SCOTUSblog by Amy Howe 1/17/2025
The Supreme Court will decide whether a group of Maryland parents can opt to have their children exempted from LGBTQ-themed storybooks. The justices on Friday afternoon granted Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which a coalition of parents from Montgomery County, Md., contend that requiring their children to participate in instruction that violates their religious beliefs violates their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.
The announcement once again puts the justices in the center of the culture wars. It came just over six weeks after the justices heard oral arguments in a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In that case, three transgender teens and their parents argue that the ban violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. They had asked the court also to decide whether the law violates the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s medical care, but the justices declined to take up that question.
The dispute over the storybooks has its roots in the county’s 2022 approval of books featuring LGBTQ characters for inclusion in its language-arts curriculum. One book used for young children, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during an LGBTQ Pride parade.
When the county announced in 2023 that it would not allow parents to opt to have their children excused from instruction involving the storybooks, a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents went to federal court.
More:
https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/01/justices-take-up-maryland-parents-challenge-to-lgbtq-books-in-schools/
