(RNS) — On Friday (June 27), the Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious parents from Maryland’s Montgomery County who sought to remove their children from classes that discussed LGBTQ-themed storybooks.

Conservative justices voted 6-3, with liberal justices dissenting, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, brought before the court in April. The lawsuit represented Muslim and Christian families who argued Montgomery County Public Schools infringed on their religious rights by barring them from opting their children out of the lessons.

While not definitive, the decision signals the justices’ inclination to see religious parents succeed in their two-year legal challenge to the school’s policy that has dominated discussions at school boards and divided county residents.

And though the decision concerns advocates of the LGBTQ+ community, the county’s religious parents celebrated what they considered a victory. The case is also one of many related to religious freedom on the court’s docket for this term, signaling a sustained interest and concern for religious liberty and expression.

The school board’s decision interfered with children’s religious development and burdened parents in the exercise of their religion, wrote Justice Samuel Alito in the majority opinion

The books, Justice Alito wrote, are “unmistakably normative,” and “designed to present certain values and beliefs as things to be celebrated and certain contrary values and beliefs as things to be rejected.”

Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, the legal group representing the religious parents, called the ruling a “historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America.”

“Today, the court restored common sense and made clear that parents — not government — have the final say in how their children are raised,” he said in a statement.

The Supreme Court building is seen on April 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Montgomery County’s Board of Education and MCPS said in a joint statement on Friday (June 27) that the ruling sends a “chilling message to many valued members of our diverse community.”

“Although not surprised, we are disappointed in today’s ruling,” they said in the statement. “This decision complicates our work creating a welcoming, inclusive and equitable school system.”

The school system will continue to offer inclusive books and will soon announce guidelines for the upcoming school year in alignment with the Supreme Court decision, the statement said.

In the fall of 2022, MCPS announced a new inclusive English/language arts curriculum for pre-K to 5th-grade students, which included a few books that discussed gender and sexuality. The books included “Pride Puppy!” about a family celebrating Pride Day, and “My Rainbow” about a mother creating a rainbow-colored wig for her transgender daughter. Both were removed from the curriculum in October amid the legal dispute.

After some parents and school principals opposed the new curriculum, MCPS allowed parents to opt their children out of classes discussing the books. However, in the spring of 2023, the school board removed that option.

People demonstrate outside the Montgomery County Public Schools Board of Education, July 23, 2023, in Rockville, Md. (RNS photo/Reina Coulibaly)

Following that decision, a group of three Muslim and Christian families sued MCPS, arguing that not being allowed to opt out represented religious freedom infringement. In August 2023, a U.S. district court dismissed the request by parents, siding with the school district.

“The plaintiffs have not shown that MCPS’s use of the storybooks crosses the line from permissible influence to potentially impermissible indoctrination,” wrote the judge in the district court opinion.




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