WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Supreme Court has sided 6-3 with Maryland parents in Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling that a school board policy compelling children into LGBTQ-themed instruction without giving parents a choice to opt-out violates the First Amendment. Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority’s opinion, declared that the religious parents in the case are entitled to a preliminary injunction that blocks the policy because the LGBTQ instruction “undermines” the religious beliefs and practices that they “wish to instill” in their children.

The decision reverses a Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that held the parents did not prove that the school board’s policy violated their constitutional right to free exercise of religion. However, the High Court returned the case back to the lower courts giving the parents a high likelihood of securing a permanent injunction against the “no-opt out” policy that would allow all parents to opt-out of the offensive instruction. 

The case arose when a coalition of parents from various religious faiths, including Christian and Muslim, contested the “no opt-out” policy from the Montgomery County Board of Education. The instruction includes more than “22 LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks infused with radical gender ideology, such as the false idea of “gender transitions,” “Pride parades,” and same-sex romances between minors. The books are used for instruction in pre-K through eighth grade classrooms where some of the books are taught to children as young as three years old. The central question in the case asked if public schools burden parents’ religious exercise when they compel elementary school children into instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents' religious convictions and without notice or opportunity to opt out.

In answering that question, Justice Alito drew upon the “enduring American tradition” of recognizing the rights of parents to direct “the religious upbringing” of their children. These rights, Justice Alito explained, not only allow parents to teach religion at home, but rather extend parental choices outside the home as well.

The First Amendment forbids compelling children to depart from the religious practices of their parents, wrote Justice Alito. He noted it also extends to “more subtle forms of interference.”

The majority held that the “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks combined with the school board’s decision to withhold notice to parents and to forbid opt outs “substantially” interfered with the religious development of children. The High Court noted the school board’s policy imposed a burden on religious exercise, which is “unacceptable” according to previous Supreme Court precedent.

In the opinion, Justice Alito highlighted that the books in the curriculum convey messages that “same-sex” marriage should be celebrated and that one’s sex and gender can be changed. These books and accompanying guidance for discussions present these “hotly contested” views as “settled” matters which “sharply” conflict with the religious beliefs of many parents, wrote Justice Alito.

Justice Alito noted that “impressionable” children often “implicitly” trust their teachers, and in this case, the school board encourages teachers to correct the children and “accuse them of being hurtful” when they display any “religious confusion.”

Since these books present a “hostile” viewpoint to parents’ religious beliefs, it puts “psychological pressure to conform” on the children, which represents an “objective danger” to the free exercise of religion, wrote Justice Alito.

“Given the novelty of its ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ curriculum and no opt-out policy, if any party is pressing a progressive child rearing process in this litigation, clearly it is the Board,” the opinion reads. “Such an unprecedented curriculum cannot ‘overbalance’ the parents’ ‘legitimate claims to the free exercise of religion.’”

The majority also noted that while public education is a “public benefit,” the government cannot place a burden on religious exercise as a “condition” for receiving the benefit.

Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented from the ruling. According to Justice Alito, their dissent would demand parents endure any instruction that “falls short of direct compulsion or coercion” and that parents must try “to counteract” those teachings at home. 

“The Free Exercise Clause is not so feeble,” concluded Justice Alito.

Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief in the case arguing that teaching this curriculum without any ability to opt out compels affirmation of repugnant beliefs, degrades the purity of children, and imposes a penalty on religion by making public education – a government benefit – contingent upon lessons that burden parents’ faith.

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Forcing children into offensive instruction that is antithetical and hostile to their parents’ religious beliefs is unconstitutional. Children do not become wards of the state by merely attending public schools. Parents have the First Amendment right to direct the education and provide for the welfare of their children free from government coercion that conflicts with their faith.”

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