<p style="font-weight: 400;">The conservative majority on the Supreme Court indicated that it would side with parents who want the option of keeping their children away from LGBTQ-themed books in schools.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">The justices offered their comments during <a href="https://www.c-span.org/event/public-affairs-event/supreme-court-hears-case-on-lgbtq-books-in-public-schools/432473" target="_blank" rel="noopener">oral arguments</a> in the case of <em>Mahmoud v. Taylor</em>, which revolves around parents in Montgomery County, Maryland, near Washington, D.C. In 2022, the county’s school board approved LGBTQ-themed books for its language arts curriculum. In 2023, the board refused parents the option of having their children excused from such instruction.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“One book describes the story of a girl attending her uncle’s same-sex wedding, for example, while another book, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during a Pride parade,” <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/04/supreme-court-likely-to-rule-for-parental-opt-out-on-lgbtq-books-in-schools/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">SCOTUSblog</a> noted.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">A lower court ruled that the school board did not have to notify parents when the storybooks would be used, as such notification would have allowed parents to opt their children out of the curriculum. “A federal appeals court reasoned that on the ‘threadbare’ facts before it, the parents had not demonstrated that exposing their children to the storybooks compelled the parents to violate their religion,” SCOTUSBlog reported.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Eric Baxter, an attorney for the parents, told Justice Clarence Thomas that teachers were required to use the books and the school board suggested they do so five times in the school year. Justice Samuel Alito bluntly stated the county’s policy permitted schools to teach children moral principles that were “highly objectionable to parents and they can’t opt out,” and asked simply, “What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?” while pointing out that students could opt out of health classes.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Meanwhile, the defendants’ attorney argued there was a difference between “exposure” and “coercion.” Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch contended that the presentation of the curriculum was more than just exposing children to the ideas, making coercion a possibility. Gorsuch asked the attorney for the school board, “The exposure versus coercion line that you ask us to draw, how does that play out in the case of the Mohammed image for the Muslim student?”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“In those circumstances, the school is coercing the individual to act contrary to a religious belief,” the attorney replied.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“Just being exposed to the image? The exposure there is coercion, in your view?” Gorsuch asked.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“I think it’s the difference between exposure to ideas and activity that coerces you to engage in conduct that is in violation of your belief,” the attorney answered.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“So the idea is the image of the prophet?” Gorsuch asked. “So it’s the image that makes the difference, rather than an idea?”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“I think it’s conduct that makes the difference. &#8230; So if there were a book that described someone making an image of the prophet Mohammed, I don’t think the parent would have the ability to object, even given the religious prohibition at issue, on simply being exposed to the idea that people might depict the image of Mohammed. Being required to view the image of the prophet Mohammed in contravention of a religious objection, is being required to engage in conduct,” the attorney replied.</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">“The child is sitting passively and the teacher’s just reading a storybook,” Gorsuch pointed out, prompting the attorney to admit, “I think if the storybook features the depiction of the prophet Mohammed, that is a compulsion to engage in conduct that violates your religious belief.”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Gorsuch pointed out, “You say this is only about exposure, but we also have in the records some guidance materials for teachers, one of which is if a students says that a boy says a boy can’t be a girl because if he was born a boy, a teacher is to respond, ‘That comment is hurtful, and we shouldn’t use negative words to talk about people’s identities.’ Is that exposure, or is that something else for a 3 to 5-year-old?”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Chief Justice John Roberts declared that even if the school did not require students “to affirm what is being taught in books or lessons,” that may not be “a realistic concept for a five-year-old.”</p>
<p style="font-weight: 400;">Meanwhile, leftist Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “asked how far the parents’ rule would extend. For example, she inquired, could a parent ask to have her child not placed in a classroom with a gay teacher who has pictures of her same-sex wedding in the classroom?” SCOTUSblog reported.</p>

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SCOTUS Hints It Will Side With Parents Who Want Opt-Out For Kids Exposed To LGBT Materials