Justices appear to favor Montgomery County parents opposed to LGBTQ-themed books

by William J. Ford, Maryland Matters
April 23, 2025

Supreme Court justices appeared to side Tuesday with Montgomery County parents who say the county’s refusal to let them opt their children out of classes with LGBTQ-themed books violates their right to raise their children according to their faith.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, stemmed from a 2023 lawsuit filed by a group of Muslim, Jewish and Christian parents after the school board introduced books for classes as early as pre-kindergarten that had stories featuring transgender or same-sex characters.

When the books were introduced in the 2022-23 school year, the school system let parents who objected to the books opt their children out of classes that used the books, as they can opt children out of health education classes they find offensive. But the board reversed itself in March 2023, saying students could not get out of the language arts classes using the books, which the schools called part of an inclusive curriculum that also helps teach civility and respect.

But to the parents in the case, it’s a religious issue, and “Parents, not school boards, should have the final say on such religious matters,” said Eric S. Baxter, the attorney representing the parents.

The question before the court was whether “public schools burden parents’ religious exercise by compelling elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents’ religious convictions and without the opportunity to opt out?”

Two lower courts have said it does not, ruling that books are not a religious burden because they do not compel students to change their beliefs. But in 2.5 hours of arguments Tuesday, the conservative majority appeared to question that, and to side with parents’ call for an opt-out.

“The plaintiffs here are not asking the school to change its curriculum,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. “They’re just saying, ‘Look, we want out.’ Why isn’t that feasible? What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?”

School board attorney Alan E. Schoenfeld said it could create dozens of students not being in classes, while teachers and staff would need to create additional instruction for those students and accommodate them in other places within the school.

“I think it is infeasible,” Schoenfeld said.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said he was “a bit mystified, as a lifelong resident of the county, how it came to this.” He asked Schoenfeld how Montgomery County, a “beacon of that religious liberty” in a state founded on religious liberty and tolerance, had reached a point of “not respecting religious liberty, given that history.”

“I just want to give you a chance to respond to how you situate that in Maryland and Montgomery County’s history,” Kavanaugh said.

Schoenfeld said the county’s 160,000-student public school system is the most religiously diverse in the country, and the school board has a difficult job “balancing the interests of a diverse community.”

“Montgomery County did its best under these circumstances, given their curricular goals,” he said. “That seems to me a fundamentally different question, and it’s an important one, but it is a fundamentally different question about whether there’s a constitutional right to opt your child out of curriculum that you deem religiously offensive.”

Meanwhile, the liberal justices questioned whether the mere presence of the books is coercive, and where the court should draw the line if it tries to create a rule on when parents can opt their children out of a class.

Justice Sonya Sotomayor highlighted one of the books, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a girl worried that she will lose time with her uncle once he gets married, until his boyfriend befriends her. Sotomayor said no one in that book or any others “are even kissing.”

“The most they’re doing is holding hands. That mere exposure to that is coercion?” Sotomayor asked Baxter.

“Our parents would object to that,” Baxter replied.