Supreme Court Rules In Favor Of Religious Parents Against LGBTQ+ Books

It’s also another victory for right-wing culture warriors who have been leading the movement to remove books from classrooms.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Friday that a group of religious parents can opt their children out of elementary school curriculum that involves books with LGBTQ+ themes.

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, a group of parents of a number of religions, including Catholics and Muslims, sued the Montgomery County, Maryland, public school board after the district removed a policy that allowed those with religious objections to pull their children out of class whenever a book with LGBTQ+ characters would be used for teaching. The parents argued the new policy violated their religious freedom to teach their own values to their children.

Initially, school policy allowed parents to pull their children out of class when books they objected to were being used, but the school reversed course when the absences kept increasing and the number of students missing class became too burdensome. The parents, however, said the change was a violation of their religious freedom, and, after a federal court and district court ruled against them, they petitioned the Supreme Court.

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“In a time of ever-increasing polarization in our country, exemptions that would require schools to allow children to refuse exposure to materials and curriculum about people from various backgrounds is divisive and harmful,” Deborah Jeon, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland said in April before the court heard oral arguments.