Supreme Court ruling wasn’t the final word, as debate on LGBTQ books opt-out goes on
- States Newsroom
- Jul 8
- 6 min read
Supporters say parental rights reaffirmed, opponents say it ‘burdens’ on schools and will lead to erasure of LGBTQ history; attorneys prepare to talk
By William J. Ford
Maryland Matters
Harford County Public Schools Superintendent Sean Bulson knows that school administrators “should be thrilled that parents want to be involved” in their children’s education.
Bulson also knows that there can be a point when parents get too involved, acknowledging the potential administrative burden of trying to anticipate everything that a parent might find objectionable in the classroom.
His comments were in response to the recent Supreme Court ruling that said Montgomery County schools need to notify parents when LGBTQ-themed books are used in the classroom, and give parents the chance to opt their children out.
“If parents do find something objectionable, we need to be willing to discuss it,” Bulson said. “I really think at the center of this, is the willingness to listen to families, communicate with them, and frankly, be open to the fact that parents make these [opt out] decisions for many reasons.”
Bulson’s not the only one grappling with the fallout of the court’s June 27 ruling — which merely granted a preliminary injunction in the case and ordered it back to lower courts, which have yet to hold a hearing on the merits of the case, only on motions.
Attorneys for both the parents and the school system told a federal district judge Monday that, pending paperwork from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, they hope to sit down to see if they can work out an agreement on a preliminary injunction while the case proceeds.
The court’s 6-3 ruling in the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor said that while the case is being heard, the Montgomery County School Board “should be ordered to notify them [parents] 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.”
The ruling came in response to county’s inclusion, in 2022, of LGBTQ-themed books in all grade levels in county schools. After initially allowing parents to opt their children out, the county reversed itself in 2023.
That eventually led to a lawsuit by parents, who said that picture books like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” “Prince & Knight” and “Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named Penelope” were not appropriate for their children in lower grades and that, in some instances, the books’ messages contradicted the families’ religious beliefs.
Suzie Scott of Harford County said the court’s decision represents “a huge win” for parental rights.
“It’s crazy that the Supreme Court had to weigh in on something so common sense,” said Scott, who serves as chair of Moms for Liberty Maryland Legislative Committee. “The parents that brought this case are not trying to tell the school what they can and can’t teach. They’re just saying, ‘I don’t want my child to be exposed to certain literature that is opposed to my moral viewpoint.’”
But Phillip Westry, executive director with the LGBTQ advocacy group FreeState Justice in Baltimore, said the ruling could eventually led to removing aspects of certain historical figures. He points to the late Harvey Milk, a Navy veteran and one of the first openly gay elected officials when he was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977: On the day of the court’s ruling, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on his social media page that the Navy would the USNS Harvey Milk to the USNS Oscar V. Peterson.
“There is a concern from FreeState Justice that this ruling will create an erasure of LGBTQ people from areas in history, in government, in literature, in science,” said Westry, who’s also an attorney. “It makes for a messy situation to educate our kids in a public setting.”
Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion for the court, said the school board’s “introduction of the LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks into the literature curriculum, along with its decision to deny opt-outs as it does for other topics, “places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion.” He said the parents have “shown that they are very likely to succeed in their free exercise” of religion claims, and ordered the preliminary injunction.
In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor — joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — wrote the majority’s ruling would create “chaos” for the nation’s public schools, which will be required to “provide advance notice and the chance to opt out of every lesson plan or story time that might implicate a parent’s religious beliefs.”
The case will eventually go back to the U.S. District Court of Maryland in Greenbelt for a full hearing.
“Now that the court issue has been decided [and] the parents are entitled to a preliminary injunction, our hope and expectation is that the parties and the District Court can work to implement the court’s decision and finally resolve the case,” said Michael O’Brien, one of the attorneys for the parents.
A Montgomery County schools spokesperson said in an email Wednesday that the county would not comment beyond the joint status report that was filed Monday with the district court.
‘Parents have sovereignty’
State law allows parents to opt their children out of instruction that deals with “family life and human sexuality instruction.” But Montgomery County officials eventually ruled that the policy did not apply to the LGBTQ books and materials that were part of the school’s literature program, which they called part of an inclusive curriculum that also helps teach civility and respect.
So a group of county Muslim, Jewish and Catholic parents filed a suit that to challenge use of the books that feature some same-sex or transgender characters in classes as early as prekindergarten.
Lindsey Smith, who isn’t part of the suit, is credited as one of the first people to speak out against the Montgomery County school board’s decision more than two years ago to incorporate the books into classroom instruction.
Smith, who had two elementary-school aged children in the school system during that time, founded the county’s Moms for Liberty chapter established in January 2023. She’s no longer a part of the organization.
In an interview, she recalled how some parents who complained were called “bigots” and told to “shut up and be silent.”
“My kids were not mature enough to handle some of the books,” said Smith, whose children now attend private school. “The parents have the sovereignty and the right to have their voices heard and to be able to have their voice used in the public school education. We’re the ones that pay for it.”
But educators worry that the ruling “will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools,” as Sotomayor put it.
David Stein, president of the Montgomery County Education Association, agrees with Sotomayor’s opinion on how the ruling “will impose impossible administrative burdens on schools.”
“If one child needs to opt out on Monday for this book, but another child needs to opt out on Wednesday for another book, it’s unworkable and it’s just an incredible burden on that teacher,” said David Stein, president of the Montgomery County Education Association.
“I’m worried about what happens in high school biology class,” said Stein, who taught high school biology for 30 years. “We want to talk about evolution, or we want to talk about vaccines. Teachers are going to have to keep track of all these different these objections that various families may have.”
Bulson said it’s impossible for school systems to anticipate everything that’s objectionable. He said one of his main focuses is to simply communicate with parents in his district, which he said has experienced few opt-out requests from parents.
“I do have a pretty firm line, which is I’ll talk to you about what affects your children, but I would equally defend the importance of sustaining a line where individual parents don’t get to speak for other families’ children,” Bulson said. “I still think schools have an important role to play in ensuring all students feel included.”
Montgomery County mom Taylor Tuckerman said she and her husband read various books to their son, who turns 3 this month, including those that include LGBTQ+ themes. One her son has become engaged with is “Plenty of Hugs,” which features a family with two mothers.
“It’s just really upsetting to me to think that in two years, he and his friends are going to go into kindergarten and not have these same books available to them,” said Tuckerman, a vice president of finance and shared services with Catholics for Choice.
“The Supreme Court decided that it’s OK for other parents to teach their children to discriminate and judge people who are different from them and to force that same judgement into my son’s public classrooms,” she said. “We believe people of all faiths should feel welcomed and included and that includes LGBTQ families of faith.”
• This story was originally published by Maryland Matters, an affiliate of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
