Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Parents Who Oppose LGBTQ Books

The Supreme Court handed a victory to religious parents on Friday that allows them to opt their kids out from reading or learning from books about LGBTQ stories in public schools, including one where a little girl prefers a superhero cape to a skirt and another where a beloved uncle gets married to a man.

Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel Alito held that the Maryland public school district board at the center of the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, had “substantially” interfered with “the religious development” of the students and imposed an undue burden on parents’ religious exercise by introducing books with LGBTQ themes. Alito further argues that these books do not merely provide exposure of expansive identity and sexuality, but instead present things like gay marriage as a “moral” thing and a “cause for celebration.” The majority found that this representative interferes with parental rights.

In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor decried the majority opinion, writing that “Exposing students to the ‘message’ that LGBTQ people exist, and that their loved ones may celebrate their marriages and life events, the majority says, is enough to trigger the most demanding form of judicial scrutiny.”

Public schools, Sotomayor wrote, “offer to children of all faiths and backgrounds an education and an opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society.” That experience, she said, is “critical” to the nation’s civic vitality.

“Yet,” Sotomayor warned, “it will become a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”

The case was between the Montgomery County school system, located in the most religiously diverse county in the nation, against a group of Maryland parents—including Roman Catholics, Muslims, and Ukrainian Orthodox followers—who wanted to opt their children out of books that discuss gender and sexuality. The court’s decision reversed lower-court rulings that sided with the school system, which argued that opt-out provisions were impractical and that students who believe the storybooks represent them or their families would face negative consequences if their peers leave the room each time these books are read.

While the decision was not a final ruling in the case and the case is now being sent back to the lower court to be reevaluated under the Supreme Court’s new guidance, it’s unlikely that the school system will pull ahead. As the Associated Press pointed out, “The court ruled that policies like the one at issue in this case are subjected to the strictest level of review, nearly always dooming them.”

President Donald Trump’s administration backed the Maryland parents in the case, saying the schools had put “a price on a public benefit of public education at the expense of foregoing your religious beliefs.”

The parents’ win opens the door for parents across the nation to challenge other books that they disagree with and serves as tacit acceptance to groups that hope to use parental rights as a Trojan Horse for anti-transgender, anti-gay, or anti-abortion cases in front of the high court. Obergefell v. Hodges, the decade-old case that made same-sex marriages legal in all 50 states, was mentioned multiple times in the decision.

A lawyer for the parents, Eric Baxter of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, celebrated the court’s decision, saying, “This is a historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America.”

With Pride celebrations happening around the country, Baxter also said that, “Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades or gender transitions without their parents’ permission.”

Justin Driver, a law professor at Yale, told The New York Times that the decision was deeply problematic.

“This decision succeeds in opening Pandora’s box in countless classrooms located in our nation’s public schools,” he said. “It unwisely grants parents and students the authority to, in effect, veto individual school lessons and assignments, thereby wreaking educational havoc.”

The current Supreme Court conservative majority—crafted in large part by Trump’s three appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett—has delivered several consequential blows to LGBTQ Americans. In 2023, the court held that a web designer could refuse to create a wedding website for a gay couple if it violated her “views” on the LGBTQ community. And, earlier this month, the conservative majority ruled that a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for trans youth doesn’t violate the Constitution’s equality guarantees.

In a combined statement from the authors and illustrators of the books named in Mahmoud v. Taylor, they wrote, “the Supreme Court’s ruling today threatens students’ access to diverse books and undermines teachers’ efforts to create safe, inclusive classrooms.”

Some of the books included in the case are “What Are Your Words?” which talks about pronouns; “My Rainbow,” which is based on a true story about a mom who created a rainbow-colored wig for her transgender daughter; and “Prince & Knight,” in which a handsome prince falls in love with the knight who helps him defeat a dragon.

“To treat children’s books about LGBTQ+ characters differently than similar books about non-LGBTQ+ characters is discriminatory and harmful. This decision will inevitably lead to an increasingly hostile climate for LGBTQ+ students and families, and create a less welcoming environment for all students,” the group said, adding that, “We created our books for all children. We believe young people need to see themselves and families like theirs in the books they read.”