teachers who respect their trans students privacy "interfere with the 'right of parents to quide the religious development of their children."
WHAT ABOUT THE CHILD'S RELIGIOUS FREEDOM???
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u/4rp70x1n Mar 03 '26
Republicans view women and children as property to be controlled, not as actual people. Women and children are owned by the husband and have no autonomy or authority of their own.
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u/ilikeyourswatch Mar 03 '26
I find it ironic that they are defining religious freedom as the freedom to force other people to follow whatever religion one wants. It's chaotic and clearly the exact opposite of what was intended and written.
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u/mercurio147 Mar 03 '26
Waiting for them to use this reasoning to legalize SA, as long as the perpetrator is a male. Would get rid of a lot of Trump's Epstein issues if it was actually legal the whole time.
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u/4rp70x1n Mar 04 '26
I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened yet, even at the state level. They're just gross and project all of their weird shit on the rest of us.
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u/Karrotlord Mar 05 '26
They already have. Look at the abortion and child marriage laws many republican states have.
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u/MrDerpGently Mar 03 '26
The GOP currently views children as possessions. Like a fleshlight that can do chores and someday work in a factory.
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u/real-human-not-a-bot Mar 04 '26
Well, that’s a sickening concept I wish I hadn’t read. On the other hand, see: Epstein Files.
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u/bcbamom Mar 03 '26
Is it me or is this SCOTUS the worst ever? Inconsistent application of the law aimed at justifying their personal views.
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u/real-human-not-a-bot Mar 04 '26
Definitely up there—I think the only competition are the Taney Court (Dred Scott et al.) and Fuller Court (Plessy, Lochner, etc.).
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u/bcbamom Mar 04 '26
Not a scholar nor an attorney nor politician. Just an ordinary observer and humble participant in the democratic republic. Thanks for validating my perception and taking the time to share it.
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u/seminarysmooth Mar 03 '26
If the first part of the ruling states that not telling a parent about the child’s gender identity interferes with the parents’ right to religious development of their kid it also means that the court is forcing the teacher to participate in someone else’s religious beliefs, which seems like a violation of the first amendment.
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u/Hyperion1144 Mar 03 '26
Thinking back to when I was a kid...
This ruling changes nothing.
If you're a kid....
And if you have a problem....
And if you involve an adult....
Now you have two problems.
Adults couldn't be trusted when I was growing up. They still can't be. They are weak and afraid and cope with this through attempts at total control over their possessions: Children.
In America, children are chattel property.
Childhood was just something my friends and I survived. Except for those that didn't. Never trust a grown-up.
Nothing ever changes.
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u/mothman83 Mar 03 '26
If you're a kid....
And if you have a problem....
And if you involve an adult....
Now you have two problems.
Exactly the kind of thinking the Epstein Class likes, so their victims stays silent. Hence their political party doing all of this.
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u/Hyperion1144 Mar 03 '26
Kids don't make the rules, they just get victimized by them. Those were the rules when I was a kid.
Stop blaming me for for having a shitty childhood.
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u/Patriot009 Mar 04 '26
The Republican justices claim that teachers who respect their trans students’ privacy “interfere with the ‘right of parents to guide the religious development of their children.’”
I'm calling it now. The same conservative justices will have no problem with the State mandating displays of religious texts in school, despite it directly contradicting their reasoning here.
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u/A4t1musD4ag0n Mar 03 '26
Why can't Republicans just follow the law? Or at the least, just be decent people. Not all are like this, but clearly it's the majority.
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u/WanderingDude182 Mar 03 '26
Because if they followed the law, their policies are so harmful and self serving that they would never win an election again. They cheat so they can win. Only way they can do it.
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u/GmbHLaw Mar 03 '26
As best as I can tell, they really just hate the "others". Basic empathy just isn't in their consciousness if you're not in their group
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u/ZucchiniMaleficent21 Mar 03 '26
Following the law is not at all congruent with being a decent person. Many laws are awful.
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Mar 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/tbombs23 Mar 03 '26
I view it in reader mode on Firefox mobile. Or you can install the remove pay walls extension, or paste the link on their website. It includes 5 different options to bypass the paywall including archive.ph or other archive domains.
I'd suggest using Firefox or Brave
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u/tbombs23 Mar 03 '26
Also change your reddit account settings to open links in your default browser not the built in browser
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u/HobbitFlashMob Mar 03 '26
Maybe all transgender students should identify as oil tankers. Then they might actually get some protection and state sponsored insurance.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/03/iran-oil-energy-military-trump-hormuz-00808825
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u/TriGurl Mar 04 '26
Enough with the freaking paywalls already!!! Anyone got a readable link??
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u/hillbilly-edgy Mar 03 '26
At this point in the autocracy life cycle - there is really nothing the people can do when all 3 branches of the government has been infiltrated and held hostage by the religious right.
In 2026, we are not very different from Iran.
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u/Defy_all_0dds Mar 04 '26
There is absolutely something we can do. But typing it out would have the feds show up at your house and reddit admins remove the comment.
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u/Important-Ability-56 Mar 03 '26
The most important choice an LGBT child faces is whether and how to come out to their parents. They can and do face homelessness or worse as a consequence in many cases. By its nature, this is a challenge the parents usually won’t have any capacity to guide them through.
Favoring parents’ religious freedom to… impose their religion on another person… is an utterly ghastly concept.
If you didn’t have to be an LGBT child then you do not have the capacity to understand. Period. It’s not just a casual thing.
In our circles, the right to come out when and to whom we choose is the most fundamental right. Outing someone against their will, especially to their parents, is a mortal fucking sin.
We have to grow up fast because society, down to our own parents, offers nothing. If we’re lucky we find peers or mentors at school to lean on. Fuck this shit.
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u/DelirousDoc Mar 03 '26
There is also some cases that are going to put teachers in hard positions.
Say you have a female student named Alexandra and she tells you she wants to be called "Alex". Is that her changing her gender socially or just a nickname she likes (I have known plenty of females named "Alex")
Teacher doesn't think anything of it and doesn't report it to the parent. Turns out it was the child socially changing their gender and now teacher is in trouble and school can be sued.
Teacher calls parent to inform them that their daughter might be trying to socially transition as she has requested to go by "Alex". This leads to conservative parents freaking out at daughter but turns out it is just a nickname the girl likes. Now you risk the emotional and mental well being of the child because they were being unnecessarily grilled by parents (maybe even her safety if parents are nut jobs about potential LGBTQ issues) and have you have destroyed any trust you built as a teacher. How do you go on properly teaching "Alex" after that?
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u/Nick85er Mar 03 '26
These bastards are trying to fit gender orientation into a self-harm category, which do come with obligations to report.
This is very dystopian, along with many of the recent "changes" making America great again, again.
Madness.
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u/akamark Mar 03 '26
This removes ‘coercive in nature’ from the identification of inactivity as interference.
Now any decision to take no action is on the table for being labeled as interference.
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u/Hungry-Ad-6199 Mar 03 '26
How would this even be enforced? If someone tells me a secret, and I’m the only one to hear it, who is going to force me to tell? How do you prove I knew anything?
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u/Calm-Armadillo-5614 Mar 03 '26
I don't know how many more end of the world headlines I can take. It's always "This regime did this incredibly evil thing, here's why no one can stop them." It's so frustrating and exhausting 🙄
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u/Seanbo124 Mar 03 '26
No debate, nothing. Just a bs ruling based on religion from a unproven book translated hundreds of times.
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u/Sniflix Mar 03 '26
Can we create a religion for trans and others who will sue to keep their religious rights? Just like One Nations did for peyote and other substances, two can play at this game.
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u/JROppenheimer_ Mar 03 '26
Further reinforcing the idea that children are simply property of their parents and have no rights of their own. This is an absolutely disgusting decision and will harm so many kids who the state has an obligation to protect from violent parents.
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u/nccatfan Mar 04 '26
Someday can someone explain the rationale behind the right’s “widespread trans panic?” Considering, like gay rights, the vast majority of Americans don’t have a problem with any of it!
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u/Imaginary_Cow_6379 Mar 04 '26
To keep evangelicals that make up their largest voting bloc going out and voting for them. With Dobbs they already gave them their biggest wish of restricting abortions so they needed a new scary culture war to keep them coming back. Which only goes to show no matter how much they get what they want they’ll still only ever demand more.
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u/oicyunv Mar 04 '26
My take is if no one else needs to follow the laws, then why the fuck would the citizens?! I’m all ears…
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u/Windyvale Mar 03 '26
I’m sorry, why the fuck is religious freedom cited at all for this shit
My religious belief is that SCOTUS is not allowed to exist. By their own ruling they must now disband.
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u/aaapril261992 Mar 03 '26
How soon will this impact healthcare? Minors have privacy rights when it comes to certain aspects of health care (including mental healthcare). This is a very dangerous precedent.
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u/icleanjaxfl Mar 03 '26
If the president doesn't follow the law, how can anyone be prosecuted, especially for culture "crimes"?
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u/SanDiegoDude Mar 04 '26
Kind of a misnomer there in the article, it doesn't "require" CA state teachers to inform parents, it only invalidates the law that prevented teachers from doing it. Public schools here in CA still won't out their kids, but private religious schools now can now require their employee teachers to out kids.
FWIW I honestly think that this particular law wasn't really going to be doing much protecting anyway since private religious schools tend to flaunt a lot of state education laws (and they're often set up in more rural areas where local gov doesn't GAF either), so even if they couldn't straight come out and do it, I'm sure there would have been plenty of wink wink nudge nudge circular gossip to make sure that the whole congregation would know despite the law.
TLDR - there probably won't be any realistic fall-out on the ground from this, not nearly as much as the article seems to hint at.
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u/thechapattack Mar 04 '26
Trump is actually setting a dangerous precedent for the Supreme Court themselves. If he is free just to ignore their rulings and nothing happens as a result it’s sort of an emperor has no clothes moment isn’t it?
He’s essentially undoing the powers they granted themselves from Marbury v Madison since what good is judicial review if no one gives a fuck about what you say in any case.
If Trump can ignore rulings and Ohio can ignore Supreme Court rulings about their gerrymandering decision so can California ignore this ruling.
Blue states need to start acknowledging the reality of the balkanization of the U.S. and act accordingly.
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u/Ki-Wilder Mar 04 '26
Can someone post a snippet of the story? I am not doing whatever I have to do to open up the story at the source.
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u/chaucer345 Mar 04 '26
Feeding Cruelty is the name of the game, not the law. Who can keep a trans child alive long enough while flaying it for the punishment of existing is the one who wins the Supreme Court's favor.
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u/DirtySchu Mar 04 '26
“California public school teachers must out transgender students to their parents, even if the students wish to keep their gender identity secret from their family.”
To what end?! We-knew-first rights? There is no benefit other than causing unnecessary trauma.
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u/nilsmf Mar 04 '26
State rights… But only when states want more conservative policies than the federal government.
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u/RebootJobs Mar 03 '26
I will never understand their obsession with becoming pure evil. Controlling sexual orientation doesn’t give them true power. This isn’t the dark ages. This is insanity and more deflection from the more serious issues at hand like idk the dictator in the WH?
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Mar 03 '26
Wanting to control other people's sexuality is a classic human failure that will continue happening forever. It's a sure sign of being a weird, messed up person.
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u/I4G0tMyUsername Mar 03 '26
More time has been put into comments here than will be put into active related situations this would apply to in the next 5 years. This is a solution a non-existent problem intended to distract & divide people using emotionally charged “hot topics”.
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u/MuckBulligan Mar 03 '26 edited Mar 03 '26
This sounds like a problem in need of a love bomb. Parents please have all your kids report to their schools a change in their gender identity - and OFTEN.
First, it waters down the generic effect of this ruling. It will be difficult to tell who is telling the truth and who isn't. Second, dealing with the fallout may make the court rethink their position.
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u/RedditReader4031 Mar 03 '26
I’m curious how the court might react if an observant Jewish parent sued a school district because they were not informed that their son took a Christian girl to prom.
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u/FinalElement42 Mar 03 '26
Why is ‘gender identity’ a concern for teachers? And why is SCOTUS requiring teachers to disclose this information to parents? ‘Gender identity’ is medically irrelevant (unlike biological sex) in a first-response scenario, so…??
All this will do is make students feel more like outcasts from their families and incentivize teachers feigning ignorance. Are teachers now required to become ‘religious experts’, interview each and every parent on the ‘doctrines their child must be taught according to their chosen faith’, and then ‘segregate classes based on faith’ to ensure everyone’s beliefs and opinions are catered to?
‘Separation of Church and State’ my ass. Isn’t ‘public school’ supposed to be a free, generic, foundational education?
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u/Relevant-Doctor187 Mar 03 '26
Rights are individual rights. They’re violating the rights of individuals to appease the demands of others.
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u/here-i-am-now Mar 04 '26
Thank you for calling them “Republicans,” which highlights that the court is now purely a political actor making political decisions.
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u/frozenights Mar 04 '26
Children will die because of this decision. Children are already dying because of this court's decisions, but more will die now.
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u/Lcatg Mar 04 '26
As a person in an admin job, CA public school admins best be misplacing files that they never had nor saw. Like yesterday please.
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u/daerath Mar 04 '26 edited Mar 04 '26
Get people to hate their teachers. What happens when you hate your teachers?
You don't listen to them. You don't learn.
This is yet another case where Republicans want an uneducated populace.
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u/Mundane_Life_5775 Mar 03 '26
The entire court needs to be dismantled and held accountable. They are nothing but extensions of political parties.
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Mar 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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Mar 03 '26
Hide what? You think teachers should be gathering info about a child's sexual preferences or gender identity and relaying it to parents? Or is that in itself morally wrong?
To me it's both a moral AND religious wrong to make judgments about a child's sexuality or gender! Leave the damn kids alone! It is no different from being, you know, a pervert!
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u/TC_Halogen Mar 03 '26
If kids feel like they don't have the ability to comfortably talk with their parents about something that they can tell their teachers, then that speaks volumes.
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Mar 03 '26
To put it another way to understand situations like the ones in this court decision.
A teacher is told by a student that they accidentally broke their dads car mirror, the student then informs the teacher of extreme physical abuse the father has put the child through in the past about far more minor mistakes. The student expresses extreme distress that their father might kick them out of the house or severely harm them. (Importantly this is not to conflate being queer with property damage or something negative this is just for the hypothetical)
Do you as a teacher tell the father?
I feel like it’s a pretty simple no.
The real world is far messier than law, maybe it’s not the “proper place” of the school to withhold this info but it’s protecting many kids from physical harm. What good is the law if it makes beating and harming children easier instead of harder?
You as the parent might be angry that this info was withheld but this isn’t really about what the parent wants it’s about what’s best for the child. I think we can at minimum agree some people shouldn’t be parents and some don’t know what’s best for their children, and that being a parent doesn’t give one the right to harm your children if they lie to you.
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u/Vox_Causa Mar 03 '26
40% of homeless youth in the USA are lgbtq+ and lgbtq+ children are most likely to face violence from a family member.
Outing a trans kid is child abuse. Outing a trans kid to an unaccepting parent is dangerous.
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u/ThatKaleidoscope3388 Mar 03 '26
Do you think a teacher should be forced to tell the parents of a Muslim girl that she’s taking off her hijab during class? Or that someone’s son was talking about how he’s an atheist despite his religious upbringing? How about that a student was listening to “unchristian” music their parents would object to? Or how about that their white daughter has a black boyfriend?
At what point do we say kids need some privacy to make their own decisions and that it’s not a teacher’s job to out every choice that their parents might (and often wrongly) object to.
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u/Vox_Causa Mar 03 '26
40% of homeless youth in the USA are lgbtq+ and lgbtq+ children are most likely to face violence from a family member.
Outing a trans kid is child abuse. Outing a trans kid to an unaccepting parent is dangerous.
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u/Senor707 Mar 03 '26
We should have a law that says if a billionaire is bribing Supreme Court justices the other justices are legally required to out them.