WASHINGTON (AP) —The Supreme Court'sconservative majority on Tuesday signaled support for the religious rights of parents in Maryland who want to remove their children from elementary school classes usingstorybooks with LGBTQ characters.
The court seemed likely to find that the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, could not require elementary school children to sit through lessons involving the books if parents expressed religious objections to the material.
The case is one of three religious rights cases at the court this term. The justices have repeatedlyendorsed claims of religious discriminationin recent years.
The school district introduced the storybooks in 2022, with such titles as “Prince and Knight” and “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding.”
Parents initially were allowed to opt their children out of the lessons for religious and other reasons, but the school board reversed course a year later, prompting protests and eventually a lawsuit.
The case hit unusually close to home, as three justices live in the county, though none sent their children to public schools.
“I guess I am a bit mystified as a lifelong resident of the county how it came to this,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. Kavanaugh also expressed surprise that the school system was "not respecting religious liberty,” especially because of the county’s diverse population and Maryland’s history as a haven for Catholics.
Pressed repeatedly about why the school system couldn't reinstitute an opt-out policy, lawyer Alan Schoenfeld said, “It tried that. It failed. It was not able to accommodate the number of opt-outs at issue.”
Sex education is the only area of instruction in Montgomery schools that students can be excused from, Schoenfeld said.
Justices referred to several of the books, but none as extensively as “Uncle Bobby's Wedding,” in which a niece worries that her uncle will not have as much time for her after he gets married to another man.
Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor and conservative Justice Samuel Alito, who are on opposite sides of most culture-war clashes, offered competing interpretations.
“Is looking at two men getting married, is that the religious objection?" Sotomayor said, noting there's not even any kissing involved.
Alito described the book as an endorsement of same-sex marriage. “The book has a clear message, and a lot of people think it’s a good message, and maybe it is a good message, but it’s a message that a lot of people who hold on to traditional religious beliefs don’t agree with,” he said.
Five books are at issue in the high court case, touching on similar themes found in classic stories that include Snow White, Cinderella, and Peter Pan, the school system's lawyers wrote, though including LGBTQ characters and themes.
“It’s labeled as a language arts, you know, reading and writing program, but the content of the material is very sexual,” said Billy Moges, a board member of the parents group Kids First that formed in response to the addition of the books to the curriculum. “It is teaching human sexuality and is confusing kids, and parents are not comfortable having their children exposed to these things at such an early age.”
Dozens of parents testified at school board hearings about their religious obligations to keep their impressionable young children from lessons on gender and sexuality that conflicted with their beliefs.
Moges said she pulled her three daughters, now 10, 8, and 6, from their public schools as a result. They were initially homeschooled and now attend a private Christian school, she said.
A decision inMahmoud v. Tayloris expected by early summer.
