00:00Counselor, you said that nothing in the policy requires students to affirm what's being taught or what's being presented in the books.
00:08Is that a realistic concept when you're talking about a five-year-old?
00:12I mean, do you want to say you don't have to follow the teacher's instructions, you don't have to agree with the teacher?
00:18I mean, that may be a more dangerous message than some of the other things.
00:23Well, there are express directives in the support materials that Montgomery County provided along exactly those lines.
00:31But, Your Honor, I would point the court to Barnett, where the kids were young, they were 8 and 10,
00:35and the court made a distinction between being required to pledge allegiance and affirm a belief in a graven image in that case,
00:42and merely being required to remain passive during the pledge ceremony and being instructed on what the pledge was, what the flag was, and what it meant.
00:49Well, that's a particular ceremony, which I think I would sort of put aside when we're talking about the basic instruction here.
00:56You know, read this, or this is what it shows on an issue that presents serious religious objections for the parent.
01:05So, I mean, I understand the idea when you're talking about a sophomore, junior, whatever, in high school,
01:11where the point is you want to sort of push back on some of this.
01:15But I'm not sure that same qualifying factor applies when you're talking about five-year-olds.
01:25Well, so if that's relevant to the question, Your Honor,
01:27then I think that the line that we advocate between exposure and coercion is the relevant one.
01:32And there may be circumstances where, given the age of the student,
01:35or given the particular presentation of information in the classroom,
01:38a plaintiff may be able to make out a case that their child is being coerced.
01:42But the court, I think, has to accept what Montgomery County sort of represents as the basis for the presentation of this curriculum.
01:50And what's in the record are directives to say, for example,
01:52I understand that is what you believe, but not everyone believes it.
01:55In any community, we'll always find people with beliefs different from our own, and that's okay.
02:00We can still show them respect.
02:02That's exactly...
02:02Counselor.
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