True, much of Life is with People is an exercise in avoidance in its portrait of a way of life that Zborowski knew to be darker and more complex than the bright, Chagall-like hues in which he painted it. The book’s title is drawn from a chapter on the pleasures of community in a world where all knew everything about everyone else—”there are no secrets in the shtetl”—which was just the sort of place Zborowski would have deplored. Yet, embedded inside the book, too, is a story about class and status, sheyne and proste Yiden, that is probably as sincere as he would ever tell.

till, Zborowski exerted decisive influence on all aspects of the book, none more than on its emphasis on social status. On rereading Life is with People, it is striking how pivotal this theme is to its portrait of Jewish life. Social stratification is, of course, a central theme in the social sciences, but it was Zborowski who thrust the issue into the heart of the group’s deliberations with an interest that seemed anything but dispassionate. At nearly every meeting of the group there was close analysis of the impact on religious and cultural life of “sheyne” and “proste” yidn. The index heading in Life is with People for “social stratification” lists sixteen subheadings, and the book lavishes no fewer than seven pages on who sits closest to the Eastern Wall in the synagogue (no wonder it was picked up on by the writers of Fiddler on the Roof).

Ukranian town of 28,000, and though he might, conceivably, have cherished the idea of writing an ethnology of Eastern European Jewry, it was not a culture that he himself held dear. In fact, he had been estranged from it since adolescence, and his most significant professional experience was not as an anthropologist (he never really received a doctorate, as he sometimes claimed, from the Sorbonne), but as a Sovi

is an ethnography that is also a “how-to” book

ife is with People examines shtetls not in their considerable variety but as instances of a single ideal type presented in the present tense, as if it still existed.

The world it explored was, it insisted, continuous with—but also distinct from—everything around it, not quite part of Russia or Poland yet inside both, a kind of island of unadulterated Yiddishkayt before it was diluted, then destroyed.

blind spots within black liberation theology, especially in relation to the invisibility of black women and, later, black sexuality.

Black churches were not much better, with their oft-misguided aspirations toward white respectability

Instead, he aligned with the god of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, and asserted that God and God in Christ are black insofar as they stand on the side of the oppressed, acting in history to liberate the suffering “by any means necessary.”

the white church as the Antichrist insofar as it undergirded and perpetuated black suffering as the white supremacist will of God or, worse yet, remained silent in the face of black dehumanization.

African American churches provided spaces for not only spiritual formation but also political activism.

Both during and after the end of slavery, African Americans began to establish their own congregations, parishes, fellowships, associations and later denominations.

By 1706, six Colonies had passed laws that declared that Africans’ Christian status did not alter their social condition as slaves. Consequently, missionaries created “slave catechisms,” modified religious instruction manuals that instructed enslaved Africans about Christianity while reinforcing their enslavement.

They widely supposed that British laws mandated the freedom of all baptized Christians, and thus white slaveholders initially refused to grant missionaries permission to instruct enslaved Africans into the Christian faith

European slave traders dismissed Africans as “heathenish” to justify their enslavement of Africans and the coercive proselytization to Christianity.

o many men are isolated and alone today, and in that place we are susceptible to the whims, temptations, and empty show of the devil. Many men have buddies with whom they can watch sports and drink beer, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we also need to have brothers who know who we are, what we are going through, and to whom we can be accountable.

Through the ascetic way, we are humbled. By denying ourselves, we learn to depend upon God for everything and to ask our brothers for prayerful accountability, support, and encouragement.

Asceticism means training. Though it is often underemphasized in our time, throughout Church history we see the importance of asceticism in the teachings and lives of the saints, our fathers in the faith. Asceticism is about saying “no” to lesser things so that we are able to say “yes” when God asks greater things from us. Though we should strive to reject evil in every instance, we should also abstain from good things for periods of time so that we can remain focused on what matters most in our lives.

Prayer is conversation with God. The time you spend in prayer during Exodus 90 is the most important part of the journey. Your daily Scripture passage and reflection from Exodus have been crafted to help you start your conversation with the Lord each day. We offer them for men like you every day of the year, not just during Exodus 90.

What is uncommon in our time is men who are free. A free man is not a perfect man who has it all together, but one who remembers who he is: a son of God whom God has called forth for love. And he knows how much more he can become by the power of grace unfolding in his life over time, and with the support of brothers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was chief guest and also the master of ceremonies and the official yajmaan (patron of a religious ritual) during the bhoomi pujan at the temple site. UP Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Adityanath,

rdict in the Ayodhya title dispute case, saying that the Hindu parties will be given the disputed land where the Babri Masjid once stood. The Sunni Waqf Board, the biggest Muslim litigant in the case, will be given five acres at a separate "prominent" location in Ayodhya.

Allahabad high court rules that the disputed land in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid was shall be divided into three parts. A two-thirds portion is to be shared by two Hindu plaintiffs and one-third will be given to the Sunni Muslim Waqf Board. Plaintiffs representing Lord Ram (i.e. VHP), the Nirmohi Akhara and the Waqf Board were declared joint title-holders of the property.

The ASI submits a report saying that there is evidence of a 10th century temple beneath the mosque. Its report is refuted by archaeologists and historians.

BJP rules out committing itself to the construction of a temple in its election manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. VHP confirms deadline of 15 March to begin construction. Hundreds of volunteers converge on site. At least 58 people are killed in an attack on a train in Godhra which is carrying Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya. Between 1,000 and 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, die in riots in Gujarat following the train attack in March. Narendra Modi is chief minister of Gujarat at the time.

The Supreme Court in the Ismail Faruqui case says that 'Mosque' is not integral to Islam owing to the fact that 'Namaz' can be offered anywhere.

errorists orchestrate a series of deadly bomb blasts across Bombay, allegedly to avenge the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

crowd of almost 150,000 people gather to listen to speeches by BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders - including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi - at the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The crowd later storms the mosque and demolishes it in a few hours. The demolition occurred despite assurances from the state government to the Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid, on the evening of December 6, 1992, kar sevaks started attacking Muslim residents of Ayodhya, ransacking and demolishing their houses. Eighteen Muslims were murdered, almost all their houses and shops were torched and destroyed, including 23 local mosques. Additionally, riots broke out in different parts of the country, including Mumbai, and around 2,000 people were killed.

BJP emerges as the second-largest party with 121 seats in the Lok Sabha following the general elections but the Congress under Narasimha Rao forms the government at the Centre.

BJP President L.K. Advani launches his Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya to gather support for the Ram temple. He is arrested in Samastipur in Bihar by the government of Lalu Prasad Yadav in November, 1990. Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal is also arrested.

In the recently concluded general elections, the BJP emerges as the third-largest party with 89 seats and supports V.P. Singh's National Front government from outside

Rajiv Gandhi government allows the VHP to perform shilanyas (laying of the foundation stone) for the Ram temple on November 9, 1989, on the disputed land.

A district judge directs that the Babri Masjid gates be unlocked and Hindus be allowed to worship there. In protest, Muslims set up the Babri Masjid Action Committee. According to historian Ramachandra Guha, "the judge's order was widely believed to have been directed from Delhi, from the Prime Minister's Office, no less. The local administration seemed to know of the judgment beforehand, for the locks were opened within an hour of the verdict." Television crews from Doordarshan were also present. Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister at the time and the move was part of the 'divide and rule' politics of a government that was coming under a cloud because of corruption charges. A few months after appeasing Hindu communalists, he did the same with their Muslim counterparts.

General elections are held for the 9th Lok Sabha in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. The BJP wins only two seats out of 541. The party's openly Hindutva politics and espousal of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement fails to yield dividends

du groups form a committee to spearhead the construction of the Ram temple as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement gathers momentum. BJP leader L.K. Advani assumes leadership of the movement.

While the inner courtyard remains locked, prayers are allowed from outside. An interim injunction allows a pujari in but forbids entry to others

dols of Lord Ram are planted by Hindu Mahasabha activists inside the mosque. The mosque is then locked. District magistrate K.K. Nayar refused to remove the idol on the premise that this would lead to large-scale rioting. He later joined the Jan Sangh, the precursor to the BJP, and was also elected as an MP.

: There is no record or discussion of the mosque having been built over a demolished temple, nor indeed is there any record of claims being made that the site was the birthplace of Rama.

“We are not talking about citizens,” said Ramesh Shinde, a spokesman for the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, a Hindu organization that is considered a far-right group. “We are talking about migrants.”

Mr. Modi’s supporters employ a certain logic when defending the bill’s exclusion of Muslims. They say Muslims are not persecuted in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, which is mostly true. They also say that when India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1947, the British carved out Pakistan as a haven for Muslims, while India remained predominantly Hindu. To them, the extension of that process is to ask illegal Muslims migrants to leave India and seek refuge in neighboring, mainly Muslim nations.

e has called illegal migrants from Bangladesh “termites,” and along with his other statements made clear that Muslims were his target. Mr. Shah has also promised to impose the citizenship test from Assam on the entire country.

he leaders of the opposition Indian National Congress party are trying to paint the bill as a danger to India’s democracy. After India won its independence, its founding leaders, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru among them, made a clear decision: Even though the country was 80 percent Hindu, it would not be an officially Hindu nation. Minorities, especially Muslims, would be treated equally.

Muslims also are Hindus.” (This is a common Hindu nationalist belief: that India’s Muslims are relatively recent converts, even though Islam arrived in India hundreds of years ago.

Under Mr. Modi’s leadership, anti-Muslim sentiment has become blatantly more mainstream and public. Intimidation and attacks against Muslim communities have increased in recent years. And overt displays of Hindu piety and nationalism have become central in pop culture and politics.

First came the Assam citizenship tests. Then Mr. Modi stripped away autonomy and statehood for Kashmir, which used to be India’s only Muslim-majority state. And last month, Hindu fundamentalists scored a big court victory allowing them to build a new temple over the ruins of a demolished mosque in the flash point city of Ayodhya.

Now, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., is hoping to expand that kind of citizenship test to other states. And the new legislation would become a guiding principle for who could hope to call themselves Indians.Mr. Modi and his party are deeply rooted in an ideology that sees India as a Hindu nation.

that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens. Approximately two million people — many of them Muslims, and many of them lifelong residents of India — were left off the state’s citizenship rolls after that exercise.

Now they were telling me this was not the country they had staked their faith in, and for the first time they spoke of working to make sure their children would become part of the large Sikh diaspora in Canada, Britain or the United State

Shortly after, in August, Mr. Modi abrogated the autonomy of Muslim-majority Kashmir. The decision was in keeping with the long-stated demands of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist mother ship whose influence over Indian society today can be compared to the sway of the Communist Party in China.

The court concluded that while excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India at the site revealed the ruins of a Hindu religious structure dating back to the 12th century, there was no evidence to suggest this structure existed or was demolished when the mosque was built.The judgment also states that the two events that have served as the basis for Hindu claims — the supposedly miraculous overnight appearance of Hindu idols in the mosque in 1949 and the demolition of the mosque in 1992 — were both criminal acts, the handiwork of Hindu fundamentalists. Yet this verdict amounts to rewarding criminality.

The movement to build Rama’s temple and the demolition of the Babri Masjid led to the B.J.P.’s meteoric rise in electoral politics — from two seats out of 541 in the Parliament in 1984 to forming a national government in 1998. The campaign for Rama’s temple ushered in an era of majoritarian politics in defiance of the promise of secular nationalism that has held together this multireligious country since 1947.

On Dec. 6, 1992, a mob led by the leaders of the B.J.P. and its affiliates illegally demolished the mosque, sparking riots that killed more than 2,000 people.

Amid appeals to Hindu pride, Mr. Advani and other B.J.P. leaders framed the building of the temple as the way to end what they termed as thousand years of servitude to Muslim rulers.

The piece of land where the temple for Rama will be built is considered by many Hindus to be his exact birthplace. But the land in question and its ownership have been long disputed. The Babri Masjid, a mosque built in 1528, stood there until Dec. 1992, when a Hindu mob demolished it. Hindu and Muslim litigants had been fighting for its ownership for decades. When the Supreme Court announced its decision,

India also drew criticism after numerous seats were left empty on an Air Force flight on Tuesday that evacuated Indian citizens and officials from the country’s embassy in Kabul.

India’s government said on Tuesday that it would prioritize taking in Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan — a move that drew comparisons to a contentious 2019 citizenship law, enacted under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that discriminates against Muslims.

But on the dank right, I believe that the liberal treatment of young white males has been one of the causes for this recoil and eruption. What you had was a toxic combination of a bad economy of young men being told repeatedly that they are the cancer of the planet, that their masculinity is toxic, that their skin is the blight of the world, and their heterosexuality is a hate crime.

And what happened in the last five years is that virtually every respected institution in the United States disgraced itself. The health industry, the military, the Supreme Court, Congress — everybody face planted, boom. What that left is that a lot of normies were gobsmacked, saying: What happened to the America I grew up in? Everything blew up. Nobody’s making sense. And it’s the lockdowns, it’s the vaccines, it’s the trannies, it’s just — it’s clown world.

Christendom that learns lessons from history. And some of those lessons that you learn from history, maybe the person who wrote that book or influenced this legislation, they may have been a feminist or liberal or whatever, but what’s important is whether it’s just and prudent and right. And if it is and it aligns with the Bible, then I’m more than happy to go with it.

Yeah, that’s hers. So basically, I believe that it would be wise and prudent for us to have a system of endowment for the wife. That would mean that if a husband just thought he found someone cuter, he would take a serious financial hit.

OK. So there’s a “no taunting the Christian majority” soft policy.

We’d acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. And we would say: This is a Protestant Christian country. And we have successfully worked out how to relate to Catholics and Jews — we have a long history of that. We do not know how to take three million Muslims who want to live under Shariah law and put them in the middle of Michigan. We don’t have the mechanism or the wisdom.

o, I call myself a theocratic libertarian, and theocratic means, if we outlaw something, I want a Bible verse, ideally the Ten Commandments, if we make something against the law. But if it has to do with the manufacturing and sale of widgets, or the thoughts a person thinks, or the beliefs that they have, I’m a libertarian

It’s got to be church planting, evangelism, persuasion.

I would much prefer to see an Alfred approach, where you take the principles of the law, you apply them, you stand by the principles, and then, using Christian prudence and wisdom, you push in that direction until you get the results that you want

OK. Then what about the crimes themselves? What does it mean for a society to respect the Ten Commandments in law? You’ve already said that you would restore sodomy laws. Would you have laws against adultery and fornication?

soft establishment, and that this broke down in the 1950s and 1960s. There were Supreme Court rulings outlawing school prayer — these kinds of things. And this then led to things like Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion. And therefore, the goal of religious conservatives should be to do things like overturn Roe

That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God.We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done.

As is all too obvious, the Washington bureaucracy has increasingly become hostile to Christianity and especially to white Christian men. Kirk understood this, and he could see that “Christian nationalism”

the state constitutions at the founding were thoroughly Christian political constitutions. Kirk also accurately related that 55 of the 56 signers of the Declaration were Christians, and the common law was undergirded by Christian ethics and legal principles—such as presumption of innocence, due process, and jury of your peers.

We must defend the Christian heritage and institutions that gave birth to America. Christianity is the key, irreplaceable element. If we lose it, it’s not so much that America will fall, it’s that America will become evil.”

Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and a “spiritual battle is coming to the West and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life.”

d Islam

Christianization of America, including our political institutions and elite officials

outspoken Christian faith

Not doing “la bise,” the kiss on the cheek that many French and Europeans use to greet each other, was on his list.

religious neutrality of state institutions. In 2010, it outlawed the fully face-covering niqab and burqa everywhere in public, arguing that those garments threaten public safety and represent a rejection of a society of equal citizens.

“If you are Muslim and you hide your face for religious reasons, you are liable to a fine and a citizenship course where you will be taught what it is to be ‘a good citizen,’ ” said Fatima Khemilat, a fellow at the Political Science Institute of Aix-en-Provence. “But if you are a non-Muslim citizen in the pandemic, you are encouraged and forced as a ‘good citizen’ to adopt ‘barrier gestures’ to protect the national community.”

“What we must attack is Islamist separatism,” he told the nation, saying extremists preyed upon desperate Muslims in desolate neighborhoods, basically creating anti-French enclaves by spreading their radical Islamic “ideology” and “project.” He also made some sweeping, incendiary generalizations, such as that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis today, all over the world.”

The problem with that is French Muslims may feel extremely targeted by what Macron’s government is doing. After all, Holocaust denial is criminalized, which means some forms of expression are outlawed in France. But when it comes to images of the prophet, Macron says that’s fair play.

Publications such as Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten aim to incite the very passions that they simultaneously criticize Muslims for harboring. Theology and issues of semiotic representation are thus not of primary importance here. Rather, the performative political power of mass media, exercised from a hegemonic position against a vulnerable minority, defines events such as the Charlie Hebdo attack, the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy, and the Rushdie Affair.

Besides showing insensitivity to their target, caricatures like Muhammad with a bomb instead of turban on his head contribute to entrenching the mindless Islamophobia that sees all Muslims as enemies of the West and its freedoms. Not a wise move if one is concerned either with integrating immigrants from the Maghreb in French society, or with avoiding the “clash of civilizations” which Islamophobes seem so eager to bring on.

First, Muslims, like Jews, are not counseled to “turn the other cheek” when attacked. But this acceptance of violence in self-defense does not entail violent aggression against the defenseless. Thus, the Charlie Hebdo murders cannot be called Muslim: what looks like a Muslim proclivity for violence may actually be more accurately described as the absence of a Muslim pacifism. Religions come in different shapes: unarmed prophets, like Jesus or the Buddha, occupy a different moral universe than armed prophets, like Muhammad or Moses. But, just because a prophet is armed doesn’t mean he will attack the defenseless.

This mess is ours and it needs no “outsiders” to provoke it. Where we err, is when we take them as the embodiment of our malfunctioning and conflicted category of religion. When they are provoked, we can select from this homegrown mess to simultaneously assert our foundational right to attack the gods—with all the aggression that a nothing deserve

Blasphemy as a category invokes the specter of religion, not ethnicity, which is why it is safe. Western modernity constructs itself on the assumption that the gods do not exist—or that they do not exist for all, which is the same thing.

Charlie Hebdo published many images of Muslim-like characters, some of them acting violently. Are such images meant to represent the generality of Muslims? In the way that, for example, the 1920s Nazi magazine, Der Sturmer, would have a cartoon of a Jewish financier, the undesirable qualities of whom—heartless, exploitative, greedy and so on—was meant to be about Jews as such. Yet if it is meant to lampoon jihadists, it is inoffensive and embodies a form of political defiance against terrorism.

We are Charlie because we are Malala; je suis Charlie because I Am Malala.

For French authorities to demand that Muslims now publicly proclaim that they “are” Charlie—that they effectively endorse the content of the cartoons—is not to defend free speech. It is to enforce compulsory, official speech—the very opposite of free speech.

Though it doesn’t cause violence, it is often the excuse for it. But religion can’t “do” anything—motivate actions or sway thinking—by itself. It is not a disembodied thing that has power of its own. It is simply a part of culture, something that people can use and abuse, for good or for ill. And lately, much of it has been for ill indeed.

When right-wing patriots almost literally wrap themselves in flags as they plot to assassinate the President of the United States—which they have—few people blame nationalism itself. Rather, they look at the mixture of psychological and political motives that may have brought the conspirators to their savage plans. When a whole group or culture adopts a vicious form of extreme nationalism—Nazism comes to mind—again it is not nationalism itself that we blame, but a perverted form of it crafted to buttress the power-hungry designs of a political junta.

Because this “us versus them” is very accessible to young Muslims everywhere through the Internet and other social media, it is no surprise that this rhetoric resonates with their daily experience in European societies and therefore make some of them easy recruits for the global jihad.

This rhetoric presents Islam as an external religion that threatens the core liberties of European democracies and therefore needs to be limited or circumvented, following the argument made famous by the French Revolutionary Saint-Just: “No freedom for the enemies of freedom”

Muslims claiming that they could be protected by existing legislations across Europe (including France) that actually limit freedom of speech in cases of inciting racial hatred or denying the Holocaust.

In the French context as well as all over Europe, we have witnessed in the last 20 years an increasing political resistance against the practices of Islam and their visibility in public spaces: from the ban on hijab (head covering) and niqab (full face covering) to the limitations on mosque-building, halal slaughtering, and even circumcision. Muslims have the feeling that being or looking like a practitioner of the Islamic faith will ostracize them, not to mention that this hostility goes hand in hand with concrete discriminations against the practice of the religion: women barred from entering public buildings because they wear hijabs, discrimination on the job market, in the workplace, etc.

These measures are, in fact, part of a climate in which laïcité and republican values, while never clearly defined, have been used as a justification to scrutinize and interfere with the bodies, sensibilities, and practices of Muslim citizens (particularly women).

In no country is freedom of expression absolute, and the risk of turning the libertarian-anarchist soixante-huisards of Charlie Hebdo into martyrs in a liberal free speech pantheon through liberal media megaphones, is to feed the flames of stigmatization and polarization

There is no single cause of terrorism—whether right-wing extremist or salafi-jihadist. The Paris terrorists are dead and do not speak. But we can be reasonably sure that their hatred and resentment did not relate exclusively to caricatures and cartoonists. Through the rituals of mourning and commemoration, these have been turned into core postmortem symbols of French elitist liberal and secular culture. The terror and violence seem also to have spoken about the longue durée of French-Arab-North African relations; its legacies of extreme brutality and violence on all sides; and its long afterlife in everyday lives marked by segregation, exclusion, marginalization and discriminatory policing in the French banlieues.

. But it is not unlikely that the rush by many in the United States and Europe to identify with the publication had something to do with the fact that the killers were Muslims and the cartoons were of Muhammad. By conflating form and content, Je suis Charlie lent a patina of liberal respectability to anti-Islamicism: “I disapprove of you, and I will defend to the death my right to say so.”

Muhammad deeply offensive, and critics have called the magazine racist and demeaning of the country’s cultural minorities, especially its sizable populations of North African origin. Notably, its offices were firebombed after the magazine named Muhammad its “editor in chief” for an issue on sharia in 2011.

Mr. Paty was a strong believer in laïcité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state in France. Ms. Davoust recalled Mr. Paty once asking a young girl wearing a cross around her neck in school to take it off.

In a country guided by strict secularism, such actions are a violation of French law and regarded as signs of radicalization by the authorities — and they have led to many sports clubs being placed under surveillance.

Located in a public facility, the club was investigated by the local authorities because some members prayed in the locker room and asked women to cover their arms and legs, according to the French news media.

We don’t want your otherness because we want you to be like us,’”

Jean-Pierre Obin, a former senior national education official, said that public schools played a leading role in “the cultural assimilation and political integration” of immigrant children who “were turned into good little French” and no longer felt “Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Polish.” Other institutions that also played this role — the Catholic church, unions and political parties — have been weakened, leaving only the schools, he said.

Offended by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad shown in a class on free speech given by the teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, the teenager beheaded him a week ago with a long knife before being gunned down by the police.

The class decides everyone should be able to use the bathroom that makes them feel comfortable, and makes new, inclusive signs to hang on the bathroom doors.

, “reveals its failure to accept and account for a fundamental truth: LGBTQ people exist. They are part of virtually every community and workplace of any appreciable size. Eliminating books depicting LGBTQ individuals as happily accepted by their families will not eliminate student exposure to that concept.”

ons Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Focus mode setTimeout(()=>{try{if(-1===document.cookie.indexOf("c_mId="))return;const e=window.localStorage.getItem("FocusMode");if(!e)return;if(!JSON.parse(e).enabled)return;const o=document.querySelector(".focus-toggle"),t=o?o.querySelector(".toggle-switch-button"):void 0;if(!o||!t)return;document.documentElement.classList.add("focus","focus-enabled"),o.classList.remove("hidden"),t.classList.add("is-checked")}catch(e){console.warn("Error retrieving data for Focus Mode",e)}},0) Subscribe or Log In Profile Sign Out Show Search Search Query Submit Search Advertisement California The 9 LGBTQ+ children’s books targeted in high court ruling upending education policy A selection of books featuring LGBTQ+ characters that are part of a Supreme Court case are pictured April 15 in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) By Jenny GoldStaff Writer Follow June 27, 2025 8:01 PM PT 8 Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print Picture books are not usually the stuff of Supreme Court rulings. But on Friday, a majority of justices ruled that parents have a right to opt their children out of lessons that offend their religious beliefs — bringing the colorful pages of books like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” and “Pride Puppy” into the staid public record of the nation’s highest court.The ruling resulted from a lawsuit brought by parents in Montgomery County, Md., who sued for the right to remove their children from lessons where LGBTQ+ storybooks would be read aloud in elementary school classes from kindergarten through 5th grade. The books were part of an effort in the district to represent LGBTQ+ families in the English language arts curriculum.In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that schools must “notify them in advance” when one of the disputed storybooks would be used in their child’s class, so that they could have their children temporarily removed. The court’s three liberals dissented. Advertisement Politics Parents may pull their children from classes that offend their religion, Supreme Court rules Supreme Court hands down a major victory for parents’ rights June 27, 2025 As part of the the decisions, briefings and petitions in the case, the justices and lawyers for the parents described in detail the story lines of nine picture books that were part of Montgomery County’s new curriculum. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor even reproduced one, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” in its entirety. Here are the nine books that were the subject of the case:Pride PuppyAuthor: Robin Stevenson Illustrator: Julie McLaughlin Book “Pride Puppy” published by Orca Book Publishers. (Orca Book Publishers) “Pride Puppy,” a rhyming alphabet book for very young children, depicts a little girl who loses her dog during a joyful visit to a Pride parade. The story, which is available as a board book, invites readers to spot items starting with each of the letters of the alphabet, including apple, baseball and clouds — as well as items more specific to a Pride parade.Lawyers representing the parents said in their brief that the “invites students barely old enough to tie their own shoes to search for images of ‘underwear,’ ‘leather,’ ‘lip ring,’ ‘[drag] king’ and ‘[drag] queen,’ and ‘Marsha P. Johnson,’ a controversial LGBTQ activist and sex worker.”The “leather” in question refers to a mother’s jacket, and the “underwear” to a pair of green briefs worn over tights by an older child as part of a colorful outfit. Advertisement The Montgomery County Public Schools stopped teaching “Pride Puppy” in the midst of the legal battle. California As children’s book bans soar, sales are down and librarians are afraid. Even in California Book bans are tanking sales of children’s books. Schools and libraries aren’t buying books about LGBTQ+ issues and race as they brace for culture war pushback. Dec. 12, 2024 Love, VioletAuthor: Charlotte Sullivan WildIllustrator: Charlene Chua Book “Love Violet” published by macmillan publishers. (macmillan) The story describes a little girl named Violet with a crush on another girl in her class named Mira, who “had a leaping laugh” and “made Violet’s heart skip.” But every time Mira tries to talk to her, Violet gets shy and quiet.On Valentine’s Day, Violet makes Mira a special valentine. As Violet gathers the courage to give it to her, the valentine ends up trampled in the snow. But Mira loves it anyway and also has a special gift for Violet — a locket with a violet inside. At the end of the book, the two girls go on an adventure together.Lawyers for the parents describe “Love, Violet” as a book about “two young girls and their same-sex playground romance.” They wrote in that “teachers are encouraged to have a ‘think aloud’ moment to ask students how it feels when they don’t just ‘like’ but ‘like like’ someone.” Advertisement Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named PenelopeAuthor: Jodie Patterson Illustrator: Charnelle Pinkney Barlow Book “Born Ready” published by Random House. (Random House) In “Born Ready,” 5-year-old Penelope was born a girl but is certain they are a boy. “I love you, Mama, but I don’t want to be you. I want to be Papa. I don’t want tomorrow to come because tomorrow I’ll look like you. Please help me, Mama. Help me be a boy,” Penelope tells their mom. “We will make a plan to tell everyone we know,” Penelope’s mom tells them, and they throw a big party to celebrate.In her dissent, Sotomayor notes, “When Penelope’s brother expresses skepticism, his mother says, ‘Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.’ ” In their opening brief, lawyers for the families said that “teachers are told to instruct students that, at birth, people ‘guess about our gender,’ but ‘we know ourselves best.’ ”Prince and Knight Author: Daniel Haack Illustrator: Stevie Lewis “Prince and Knight” is a story about a prince whose parents want him to find a bride, but instead he falls in love with a knight. Together, they fight off a dragon. When the prince falls from a great height, his knight rescues him on horseback. When the king and queen find out of their love, they “were overwhelmed with joy. ‘We have finally found someone who is perfect for our boy!’ ” A great wedding is held, and “the prince and his shining knight would live happily ever after.”“The book Prince & Knight clearly conveys the message that same-sex marriage should be accepted by all as a cause for celebration,” said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, a concerning message for Americans whose religion tells them that same-sex marriage is wrong.

“teachers are told to instruct students that, at birth, people ‘guess about our gender,’ but ‘we know ourselves best.’ ”

On Valentine’s Day, Violet makes Mira a special valentine. As Violet gathers the courage to give it to her, the valentine ends up trampled in the snow. But Mira loves it anyway and also has a special gift for Violet — a locket with a violet inside. At the end of the book, the two girls go on an adventure together.

The story, which is available as a board book, invites readers to spot items starting with each of the letters of the alphabet, including apple, baseball and clouds — as well as items more specific to a Pride parade

The books were part of an effort in the district to represent LGBTQ+ families in the English language arts curriculum.

In dissenting from Monday’s decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority had gone astray by prioritizing the religious rights of a school official over those of his students, who could feel pressure to take part in religious activities.

Meyer got basic facts wrong. He concluded that EUSD removed the appearance of religion by renaming poses, giving the example that “the so-called lotus position was renamed criss-cross applesauce.” The term “criss-cross applesauce” does not appear even once in the spring 2013 yoga curriculum; the term “lotus” appears 194 times. The 2013 EUSD promotional video records a teacher instructing: “go into lotus.” Meyer believed testimony that jnanamudra was replaced by “brain highways,” a claim contradicted by defendant declarations and the video. Indeed, Meyer ignored multiple instances where defense witnesses contradicted themselves, each other, and documents they signed.

Yes. Some refused to participate in activities that felt like prayer to them. Many kids in EUSD classes still chant Om, assume jnanamudra, close their eyes to meditate while sitting in lotus, and use Sanskrit, such as Namaste (“I bow to the god within you”) and shavasana for “resting” pose.

EUSD teachers displayed posters of an eight-limbed Ashtanga tree and asana sequences taught by the “K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute”; used a textbook, Myths of the Asanas, that explains how poses represent gods and inspire virtue; taught terminology in Sanskrit (a language sacred for Hindus); taught moral character using yamas and niyamas from the Yoga Sutras; used guided meditation and visualization scripts and taught kids to color mandalas (used in visual meditation on deities).

Meyer determined that “yoga,” including “Ashtanga” yoga, “is religious.” Nevertheless, he allowed EUSD’s yoga program to continue, since he did not think children would perceive the program as advancing or inhibiting religion. The judge found the Jois Foundation partnership “troublesome,” but did not rule that it excessively entangled government with religion.

The Jois Foundation was founded “in loving dedication” to K. P. Jois, with funding from billionaire Paul Tudor Jones whose wife Sonia is an Ashtanga devotee, to spread Ashtanga, especially to kids.

Ashtanga emphasizes postures and breathing on the premise that these practices will “automatically” lead practitioners to experience the other limbs and “become one with God,” in the words of Jois, “whether they want it or not.”

he Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) accepted a $533,720 grant from the Jois Foundation to establish (to quote the signed grant) an “Ashtanga Yoga” program staffed by Jois “trained” and “certified” instructors who “partner”ed in developing a “comprehensive” yoga curriculum for Jois to export to “other school systems.”

yoga was developed by Krishna Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009) from the Yoga Sutras, a sacred text for Hindus.

This freedom to worship was indispensable in a country whose people came from the four quarters of the earth and brought with them a diversity of religious opinion.

These companion cases present the issues in the context of state action requiring that schools begin each day with readings from the Bible.

"in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority;

children's attendance at Abington Senior High School is compulsory

the children's relationships with their teachers and classmates would be adversely affected

home-room teacher, 2 who chose the text of the verses and read them herself or had students read them in rotation or by volunteers.

by the students in the various classrooms, who are asked to stand and join in repeating the prayer in unison.

broadcast into each room in the school building through an intercommunications system and are conducted under the supervision of a teacher

Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian."