On June 27, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that Maryland parents have the right to opt their children out of lessons they find objectionable on religious grounds; specifically, the pro-LGBT lessons associated with a series of LGBT-themed books.

In 2022, a group of Christian, Jewish, and Muslim parents in the Montgomery County, Maryland school district filed suit against the school board for removing the right of parents to exempt their children from “LGBTQ+” instruction and materials in the curriculum. Initially, the school district notified parents in advance so they could opt their kids out if they chose, but later rescinded that right, thus forcing the indoctrination on all students.

The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, reached the Supreme Court after the parents lost in both the Maryland District Court and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia. However, the Supreme Court ruled that “until all appellate review in this case is completed, the Board should be ordered to notify [parents] in advance whenever one of the books in question or any other similar book is to be used in any way and to allow them to have their children excused from that instruction.”

The majority opinion noted: “Less than a year after the Board introduced the books ... it rescinded the parental opt out policy. Among other things, the Board said that it ‘could not accommodate the growing number of opt out requests without causing significant disruptions to the classroom environment.’”

As many parents and observers might have added, that in and of itself should have provided a clue that the so-called “instruction,” was unwelcome and needed to be eliminated.

The high court further stated: “Those texts included five ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks approved for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, which have story lines focused on sexuality and gender.”

The plaintiffs’ legal team filed examples of these sexualized texts with the court, which media outlets including The Epoch Times, Chalkbeat, and others exposed after the ruling. One of the books, Prince & Knight tells the story of two biological males who fell in love while working together to defeat a dragon. The prince and knight are depicted as dashing heroes who in the end get married and live happily ever after.

Chalkbeat quoted Justice Samuel Alito as writing on behalf of the majority:

• The Board’s introduction of the LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks, combined with its decision to withhold notice to parents and to forbid opt outs, substantially interferes with the religious development of petitioners’ children and imposes the kind of burden on religious exercise that Yoder [an earlier Supreme Court ruling] found unacceptable. The books are unmistakably normative. They are designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.

He continued that many other parents also believe that “biological sex reflects divine creation, that sex and gender are inseparable, and that children should be encouraged to accept their sex and to live accordingly.... The storybooks, however, suggest that it is hurtful, and perhaps even hateful, to hold the view that gender is inextricably bound with biological sex.”

In reporting on Mahmood, an article in the Kansas Policy Institute’s publication, The Sentinel, mentions another of the books, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, which propagandizes kids about same-sex marriage and “censorship.” The article includes an image of the book’s cover and an excerpt of the text from another book, Born Ready, which promotes the transgender agenda to elementary-school children.

Calling the Supreme Court ruling “a big win for all parents,” Johnson County, Kansas attorney, Fritz Edmunds, told The Sentinel:

• At a time when politically based indoctrination of public schoolchildren has reached a previously unimaginable fever pitch, the Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, provides clear legal grounds for challenging school districts that subtly, and not so subtly, indoctrinate very young, impressionable students against the will of their parents. As Justice Thomas states in his concurring opinion, the Board failed to identify any tradition of teaching sexuality and gender identity to young children, much less a tradition of preventing parents from opting their children out of such instruction.

While the ruling in Mahmood specifically applies to the Montgomery County, Maryland school district, Edmunds explained that “it could certainly be argued with excellent authority that any plaintiffs with Article III standing (i.e., a ‘dog in the fight’) could force their district to allow opt-out.”

Is Mahmood enough?

An article on the Cato [Institute] at Liberty Blog applauded the Supreme Court’s ruling but cited fears that allowing “opt outs” will not be enough to solve the problem. The post’s author, director of Cato’s Center for Educational Freedom, Neal McCluskey, wrote that as long as education is publicly funded, “the only full answer to the question of how to educate everyone in a diverse society without government bias is to attach funding in some way to students—through vouchers, tax credits, education savings accounts—and let all families choose the education they think is best.”

The blog post pointed out that allowing parents to opt-out of lessons they oppose does not mean their children will receive education that is “affirmatively in agreement” with their beliefs. “Opting out does not give them that; it just protects their kids from government imposition of values they oppose,” McCluskey wrote. “School choice avoids that penalty, and does so not just for religion. It allows anyone to choose education consistent with their values, whatever those might be.”

Deciding for the parents in Mahmood were Justices Alito, Barrett, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Roberts, and Thomas. Alito included full-color excerpts of the books approved by the Montgomery County School Board, as did dissenting Justice Sotomayor, who was joined in dissent by Justices Kagan and Brown-Jackson.

The liberal justices denied that the books and curriculum amount to government-funded indoctrination adding that the majority ruling instead “gives parents too much power over educators via the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.” Sotomayor opined that the decision “threatens the very essence of public education.”

Curriculum details

The Epoch Times asserted that the books at issue in the case “were not neutral,” and that the board told parents they had been introduced “to address a purported lack of ‘inclusive’ materials.” Parents were given to understand that the books were not part of “planned explicit instruction on gender identity and sexual orientation in elementary school,” and yet teachers “were required to use them as part of the curriculum.” Furthermore, the books were chosen according to certain criteria.

Included in those criteria were three questions listed by The Times: “Is heteronormativity reinforced or disrupted?” “Is cisnormativity reinforced or disrupted?” “Are power hierarchies that uphold the dominant culture reinforced or disrupted?”

Teachers were also provided with talking points and encouraged to discuss the stories with their students. “For example, if a student suggested that two men cannot get married, a suggested response reads: ‘When people are adults they can get married. Two men who love each other can decide they want to get married.’”

Most parents would agree with Justice Alito’s opinion that these lessons “are designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated, and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

While President Trump, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and various pro-parent groups Including Moms for Liberty, hailed the Supreme Court decision, there was much pearl clutching among liberals.

Moms for Liberty lauded the court for siding with parents “over the authoritarian schools in Maryland that sought to FORCE elementary school children into explicit, sexual education against the will of their parents.” Conversely, Justice Sotomayor said the ruling “will be chaos to public schools,” while other liberal voices lamented that the ruling would open “a gigantic Pandora’s box” and place an “impossible administrative burden on schools” while putting the brakes on controlling bullying.

But as one parent sagely observed on social media, “those on the Left don’t really take offense” that most parents “just want to control their kids’ exposure to sexuality....” Rather, it was always about “raw power. If they can ram stuff down our kids’ throats against parental wishes, then they reckon they should, period. The destruction of the nuclear family has always been job #1. Everyone has seen or heard clips of radical teachers saying your kids are ‘theirs, too’ and that keeping secrets between teachers and students from parents is a-ok. Such ‘educators’ and LGBTQ activists have one rule in common: parents are the problem.”

These teachers, however, along with progressive activists, writers and publishers of LGBT and other inappropriate “children’s books,” appear to be the ones with the problem: Most parents don’t want their children to be sexualized behind their backs in the name of education. They do want them to be taught how how to read, write, do math, learn real science, and gain some knowledge of their country and the world through factual civics and history.

Particularly in recent years, this has been little more than a pipe dream in most public schools.

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