The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday ruled that parents have a religious free exercise right to have their children excused from the use of LGBTQ+-themed storybooks in schools.
The 6-3 decision in Mahmoud v. Taylor is significant for schools across the nation as it will allow parents with religious concerns to remove their children or possibly raise other objections to a range of curricular decisions. The court said the school board’s refusal to allow opt-outs unconstitutionally burdened the parents’ right to direct their children’s religious upbringing.
Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. emphasized that the Constitution protects parents’ rights to guide their children’s religious development.
“We have long recognized the rights of parents to direct ‘the religious upbringing of their children,’” he wrote. “And we have held that those rights are violated by government policies that substantially interfere with the religious development of children.”
The decision, joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, grants a preliminary injunction sought by the parents and orders that “until all appellate review in this case is completed, the [school] board should be ordered to notify them in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction.”
In the dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned that the decision could erode public education’s foundational role.
Quoting a 1987 Supreme Court decision in Edwards v. Aguillard, she described schools as “the symbol of our democracy and the most pervasive means for promoting our common destiny.” That vision, she argued, “will become a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”
Reading from her dissent from the bench, Sotomayor said, “One thing is clear: The damage to America’s public education system will be profound.”
Five storybooks at issue before the high court
The case comes from the 160,000-student Montgomery County school district, just outside of Washington. The Maryland district began using the storybooks with LGBTQ+ themes in its English/language arts curriculum in 2022. At first, it allowed religious parents to keep their children out before reversing course and ending the opt-outs. The district said the number of such requests had become “unworkable,” and allowing many students to skip the readings would send the wrong message to students whose families include members of the LGBTQ+ community.
The storybooks currently in use in pre-K and elementary grades are Born Ready; Intersection Allies; Love, Violet; Prince & Knight; and Uncle Bobby’s Wedding—all featuring LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
Two books that were initially part of the Montgomery County program were later pulled, My Rainbow and Pride Puppy! The latter book in particular drew criticism from some parents—and one Supreme Court justice during oral argument—for asking readers ages 3-4 to search, on pages depicting participants in an LGBTQ+ pride parade, for images including “underwear,” “leather,” “lip ring,” "[drag] king,” and “[drag] queen.”
After unsuccessfully lobbying the school board to reinstate the opt-outs, a group of Muslim, Roman Catholic, and Ethiopian Orthodox parents sued the district. They argued that the reversal violated the First Amendment’s guarantee of free exercise of religion. Two lower courts declined to grant a preliminary injunction.
Lawyers for the parents argued that there is a national consensus when it comes to parental control over teaching children about gender and sexuality, reflected in widespread opt-outs offered for sex education lessons in public schools, including in Montgomery County.
The school district and its allies, which included most major education groups, argued that federal courts have repeatedly upheld public school curricula against similar religious objections. They cited a long history of rulings affirming schools’ discretion in setting required coursework.
Some of those groups also warned that allowing opt-outs for gender and sexuality content could open the door to broader exemptions and could even lead to some parents seeking to excuse their children from lessons on activities such as critical thinking, anti-drug abuse, or Earth Day.
Books seen as promoting specific values, not just representation
Alito, in his majority opinion, offered excerpts from the storybooks and discussed the school system’s guidance to educators for how they were to be used in the elementary school curriculum.
“Like many books targeted at young children, the books are unmistakably normative,” Alito said. “They are clearly designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”
Alito described Uncle Bobby’s Wedding as offering a pro-same-sex marriage message, even if it was more subtle than some of the other books.
The book “asserts that two people can get married, regardless of whether they are of the same or the opposite sex, so long as they ‘love each other’,” he said. “That view is now accepted by a great many Americans, but it is directly contrary to the religious principles that the parents in this case wish to instill in their children.”
Alito stressed the significance of Wisconsin v. Yoder, the 1972 case in which the high court held that the Old Order Amish could not be compelled to send children to school beyond 8th grade. He said the lower courts in this case wrongly dismissed it as a special exception for one religious minority.
Thomas wrote a concurrence in which he bemoaned the rise of teaching “very young children” about sexuality and gender identity, and he suggested schools could keep such lessons in optional sexuality classes rather than try to weave them throughout the curriculum. He also had a disapproving mention in a footnote of Pride Puppy!, one of the two books the Montgomery County school district had pulled from the storybook program.
Dissent warns against narrowing inclusion efforts
Sotomayor, in her dissent, repeatedly stressed that the school system was recognizing that LGBTQ+ individuals and families exist.
“The point of the [school] board’s program is to ensure that diverse groups of students are represented in reading materials across the curriculum,” she said. “The board cannot accomplish that purpose simply by consolidating all books involving LGBTQ characters into a single inclusivity hour and allowing opt outs, as the majority appears to believe.”
She said the court’s ruling will be difficult to administer in schools and will lead to broader curricular challenges from parents.
“Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” Sotomayor said.
Eric Baxter, the vice president and senior counsel of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, who argued the case for the religious plaintiffs, said, “This is a historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America. Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents’ permission. Today, the Court restored common sense and made clear that parents—not government—have the final say in how their children are raised.”
The Montgomery County school board and district, in a statement, said the decision “is not the outcome we hoped for or worked toward. It marks a significant challenge for public education nationwide. In Montgomery County Public Schools, we will determine next steps and navigate this moment with integrity and purpose—guided, as always, by our shared values of learning, relationships, respect, excellence, and equity.”
Justin Driver, a Yale University law professor and a leading scholar of education law, who filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the school district, said the decision “succeeds in opening Pandora’s box in countless classrooms located in our nation’s public schools. It unwisely grants parents and students the authority to, in effect, veto individual school lessons and assignments, thereby wreaking educational havoc.”
