--:-- Noelle King: Welcome to Today Explained. I'm Noelle King.
--:-- Halima Shah: Hi, I'm Halima Shah, and I'm here to explain the story of a fight in Montgomery County, Maryland, over books about LGBTQ people and issues, and some Muslim parents who say those are not for their kids.
--:-- Noelle King: So, Halima, tell us about why you got so interested in this story.
--:-- Halima Shah: I'm a member of a lot of Muslim Facebook groups, and last year, I had seen a number of posts from Muslim parents asking for Islamic school recommendations. One of the reasons I remember one of the parents giving was that she didn't like the LGBTQ trend in public schools.
--:-- Noelle King: And what made you want to dig deeper?
--:-- Halima Shah: I wanted to know what is it that has these parents so distraught that they're considering pulling their kids out. And then I saw these stories this year about protests happening in Montgomery County, Maryland, where parents were organizing and holding rallies about certain children's books that were being read in elementary school classes.
--:-- Noelle King: So, you reached out to one of the parents, Ra'ef Haggag, to try to understand what was going on.
--:-- Halima Shah: Yes, I did. My name is Ra'ef Haggag, and you can just call me Ra'ef. He's Egyptian-American. He's a parent. He's also a musician. And he's a very proud resident of this community.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: He always felt like he belonged in Montgomery County. He got married there. He has a six-year-old daughter in Montgomery County Public Schools. He even was a public school teacher in the school district for over a decade.
--:-- Halima Shah: And he said he felt like the school district has really accommodated Muslims.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: So when I was younger, we had requests to leave for Jum'a prayer, Friday prayers. Both teachers and administration were always very accommodating, making sure not to put any important materials on Friday afternoon.
--:-- Halima Shah: For LGBTQ people in this district, is there a sense that that same kind of acceptance extends to them?
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: I did speak to parents of LGBTQ children in covering the story, and they really appreciated that about the school district. They do feel like this has been a welcoming district to their children, to their family.
--:-- Halima Shah: And this year, the school district tried to take that commitment a step further. At the beginning of 2023, they added LGBTQ-affirming books to the English language arts curriculum in elementary school.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: And they saw this as imperative to its mission of diversity and inclusivity. And these books are, you know, kids' books with bright pictures and rhymes.
--:-- Halima Shah: I'll give you an example of a book that he and I talked about in particular. It's a book called Intersection Allies.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Actually, on the cover of Intersectional Allies, there's A Girl with Hijab.
--:-- Halima Shah: My wife and I read all of these books. And we're like, wow, this seems interesting. Let's see what this book is about.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: The first page of the story introduces a group of kids. Age is one trait that each of them share. But kids' lives are unique, as you'll soon be aware.
--:-- Halima Shah: And the subsequent pages go through each child's unique experience, like wearing hijab or using a wheelchair or not neatly fitting into one of two genders.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Skirts and frills are cute, I suppose. But my superhero cape is more Kate than those bows.
--:-- Halima Shah: And Kate goes on to say this. My friends defend my choices and place. A bathroom, like all rooms, should be a safe space.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: And through that book, there's a discussion about the use of pronouns. They also introduce the terms sex, gender. They introduce transgender, non-binary.
--:-- Halima Shah: In our opinion, not age appropriate for our six-year-old.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Halima, what does the book say about being trans about being non-binary?
--:-- Halima Shah: It doesn't use the words trans or non-binary in the actual story for kids. But in the book notes for adults or presumably teachers, it does define those words, and it also asks the question, what pronouns fit you best?
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: In our religious teachings, we believe that men and women are created by God, and that corresponds to the gender that you are.
--:-- Halima Shah: And it's not a compassionate or good thing to encourage your children to explore gender options.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: The school district really does not see this as an instruction on gender or sexuality. They see this as the reading of stories in which there are children of various identities in the story.
--:-- Halima Shah: And in their public statement, they said, quote, diversifying texts in elementary school will help young people develop empathy for a diverse group of people and learn about identities that might relate to their families or community members.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Still, the content doesn't fly with Ra'if and a group of mostly Muslim parents. They go to the principal and ask for an opt-out. And she says yes.
--:-- Halima Shah: However, she did mention to us that she will not be able to offer that same accommodations in the future.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Because in the spring of 2023, the school district rolls out new guidance. Parents can't opt students out of these books, and they can't expect advance notice when they're read either.
--:-- Halima Shah: The district says it's because Maryland state law only allows opting out in one particular case, when human sexuality is taught in health class.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: And these books are being taught in English language arts class.
--:-- Halima Shah: But I wanted to know why the school board changed their guidance.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Yeah. After all, they were previously allowing this opt-out. They said they couldn't comment because of pending litigation.
--:-- Halima Shah: The district is being sued right now over this decision.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: And to Raif, this decision is what opened the floodgates.
--:-- Halima Shah: This opt-out option was a solution. We're not saying ban this topic, ban this book. We're saying give us a right to step out if we believe it's not appropriate for our children.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Based on sincerely held religious beliefs, we're not just making this up.
--:-- Halima Shah: Ra'if and other parents form a group called Family Rights for Religious Freedom.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: They start to organize with Ethiopian Orthodox Christian parents, and Islamic advocacy groups even get involved.
--:-- Halima Shah: Our children, our values. Our children, our values. Our children, our values. Our children, our values.
--:-- Noelle King: Halima, this sounds a lot like the capital P, capital R parental rights movement, where parents with conservative values say we don't want our kids learning about critical race theory in Florida or that slavery was bad.
--:-- Halima Shah: I asked Raif about that, and he said he didn't even register the capital P, capital R parental rights movement.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: He calls the local parents' effort an apolitical one.
--:-- Halima Shah: But I did speak to another opt-out parent who was like, yeah, this is about parental rights.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: I did also see Moms for Liberty logos there on two people, and they are a face of the parental rights movement.
--:-- Halima Shah: And I reached out to the Montgomery County chair of Moms for Liberty, and she did say, yes, they are telling their members about these particular rallies.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: But I will say there were also just regular people there. That was the vast majority, and that included kids and graduates of the district.
--:-- Halima Shah: We are simply asking for our right to religious freedom as people who live in this country.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Somehow that turns us into haters that are spreading bigotry.
--:-- Halima Shah: Let's be clear and get this straight. Choosing to live by a religion does not make us ones who spread hate.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: As a parent and as a queer Muslim, I am disappointed that we have a community that feels the way that they feel.
--:-- Halima Shah: I called up someone for whom the stakes of this debate feel particularly high.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: My name is Abdul Khan. My pronouns are he, they. I identify as a Muslim. I'm within the LGBTQ umbrella. And I also have a child that is trans.
--:-- Abdul Khan: Abdul has really watched the parental rights debate unfold in his own backyard because he lives in a neighboring county in Virginia where the state elected Republican Glenn Youngkin as governor, who really made the capital P, capital R parental rights debate a cornerstone of his campaign.
--:-- Halima Shah: Abdul said that reading these LGBTQ-affirming books, the one that he read to his daughter was called My Shadow is Pink, not only helped his trans daughter understand her own transition, but it actually helped her older sister understand her siblings experience.
--:-- Abdul Khan: For my youngest, you know, it built her confidence to be who she wants to be. And then additionally, it made the siblings' relationship stronger because the older siblings began to understand their journey the younger child was going through and was able to support them at the same time.
--:-- Halima Shah: One of the things that came up in a lot of these school board meetings that I observed was parents saying, Muslim parents saying their children were being bullied for saying that these texts were against their religion.
--:-- Abdul Khan: I wonder what you would say to people who say that not allowing an opt-out basically makes the school system more intolerant of religious Muslims.
--:-- Halima Shah: When it comes to teaching about diversity and inclusion, it's not a conversation. You're going to encounter LGBTQ families out there.
--:-- Abdul Khan: So to say that as per our religious beliefs, we don't have to learn about XYZ. There are many things in the Quran and the Bible that may teach you things about slavery that aren't essentially what we do today.
--:-- Halima Shah: You're not going to go back and say, well, you know, I don't really want to learn about slavery today. I don't really want to learn about human rights today because that's not part of what the old book says.
--:-- Abdul Khan: It is a very sticky issue that has divided this particular community in Maryland.
--:-- Halima Shah: But something happens that supercharges this issue to the national scale.
--:-- Kristen Mink: This issue has unfortunately put, it does put some, not all of course, but some Muslim families on the same side of an issue as white supremacists and outright bigots.
--:-- Halima Shah: However, the folks who I've talked to here today, I would not put in the same category.
--:-- Kristen Mink: I don't know if you could hear it, but there was a very faint grumble in the room.
--:-- Halima Shah: Right after she says white supremacist.
--:-- Kristen Mink: Mink, I think, said something that a lot of people might have been thinking, but her statement did not go over well at all with the mostly black and brown parents in the room.
--:-- Halima Shah: She apologized, but not before her remarks were reported out on Fox.
--:-- Laura Ingraham: Now, I just mentioned this disturbing allegation that Muslim parents and their children, former students, who want to opt out of the sexualized curricula in our schools, are now akin to white supremacists.
--:-- Halima Shah: So that's Laura Ingraham.
--:-- Laura Ingraham: And this is a moment when the debate, which is ongoing, by the way, there's still a pending lawsuit and parents are still organizing.
--:-- Halima Shah: It's a point when this debate is catapulted to the national stage and becomes a culture war talking point.
--:-- Noelle King: Halima, this is a really interesting point. You've been talking to Muslim parents who are part of this movement, and they're saying that they're not being co-opted by the right.
--:-- Halima Shah: I did have a conversation about this interview with Karim, and he told me people in his mosque understood that he was trying to get attention to his cause.
--:-- Karim Munib: But Muslim commentators like Wajahat Ali see Laura Ingram, who, by the way, has said that Muslim immigrants shouldn't be allowed into the country, as merely pivoting to a different scapegoat.
--:-- Halima Shah: The same exact playbook that is used against CRT and wokeness, which is used to attack transgender kids, was used against Muslims.
--:-- Karim Munib: Garim told me that he's trying to ally with other people of faith. But people like Wajahat Ali see an alliance with the religious right as a trap.
--:-- Halima Shah: What I see is them opening the door for their former and future butchers, sharpening the knives, and it will be used against us and other people of color.
--:-- Karim Munib: And they don't see that they're being co-opted and used by people like Laura Ingram, who's openly celebrating it on her show.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Some are saying our sincere efforts is a trap, you know, set up by the political right that Muslims are falling into.
--:-- Halima Shah: And I absolutely reject that. This is a false generalization. And it assumes that we don't have any agency or our own way of thinking.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: And Muslim Americans, like all Americans, we have a diverse spectrum of political beliefs and leanings.
--:-- Halima Shah: You know, some Muslims lean more conservative, others are more liberal.
--:-- Ra'ef Haggag: Some lean more conservative, others are more liberal.
--:-- Halima Shah: That makes complete sense.
--:-- Halima Shah: What do we know about how American Muslims generally vote?
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: The data tells us that two-thirds of Muslims vote for the Democratic Party.
--:-- Halima Shah: There is a very small number, roughly 13%, that vote for the Republican Party.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: And Bashir Mohamed, who's a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center, told me that Muslims are a very difficult group to pin down politically because it is so diverse.
--:-- Halima Shah: Probably the three largest ethnic groups would be Black Americans, South Asians, and Arabs, each of which only make up about a quarter of the Muslim population.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: There are wealthy Muslims and Muslims that are living below the poverty level.
--:-- Halima Shah: So it's hard to see a single issue as sort of the uniting like this is the issue that all Muslims are going to agree on.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: A lot of diversity, but two out of three Muslims do vote Democrat.
--:-- Halima Shah: When they're asked why, what do they say?
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: It's that they think Republicans don't like them.
--:-- Halima Shah: Even the ones who vote Republicans believe that the party is unfriendly to them.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: And an even larger share see Donald Trump as unfriendly.
--:-- Halima Shah: And yet still vote for Republicans.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: That's really interesting.
--:-- Halima Shah: But Muslims don't think Democrats love them either.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: That's the other interesting part, right?
--:-- Halima Shah: Like, when you survey Muslim Democrats, roughly half say that neither party is friendly towards Muslims in America.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: So in short, this is a group that does not squarely align or identify with either political party.
--:-- Halima Shah: Muslims tend to be sort of more aligned with the Democratic Party on questions about size of government, questions about whether government should do more to help the poor.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: Then, on the other hand, they tend to be somewhat socially conservative on questions like homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and some of these questions.
--:-- Halima Shah: And to that extent, they'd more align with the Republican Party.
--:-- Bashir Mohamed: The Pew Research Center has consistently asked the question, should homosexuality be accepted by society?
--:-- Halima Shah: They've asked this question for years. And Muslims have pretty consistently been about 10 to 15 points less accepting than the broader American public.
--:-- Halima Shah: And by the way, when these book debates happen, they also motivate religious debates.
--:-- Halima Shah: So as the opt-out fight in Montgomery County gets underway, there's a very aptly timed joint statement published by a group of Muslim scholars, and it's called Navigating Differences, Clarifying Sexual Ethics in Islam.
--:-- Abdul Khan: And the piece really reaffirms traditional views on gender and sexuality.
--:-- Halima Shah: Sex takes place in the confines of marriage. Marriage happens between a man and a woman.
--:-- Abdul Khan: And when this joint letter came out, my social media feeds were on fire.
--:-- Halima Shah: There were Muslims who saw this as a really brave affirmation of tradition, especially as the public moves in a different direction.
--:-- Abdul Khan: And then there were Muslims on the other side who were livid about this.
--:-- Halima Shah: They saw this as a remarkable level of organization among Muslim scholars to basically single out LGBTQ people and kind of pretend like LGBTQ Muslims don't exist.
--:-- Abdul Khan: And like the visibility of LGBTQ Muslims was something that I also heard from Abdul Khan, the queer Muslim parent from earlier.
--:-- Abdul Khan: And he said it with respect to the book debate. I think some of the damage that's happening here is that within our community, we're not acknowledging that there's LGBTQ folks that are Muslim.
--:-- Halima Shah: And that by doing some of the things, the message that you're sending to people in your community is that you're not worthy of having a platform.
--:-- Abdul Khan: You're not worthy of being in this community.
--:-- Halima Shah: And I don't understand, like, we don't push people away from Islam, but this is just a great way to do it.
--:-- Halima Shah: For Muslim parents in Montgomery County who hold traditional views on gender and sexuality, this issue is important enough to them that they are galvanizing outside the school board, that they are speaking at these meetings, that they are reaching out to other religious groups, that they're doing interviews on Fox News.
--:-- Halima Shah: And they are really willing to do it regardless of whether the school board or other members of the Muslim community think that they're being co-opted by bigots.
--:-- Halima Shah: And I think that people like Raif, who is a former public school teacher, sincerely believe that opting out is an accommodation that will ultimately keep people of different backgrounds happy and staying in the public school system.
--:-- Halima Shah: And maybe it teaches another lesson that goes beyond inclusion, which is that not everyone will like you and not everyone's really going to get you.
--:-- Halima Shah: If someone opted out of a class out of about the five pillars of Islam because they said this conflicts with my religious beliefs, would you feel like that's fair?
--:-- Halima Shah: Would that still be protecting plurality in the school?
--:-- Abdul Khan: I would fully support it because my child's self-worth is not dependent on someone else's celebration of them.
--:-- Halima Shah: And if it really did contradict their sincerely held religious beliefs, I would 100% support their right to opt out.
--:-- Halima Shah: You're an American Muslim, Halima, and I know we talked at the beginning about why you were interested in all of this.
--:-- Halima Shah: I think what I take away is that schools are battlegrounds of social change.
--:-- Halima Shah: So I think, like, public school districts have to contend with that.
--:-- Halima Shah: There are going to be more Montgomery counties.
--:-- Halima Shah: This country is becoming increasingly diverse, and I just don't think that there's going to be any way around these debates.
--:-- Halima Shah: All of these school districts will have to decide between opt-out policies or controversial blanket policies that they believe might serve the greater good.
--:-- Halima Shah: And the stakes of this are very high.
--:-- Halima Shah: I mean, the fact that Muslim parents are considering pulling their kids out and sending them to private or parochial schools suggests that if districts don't walk this line very carefully, they could lose some of their diverse populations.
--:-- Halima Shah: And I think that would undermine some of the beauty of public schools.
--:-- Noelle King: Halima, thank you for explaining this complex issue to us.
--:-- Halima Shah: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Noelle King: Today's episode was produced and reported by Halima Shah, edited by Matthew Collette.
--:-- Noelle King: Patrick Boyd is our engineer.
--:-- Noelle King: Fact-checking was the dream team, Serena Solon and Laura Bullard.
--:-- Noelle King: I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.
