1st Circuit Hears Arguments In Challenge To Gay-Friendly Storybook In School

The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday heard arguments in a case in which parents allege that their free exercise of religion rights were infringed when a Lexington, Massachusetts school teacher read the book King and King to a first-grade class without giving prior notice to parents so they could exclude their children from hearing it. The book, designed to promote understanding of gay couples, tells the story of two princes who marry. During argument in Parker v. Lexington, according to a report in Bay Windows yesterday, the attorney for parents David and Tonia Parker and Rob and Robin Wirthlin said his clients have strong religious convictions that only heterosexual couples should be allowed to marry. Seeking a reversal of the district court's decision, attorney Robert Sinsheimer argued that the parents' free exercise rights include the right to teach their faith to their children.