The Supreme Court is slated to hear arguments in a case that will determine whether religious parents can opt their children out of reading LGBT storybooks in public schools.

Supporters of the parents say the case will protect their ability to raise their children in accordance with their religious beliefs, while critics insist it will impose a “Don’t Say Gay” law in every classroom in America. 

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, began three years ago and brings together a diverse group of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim families in Maryland who say a public school curriculum for pre-K through eighth grade violates their religious beliefs. They are asking for the ability to opt their children out of it. 

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court are scheduled for April 22.

In October 2022, Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland approved an English Language Arts curriculum that included “storybooks” with LGBT characters. One of the books approved was “Pride Puppy!” which tells the story of a “young child and their family… having a wonderful time together celebrating Pride Day.” 

One book that is meant for first graders, “IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All,” discusses topics such as being “non-binary” and determining “what pronouns fit you best.”

The school board initially provided an option for parents to receive notice and to opt their children out of lessons with those books, a decision that was later reversed. In March 2023, the board removed the notice and opt-out options, saying that allowing them would cause classroom disruption. 

Following that decision, a group of religious parents of different faiths — including Islam, Judaism, and various denominations of Christianity — sued the school board, arguing that the books went beyond focusing on basic principles of kindness and ventured into indoctrinating the youngest students in sexual and gender ideology. They argued that the lack of the ability to opt their children out violated their right to free exercise of religion. 

A district court declined to require the school to reinstitute the opt-out policy. In May 2024, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit declined to issue a preliminary injunction in favor of the parents. The majority found that the parents “have not shown a cognizable burden to support their free exercise claim.”

The parents then appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. 

Defenders of the Montgomery County school board argue that the case is going to the Supreme Court too early. A senior counsel for the Freedom From Religion Foundation, Sam Grover, tells the Sun, “This curriculum hasn’t actually been implemented. It hasn’t been taught to any of their kids at this early stage in the case, and so the Supreme Court should simply decline to enter a preliminary injunction.”

However, an attorney with the conservative legal firm Alliance Defending Freedom, Vincent Wagner, said that while it is “early in the case,” the argument is not “well-founded” as it is common for plaintiffs in First Amendment cases to seek early preliminary injunctions in such cases. 

Mr. Wagner notes that the curriculum is not just telling teachers to read the books to students, but also to be ready to “instruct them to be ready to embrace this particular worldview and how to wrestle with this material.”

On the issue of the books themselves, Mr. Grover said the curriculum is “just incorporating materials that acknowledge the existence of LGBTQ+ people. It’s not trying to say that any one lifestyle is moral or does or does not conform to any particular religious standard,” he said.

The vice president of Defending Education, Sarah Parshall Perry, argued that while children will encounter concepts such as sex and gender in life, parents have a right to determine if and when their children should be exposed to such material. 

She told the Sun. “That is the parents’ choice to determine how they are exposed to that material and to do so in a way that comports with their religious faith and tradition.”

Additionally, she said at stake in the case is parents’ ability to instruct children “that human beings are created…that men and women are born with immutable characteristics and that each one of the creators in their faith structures creates that individual as inherently male or female.”

The young age of the children who would encounter the materials was a focus of a group of psychologists. The Manhattan Institute filed an amicus brief on behalf of the psychologists, which stated, “Even if Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) do not present these topics in a coercive manner, children will still readily accept the information and are by virtue of their developmental stage unable to distinguish fact from opinion or contested theory.”

“A child is thus never ‘simply hearing other views’ in a classroom setting. There is always a bias in human communication that even well-intended teachers will introduce in what they choose to portray,” the brief adds. “Children are accustomed to accepting assertions put forth by an adult authority figure unquestioningly. They lack the critical-thinking skills to evaluate gender-theory views of sexual identity.”

The co-author of the Manhattan Institute’s brief, Tim Rosenberger, addressed concerns from LGBT groups that opt-out policies will tell children kindness is optional. He told the Sun, “You can avoid this by just not having that module at all…There’s some question about whether the school should be stepping into moral formation.” 

“We’ve done a good job at creating a kind, open-minded, patriotic citizenry for a long time in this country. And we’ve never, until very recently, brought books into our public schools that talk about the things that are at issue here: kink, sex work, etc.,” he said. 

Mr. Grover and left-wing outlets such as Vox argue that if the Supreme Court ruled in the parents’ favor, it would put a condition on the school system that is not feasible. Vox’s Ian Millhiser wrote, “Every public school would have to provide advance notice to any parent about any lesson that might offend that parent’s religious views.”

While liberals allege a ruling in the parents’ favor would lead to chaos, Mr. Wagner says the opt-out request focuses on the “ahistorical, ideological instruction, indoctrination about sexuality and gender that’s the focus of these parents’ objection.” 

He also reiterated that the school board initially offered the opt-out policy.