SCOTUS Holds LGBTQ+ Curriculum With No Opt-Out Violates Free Exercise Clause

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. ____ (2025), the U.S. Supreme Court sided with parents challenging the Montgomery County Board of Education’s introduction of certain “LGBTQ+- inclusive” storybooks, along with the board’s decision to deny parents the opportunity to opt out from instruction. 

According to the majority, because the policy violates the parents’ constitutional right to freely exercise their religion, theyare entitled to a preliminary injunction that would permit them to have their children excused from instruction related to the storybooks while the lawsuit proceeds.

Facts of the Case

During the 2022–2023 school year, the Montgomery County Board of Education (Board) introduced a variety of “LGBTQ+-inclusive” texts into the public school curriculum. Those texts included five “LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks approved for students in kindergarten through fifth grade, which have story lines focused on sexuality and gender.

When parents in Montgomery County sought to have their children excused from instruction involving those books, the Board initially compromised with the parents by notifying them when the “LGBTQ+ inclusive” storybooks would be taught and permitting their children to be excused from the instruction. That compromise was consistent with the Board’s “Guidelines for Respecting Religious Diversity,” which professed a commitment to making “reasonable accommodations” for the religious “beliefs and practices” of students.

Less than a year after the Board introduced the books, however, it rescinded the parental opt out policy.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.”

In response, a group of individual parents and an unincorporated association of other interested parties filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland. The individual parents come from diverse religious backgrounds and hold sincere views on sexuality and gender which they wish to pass on to their children. Among other things, they asserted that the Board’s no-opt-out policy infringed on parents’ right to the free exercise of their religion.

They rely heavily on Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), in which the Court recognized that parents have a right “to direct the religious upbringing of their children” and that this right can be infringed by laws that pose “a very real threat of undermining” the religious beliefs and practices that parents wish to instill in their children. 

The challengers (now Petitioners) sought a preliminary and permanent injunction “prohibiting the School Board from forcing [their] children and other students—over the objection of their parents—to read, listen to, or discuss” the storybooks. The District Court denied relief, and a divided panel of the Fourth Circuit affirmed. It held that given the Parents’ broad claims, the very high burden required to obtain a preliminary injunction, and the scant record before the court, it was “constrained to affirm the district court’s order denying a preliminary injunction.”

In reaching its decision, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the parents failed to demonstrate their free-exercise rights were burdened because no one was forced “to change their religious beliefs or conduct.” In support, it cited that Supreme Court precedent requires some sortof direct or indirect pressure to abandon religious beliefs or affirmatively act contrary to those beliefs. The Fourth Circuit also rejected the Petitioners’ reliance on Yoder.

According to the appeals court, “This argument that compelled presence or exposure necessarily establishes the existence of a burden relies on too expansive a reading ofYoder, a case which has been markedly circumscribed within free exercise precedent in the decades since it was decided.”

Supreme Court’s Decision

The Supreme Court reversed by a vote of 6-3, holding that that the parents are likely to succeed in their challenge to the Board’s policies.

“[W]e hold that 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 their children and imposes the kind of burden on religious exercise” that the Court has previously held is unacceptable, Justice Samuel Alito wrote on behalf of the majority.

In reaching its decision, the majority emphasized that it has long recognized the rights of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. “And we have held that those rights are violated by government policies that substantially interfere with the religious development of children,” Justice Alito explained.

Citing Yoder, Justice Alito further highlighted that the Free Exercise Clause protects against policies that impose more subtle forms of interference with the religious upbringing of children, such as a compulsory-education law that would place Amish children into “an environment hostile to Amish beliefs,” where they would face “pressure to conform” to contrary viewpoints and lifestyles. The majority went on to find that 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 found unacceptable.

In the majority’s view, the books “unmistakably convey a particular viewpoint about same-sex marriage and gender,” and are “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.” It further found that like the compulsory high school education considered in Yoder, these books impose upon children a set of values and beliefs that are “hostile” to their parents’ religious beliefs.“We reject this chilling vision of the power of the state to strip away the critical right of parents to guide the religious development of their children,” Justice Alito wrote.

Dissent

Justice Sonia Sotomayor authored a dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Casting aside longstanding precedent, the Court invents a constitutional right to avoid exposure to ‘subtle’ themes ‘contrary to the religious principles’ that parents wish to instill in their children. 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,” Justice Sotomayor wrote. “That novel rule is squarely foreclosed by our precedent and offers no limiting principle.”

Justice Sotomayor also expressed concern about the chaos that may result from the ruling. “Requiring schools to provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” she wrote.