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WASHINGTON— The Supreme Court this month appeared poised to side with a group of parents seeking to pull their children from public school lessons with LGBTQ+ themed books for religious reasons - a significant expansion of the long-standing practice of allowing opt-outs for reproductive health classes.
The lawsuit over story time and books with titles such as "Uncle Bobby's Wedding" and "Love, Violet" has implications for public schools nationwide. It is one of three major religious rights cases on the docket this term for the Supreme Court, whose conservative majority has been highly receptive to expanding the role of faith in public life.
At issue is whether public schools in Montgomery County, Maryland, illegally burden the First Amendment rights of parents to freely exercise their religion when children are required to participate in discussions touching on gender and sexuality that conflict with their parents' faith.
During more than two and a half hours of argument, the justices made clear that they had studied the storybooks in question. Several read aloud from the disputed texts, some of which referred to drag queens and same-sex marriage. Conservative justices repeatedly pressed Alan Schoenfeld, the lawyer for the school system, on why it could not easily accommodate the religious parents.
"They're just saying, 'Look, we want out,'" said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. "What is the big deal about allowing them to opt out of this?"
"I'm not understanding why it's not feasible," added Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, who said he was "a bit mystified" by the actions of the school board in the suburban Washington jurisdiction where he grew up and still lives.
In response, Schoenfeld said the Constitution does not require public schools to give families a broad opt-out option, which would require alternative classrooms, additional supervision for young students, and substitute lessons each time a potentially offensive topic arose. Teaching civility and respect for differences, he said, does not infringe on parents' religious rights.
The school system expanded its English Language Arts curriculum in 2022 to include books with LGBTQ+ characters as part of an effort to better reflect the diversity of families in the county's religiously diverse and politically liberal population. The elementary school books included stories about a girl who finds that her favorite uncle's marriage means she's gaining another uncle, not losing one. Another tells the story of a young girl who has a crush on her female classmate.
Only two liberal justices - Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson - seemed to fully embrace the school system's claim that exposure to such ideas did not amount to coercion, and that allowing opt-outs would be unworkable for school officials and potentially lead to troubling outcomes.
Jackson asked the attorney for the parents whether their position would mean families could opt-out of a class taught by a gay teacher who displays a wedding photo or pull a child from a classroom with a transgender student.
Justice Elena Kagan, the third Democratic nominee on the bench, said she too was struck by the picture books for young children on matters concerning sexuality and suspected that even some nonreligious parents might not be "thrilled" with the content. Still, she worried about the sweeping implications of a Supreme Court ruling that gives parents a broad right to pick and choose across the school curriculum.
"Once we say something like what you're asking us to say," she told the lawyer for the parents, "it will be like, you know, opt-outs for everyone."
A coalition of parents from a variety of religious backgrounds protested the curriculum. Three couples and the organization Kids First sued.
The parents behind the lawsuit say they are not trying to change the lesson plans or remove any books from classroom shelves. They just want to have the option of saying their children will not participate - an option the school system offered at first, then halted.
The Trump administration backed the parents, telling the justices Tuesday that Montgomery County is improperly forcing families to choose between violating their sincere religious beliefs or forgoing the benefit of public schooling.
At a White House briefing, press secretary Karoline Leavitt said President Donald Trump "stands on the side of parental rights, and he believes strongly that parents should have a greater say in their children's education."
In the past, lower courts have ruled that mere exposure in a public school setting to ideas or information that conflicts with a person's religious beliefs does not amount to an unconstitutional burden on religious rights.
Eric Baxter, the parents' attorney, said it's possible to teach inclusivity without what he called indoctrination.
Montgomery County is "an extreme outlier, insisting that every elementary school student must be instructed that, among other controversial matters, doctors guessed at their sex when they were born and that anyone who disagrees is hurtful and unfair," said Baxter, senior counsel with the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty.
Schoenfeld said the five books at issue among hundreds in the curriculum "are meant to foster mutual respect in a pluralistic school community." The policy, he said, makes clear that students do not need to accept, agree with or affirm anything they read or anything about their classmates' beliefs or lives: "The lesson is that students should treat their peers with respect."
The justices staked out differing views about how to draw the line between permissible exposure to objectionable material and illegal coercion, especially when it involves impressionable young children.
Sotomayor asked what was wrong with exposing children to the fact that two people of the same sex are getting married. "None of them are even kissing in any of these books; the most they're doing is holding hands," she said.
Alito, who has been highly critical of the court's landmark decision legalizing same-sex marriage, joked that he and Sotomayor could have a book club to debate the takeaways of the plot of "Uncle Bobby's Wedding," which he said had a clear message that "a lot of people who hold onto traditional religious beliefs don't agree with."
"It doesn't just say that Uncle Bobby and Jamie are getting married. It expresses the idea subtly, but it expresses the idea, this is a good thing," Alito said.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett read aloud from suggested talking points for teachers to discuss subjects such as preferred pronouns and what it means to be transgender.
"It's not just, some people think," she said. "It's saying: This is the right view of the world. This is how we think about things."
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. was skeptical when Schoenfeld said students need not accept what they've learned.
"Is that a realistic concept when you're talking about a 5-year-old?" he asked.
A divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit had sided with the school system in the lawsuit, saying there was no evidence in the limited record that the parents or children were compelled to change their religious beliefs or conduct as a result of the lessons - or asked to change how they feel about gender and sexuality.
"Simply hearing about other views does not necessarily exert pressure to believe or act differently than one's religious faith requires," wrote Judge G. Steven Agee, a nominee of President George W. Bush, who was joined by Judge DeAndrea Gist Benjamin, a nominee of President Joe Biden. Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., a Trump nominee, dissented.
Outside the Supreme Court on Tuesday, parents on both sides of the debate hosted dueling rallies. Evan Glass, the first openly gay member of the Montgomery County Council, said he supported the use of the storybooks.
"They want to erase us from existence," he said as a crowd of attendees with rainbow umbrellas cheered him on. "We celebrate our diversity. We recognize we can all coexist."
Wael Elkoshairi, a parent of five children, took part in the other demonstration. "Parents' rights trumps all," he said, adding that school system administrators and religious parents couldn't agree "when inclusion stops and where indoctrination started."