Fr. James Martin compares LGBT books for children to Jesus’ parables
The Jesuit priest was responding to the Supreme Court's decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which sided with parents who have religious objections to explicit material in schools.
Father James Martin
attends the “Building A Bridge" premiere during the 2021 Tribeca Festival
at Hudson Yards on June 15, 2021, in New York CityDia Dipasupil/Getty Images
for Tribeca Festival
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Mon Jun 30, 2025 - 11:13 am EDT
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(LifeSiteNews) — Heterodox Jesuit priest Fr. James Martin compared kids reading LGBT books to Jesus sharing parables in a recent X post and in an essay at his website, Outreach. Martin did so while arguing against the rights of parents to prohibit their children from reading books in school that promote same-sex “marriage” and other content contrary to the Gospel.
Martin was reacting to the Supreme Court’s decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which was handed down last Friday. The case involves children being exempted from LGBT lessons in classrooms. Martin said he deleted his initial X post “because it prompted homophobic slurs.” He then shared his views on his pro-LGBT website Outreach.
“The Supreme Court decision on parents opting out of their children reading books with LGBTQ characters is a reminder that objecting to LGBTQ issues often falls under the guise of ‘religious objections,'” Martin wrote. “Obviously, some material is not suitable for children, especially if it’s sexually explicit, but some of these books simply introduced gay characters.”
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday that a coalition of parents would likely prevail in their request to have their children exempted from sexualized curriculum in Montgomery County, Maryland. The school district originally allowed exemptions from the curriculum, which teaches children about homosexuality and transgenderism starting in kindergarten, but then took them away. However, some exemptions still exist, like those for Muslim parents who want to remove their children from lessons that involve depictions of Muhammad, who Islam falsely teaches is a prophet.
READ: Supreme Court rules parents can opt children out of LGBT books
Martin’s essay appears to mock Catholics (as well as Jews, Muslims, and others) who object to their children being forced to read LGBT books.
“And as for threatening stories, it’s essential to remember that Jesus not only reached out to those on the margins,” Martin said, “but that one of his most famous stories, the Parable of the Good Samaritan, was about someone from a hated ethnic group — the Samaritans were at the time despised by many Jews, because of where they worshiped God (Luke 10: 25-37).”
Martin proceeded to disparage people who oppose reading LGBT books for what he calls “religious reasons.”
“That story (the Parable of the Good Samaritan), threatening to the religious beliefs of many people at the time, is nonetheless central to the Christian worldview,” Martin alleged. “And it portrays someone from a hated ethnic group in not only a positive light, but in contrast to the selfishness of those on the ‘inside.’ To be clear: Many people in Jesus’s time would have rejected the story of the Good Samaritan because of ‘religious reasons.'”
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In his majority opinion for the Court, Catholic Justice Samuel Alito made clear that parents have the primary responsibility, and the right, to educate their children.
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Alito wrote. “And a government cannot condition the benefit of free public education on parents’ acceptance of such instruction.”
“The practice of educating one’s children in one’s religious beliefs, like all religious acts and practices, receives a generous measure of protection from our Constitution,” he added. “And this is not merely a right to teach religion in the confines of one’s own home. Rather, it extends to the choices that parents wish to make for their children outside the home. It protects, for example, a parent’s decision to send his or her child to a private religious school instead of a public school.”
This right is also affirmed in paragraph 2223 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
READ: School pushes kids to dress as ‘queer hero,’ ‘drag queens’ while keeping parents in the dark
Martin’s X post prompted LifeSiteNews CEO John-Henry Westen to question his end game.
“What does he want? Forced indoctrination into LGBTQ for children against the will of their parents,” Westen exclaimed on X.
This is not the only time Martin has attempted to undermine the Catholic Church’s moral teaching by pushing a pro-LGBT agenda. Earlier this month, he comparedhomosexual Democrat Pete Buttigieg’s parenting of two children that he obtained with his “husband” to the relationship found in the Holy Trinity. Martin also falsely claimed that Buttigieg is in a “marriage.” The Catholic Church firmly teaches that matrimony is only between one man and one woman who are married in the Church.
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- Catechism Of The Catholic Church
- Fr. James Martin
- John-henry Westen
- Lgbt Agenda
- Mahmoud v. Taylor
- Montgomery County
- Parental Rights
- Pete Buttigieg
- pro-LGBT books
- Religious Freedom
- Religious Liberty
