(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled in favor of parents seeking to opt their children out of public school instruction that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs.
The case, brought by a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, sought a guaranteed exemption from the classroom reading of storybooks with LGBTQ themes, including same-sex marriage and exploration of gender identity.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson cast the dissenting votes in the 6-3 decision.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said in the decision that refusing to allow parents to opt-out their kids from instruction that “poses a very real threat of undermining their religious beliefs and practices” violates the First Amendment protections for religious exercise.
The Montgomery County Board of Education’s “introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion,” Alito wrote.
The court found that the parents are also likely to succeed in their lawsuit over free-exercise claims, and have shown they are entitled to a preliminary injunction while their lawsuit proceeds.
In her dissent, Sotomayor accused the court of inventing a “constitutional right to avoid exposure to subtle themes contrary to the religious principles that parents wish to instill in their children.”
In 2022, after introducing several LGBTQ-themed books into its language arts curriculum, the Montgomery County school board allowed parents to opt out if the content was deemed objectionable as a matter of faith. One year later, officials reversed course and said an opt-out program had become unwieldy and ran counter to values of inclusion.
The parents alleged that use of the books in an elementary school curriculum — without an opportunity to be excused — amounts to government-led indoctrination about sensitive matters of sexuality. The school board insisted the books merely expose kids to diverse viewpoints and ideas.
Pending the completion of the legal challenge, the school board “should be ordered to notify them 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,” Alito wrote.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled during oral arguments in April that it was poised to establish a right of parents to opt out for sensitive subjects, saying it should be common sense.
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