Religious parents likely to receive Supreme Court hall pass for LGBTQ story time  (2025)

Montgomery County’s plan to teach students civility ran up against vast divides between the justices' views on religion, gender and sexuality.

WASHINGTON (CN) —The conservative majority on the Supreme Court appeared ready on Tuesday to give religious parents a hall pass to prevent their children from accessing LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks despite strong objections from their liberal colleagues.

A Maryland county school board said it was unfeasible to let parents pull their children from classrooms when students might be exposed to topics about gender and sexuality that conflict with their religious beliefs.

The conservative justices, however, seemed to think that opt-outs were a simple solution to protecting parents’ rights to raise their children in their chosen faith.

“What is the big deal with allowing the opt-out?” Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, asked.

Alito and his conservative colleagues suggested that Montgomery County add LGBTQ-inclusive books to its curriculum to influence students’ opinions on those topics.

“It’s saying this is the right view of the world and how we think about things is how you should think about things,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Donald Trump appointee, said.

Montgomery County school board countered that it instead intended to teach civility and respect by educating students on diverse viewpoints.

“The lesson is that students should treat their peers with respect,” Alan Evan Schoenfeld, an attorney with Wilmer Cutler representing the board, said.

Maryland schools began adding LGBTQ-inclusive books to libraries in 2022, including “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” about a young girl whose gay uncle is getting married; “Prince & Knight,” about a prince who wants to marry a knight; and “Love, Violet,” about two girls who give each other Valentine’s Day cards.

Initially, the school board accommodated parent opt-out requests, allowing students to be pulled from classrooms and given an alternative lesson while the inclusive storybooks were read. However, the high number of requests made it infeasible for the school to accommodate and risked exposing students interested in LGBTQ books to social stigma and isolation, contradicting the policy initiative.

At one point during Tuesday’s argument session, Alito read from “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” calling attention to how the author resolved concerns a little girl had about her uncle marrying a man. Alito viewed the story as teaching moral principles that some religious parents might find highly objectionable.

However, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee, said the little girl wasn’t objecting to gay marriage. The girl’s concerns, according to Sotomayor, were that the marriage would take her uncle away from spending time with her.

The divergence between Alito and Sotomayor’s reading of “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” rippled throughout the argument, demonstrating the stark divides between the ideological wings on religion and LGBTQ rights.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, a Joe Biden appointee, saw opt-outs on LGBTQ-inclusive books as a gateway to object to marginalized views.

“It’s not just about books,” Jackson said. “It’s about exposure to people of different sexual orientations and the sincerely held objection that children shouldn’t be exposed to this.”

If parents could opt out of certain activities involving LGBTQ books, Jackson asked, could parents make similar objections to a gay teacher with a photo of their wedding on their desk? Jackson wondered if similar concepts could be applied to a transgender teacher or transgender students.

Justice Elena Kagan, an Obama appointee, saw this logic expanding to opting out of biology lessons on evolution or an 8-year-old talking about having two moms during show and tell. She said next parents might claim that excluding their child from class was also harmful, forcing the school to remove the books for everyone to accommodate a few.

While the conservative justices favored the parents’ arguments, there wasn’t a clear consensus around where the high court would draw lines between merely exposing students to diverse views versus coercing them to believe something that violates their religious beliefs.

The case came to the court as a preliminary injunction. If the justices side with the parents, Montgomery County would have to accommodate opt-out requests while litigation over the constitutionality of the schools’ policies is litigated.

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