A wide alliance of state officials, lawmakers, and advocacy organizations has filed legal briefs in support of California parents challenging a state law that bars school districts from requiring staff to notify parents when a child identifies as transgender, according to reporting by ewtnnews.com. The case is now before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco.

California’s law does not prohibit teachers from voluntarily informing parents, but it forbids any district mandate that they do so. The parents challenging the law are represented by the Thomas More Society, a Catholic nonprofit legal organization.

Supreme Court Intervened in March

In March, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-3 to halt enforcement of the California law, finding that it likely infringes on constitutionally protected parental rights and religious freedom. The Court returned the matter to lower courts without issuing a final ruling on constitutionality. A permanent injunction blocking the law remains in effect while litigation continues.

Scope of the Coalition

The coalition backing the parents includes attorneys general from 17 states — among them Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Texas, and West Virginia — as well as five U.S. senators who signed a joint brief: Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, Roger Marshall of Kansas, and Jim Banks of Indiana. More than 70 nongovernmental organizations signed a separate brief, including the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, the Christian Medical and Dental Associations, and Tradition, Family, Property, Inc. Three legal scholars also filed a brief: Professors Robert P. George and Melissa Moschella, both Catholic, and Eric A. DeGroff.

A parent represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, contesting a comparable policy in Wisconsin, filed a brief as well.

What the Briefs Argue

Paul M. Jonna, special counsel for the Thomas More Society, argued that “parents, not school bureaucrats, have the right to raise their children and to direct their religious upbringing.” The senators’ brief contended that “America’s history and tradition affirm that parents bear the primary responsibility for their children’s upbringing,” as first reported by ewtnnews.com.

The parental rights at stake in this case intersect directly with the religious liberty concerns that Catholic social teaching has long emphasized. The Church holds that parents are the primary educators of their children — a principle affirmed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2221) — and that the state may not usurp that role. Similar tensions between government authority and parental and religious rights have drawn scrutiny in other legal contexts, including a pending Supreme Court case on religious home gatherings and local zoning rules and a federal injunction protecting Catholic providers from an Illinois assisted suicide mandate.

The 9th Circuit has not yet scheduled oral argument in the case.