Mahmoud v. Taylor (Part I)

CALIRED NEWS–Schools nationwide can no longer withhold parental opt-outs on a case involving LGBTQ+ “inclusive” storybooks under any conditions according to the June 27 Supreme Court ruling made on the Montgomery County, Maryland case of Mahmoud v. Taylor with Mahmoud representing Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents and (Supt. Thomas) Taylor representing the Montgomery County School board.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Mahmoud with Justice Samuel Alito writing the majority opinion and Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett agreeing; with Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting along with Justices Elena Kagan and Katanji Brown Jackson.

The Supreme Court agreed with the parents that they had a right to opt their elementary-school-aged children out of instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes and the school board’s refusal to do so (due to the amount of parents that objected and the challenges presented) violated their constitutional rights to freely exercise their religion.

“Courts are not school boards, or legislatures, and are ill-equipped to determine the ‘necessity’ of discrete aspects of a State’s program of compulsory education,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito. He emphasized that “what the parents seek here is not the right to micromanage the public school curriculum, but rather to have their children opt out of a particular educational requirement boat burdens their well-established right ‘to direct” the religious upbringing of their children,’” under the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

Montgomery County lies within the Washington, D.C suburbs and with nearly 160,000 students enrolled during the 2024-25 school year. It is one of the nation’s largest school systems and it’s in one of the most religiously diverse counties in the United States.

The dispute was birthed from the county school board’s 2022 approval of books featuring LGBTQ+ characters for use in its language-arts curriculum.

One book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, tells the story of a little girl’s reaction to her uncle’s same-sex wedding; another book, Pride Puppy, describes a puppy that becomes lost during a Pride parade.

(Editor’s Note: Read the 135-page Supreme Court decision and to read an opinion article by Richard Garnett: “Is Religious Freedom Possible In State Schools?“)

CaliRed News is a column posted on Making California Red by the 2026 elections through reaching Gen Z (ages 13-28), Hispanics, and Christians with biblical traditional values and their pastors. CaiRed News reports on political, business, community, nonprofit, and church news.

Mike Hernandez is co-founder of the Citizens Journal–Ventura County’s online news service and writes for Citizens Journal and Mountain Top Media. He is a former Southern California daily newspaper journalist and religion and news editor, writer of “CaliRed News” and “Prayer Over News Daily” and edits the weekly “Stories Speak Volumes” and other columns. Mr. Hernandez mentors citizen journalists/podcasters and can be contacted here.

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