The Supreme Court ruled in favor of Maryland parents who sought to opt their children out of mandatory curricula that violate their religious beliefs on Friday, after a long-fought battle by Muslim, Catholic, and Orthodox parents who objected to the school’s sex and gender instruction.
The Court ruled 6-3 along ideological lines in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents can opt their children out of public-school instruction that violates their deeply held religious beliefs for now as the case continues to be litigated.
“The Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion. The parents have therefore shown that they are likely to succeed in their free exercise claims,” Justice Alito writes in the majority opinion.
Montgomery County Public Schools began to implement LGBTQ storybook lessons in 2022 as part of its English language arts curricula, which required teachers to read 22 approved books to children, some of which discussed same-sex marriage, gender dysphoria, and sexually explicit themes. At first, parents were allowed to opt their children out of the curriculum.
Then, in 2023, the district abruptly reversed its decision. Parents took the case to court where they argued that MCPS violated their constitutional right to freely exercise their religion by compelling children to participate in instruction that violates their religious beliefs on gender and sexuality.
Parents didn’t ask the progressive district to remove the objectionable content altogether — they simply asked MCPS to allow them to opt their elementary-aged children out of the lessons, in accordance with the constitutional right to freely exercise their religion. As Justice Brett Kavanaugh stressed during oral arguments in April, the parents “aren’t asking MCPS to change its curriculum,” but “just want to be able to opt their children out so they aren’t exposed to things that are contrary to their own religious beliefs.”
“The Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor is not only a win for religious liberty, but parental rights,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said on Friday. “Parents have the right to know what their children are learning at school — and to exercise their First Amendment freedom of religion to opt out of divisive and ideological lessons that go against their family’s values and beliefs.”
Although instruction on human sexuality is usually reserved for parents and subject to opt-out rules, MCPS included its LGBTQ lessons in an English language arts curricula, not a sex-education curricula.
Through the books, pre-K through eighth grade students were introduced to topics such as pride parades, gender transition, playground same-sex romance, and pronoun preference. MCPS lawyers defended the curricula as part of the district’s effort to create “representative classrooms.”
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissent in Friday’s decision. Sotomayor, who authors the dissent, said that the decision will cause “chaos” in American schools.
“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,” she writes. “The harm will not be borne by educators alone: Children will suffer too.”
Sotomayor adds that the books merely present “different backgrounds and identities” to children, and ensures that “diverse groups of students are represented in reading materials across the curriculum.”
One of the books required fifth graders to consider what it means to be “non-binary.” Another required children to learn that doctors only “guess” when determining a newborn’s sex. Yet another, IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All, tries to define “sex,” “gender,” and “transgender,” and asks students which pronouns “fit them best.” During oral arguments weeks ago, Justice Samuel Alito read aloud from another one of the books, in which a girl is instructed not to object to her uncle’s gay wedding.
Mandatory instruction in such LGBTQ themes is “critical for educating children in a diverse society,” and opt-out policies counter “specific goals the district is trying to advance,” MCPS lawyers said in 2023.
“Cramming down controversial gender ideology on three-year-olds without their parents’ permission is an affront to our nation’s traditions, parental rights, and basic human decency,” Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in January. “The Court must make clear: parents, not the state, should be the ones deciding how and when to introduce their children to sensitive issues about gender and sexuality.”
Throughout the course of its legal battle, MCPS has spent more than $1 million on legal fees to defend the mandatory woke lessons.