Supreme Court to decide if religious parents can opt their kids out of LGBT curriculum
The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea for parents to have the ability to opt their children out of a Maryland school district's curriculum that they believe promotes LGBT ideology and violates their religious convictions.
In a miscellaneous orders list released Friday, the high court agreed without comment to an appeal in the case of Mahmoud, Tamer, et al. v. Taylor, Thomas W., et al., which centers on whether Montgomery County Public Schools must allow parents the right to opt out of LGBT curriculum content if they hold religious objections.
The Becket Fund, a legal nonprofit that represents the parents and has argued religious liberty cases before the Supreme Court in the past, celebrated the decision.
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"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," said Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement.
"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."
In October 2022, the Montgomery County Board of Education approved a group of LGBT-themed books for schools' English language arts curriculum. In response to this decision, a coalition of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents protested and sued Montgomery County Schools in 2023, arguing that the school district violated their sincerely held beliefs.
U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, rejected the motion for a preliminary injunction in August, concluding that the parents failed to show that the "use of the storybooks crosses the line from permissible influence to potentially impermissible indoctrination."
"The evidence suggests that, generally, MCPS teachers will occasionally read one of the handful of books, lead discussions and ask questions about the characters, and respond to questions and comments in ways that encourage tolerance for different views and lifestyles," wrote Boardman. "That is not indoctrination."
In May 2024, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 to uphold the lower court ruling, with Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee, a George W. Bush appointee, authoring the majority opinion.
"At this early stage, however, given the Parents' broad claims, the very high burden required to obtain a preliminary injunction, and the scant record before us, we are constrained to affirm the district court's order denying a preliminary injunction," wrote Agee.
"[T] here's no evidence at present that the Board's decision not to permit opt-outs compels the Parents or their children to change their religious beliefs or conduct, either at school or elsewhere. … And simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one's religious faith requires."
Circuit Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., a Trump appointee, dissented, writing that the parents had "shown the board's decision to deny religious opt-outs burdened these parents' right to exercise their religion and direct the religious upbringing of their children by putting them to the choice of either compromising their religious beliefs or foregoing a public education for their children."
"They do not claim the use of the books is itself unconstitutional. And they do not seek to ban them. Instead, they only want to opt their children out of the instruction involving such texts," Quattlebaum said.
"The board's refusal to grant the parents' requests for religious opt-outs to instruction with the books the board required be used to promote diversity and inclusivity to the LGBTQ+ community forces the parents to make a choice — either adhere to their faith or receive a free public education for their children. They cannot do both."
