BREAKING: Supreme Court Backs Parents in Opt-Out Fight Over LGBTQ+ Storybooks

6–3 ruling finds Montgomery County’s no-opt-out policy violates free-exercise rights; preliminary injunction ordered while case returns to lower courts

On June 27 the U.S. Supreme Court capped its 2024-25 term by siding with Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents who objected to mandatory classroom use of five elementary “LGBTQ+-inclusive” picture books in Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools. Writing for a six-justice majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito said the district’s decision to drop its parental opt-out option “substantially interferes with the religious development of petitioners’ children” and “imposes the kind of burden on religious exercise that Yoder found unacceptable.”

Alito emphasized that access to free public education cannot hinge on parents’ “acceptance of burdensome instruction,” concluding: “The parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction.” The Court ordered the district to give advance notice whenever the contested books—or similar material—are used and to excuse children whose families object.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, warned in dissent that the ruling “will…usher in a sea change in the law, shifting the primary locus of decision-making on these difficult and often contested policy issues from democratically elected officials to judges.”

Parents first sued in 2023 after the board rescinded its opt-out rule, saying the storybooks portrayed same-sex marriage and gender fluidity as moral ideals. Lower courts denied relief, but the justices reversed, invoking the 1972 precedent Wisconsin v. Yoder and the 1943 flag-salute case Barnette to bolster parental authority over children’s religious upbringing.

Because the decision grants only interim relief, the Fourth Circuit must now reconsider the merits under the high court’s instructions; meanwhile, Montgomery County must restore notice and opt-out protections. Final resolution could take months, and further appeals are possible.

The Court’s Mahmoud opinion leaves Employment Division v. Smith nominally intact while carving a “parental‐formation” exception as robust as anything since Wisconsin v. Yoder. Justice Alito declines to call the case a hybrid-rights matter, insisting that a burden on parents’ ability to direct their children’s moral and religious growth is “of the exact same character” as in Yoder, and therefore strict scrutiny attaches “regardless of whether the policy is neutral and generally applicable.” In effect, Yoder becomes a free-exercise lifeboat: whenever compulsory schooling collides with a parent’s faith, strict scrutiny launches—even as Smith still governs most other neutral laws.

That doctrinal pivot matters for the Ten Commandments laws now racing toward the same Court. Louisiana’s display statute is already on ice: a unanimous Fifth Circuit panel said the posters would “induce schoolchildren to read, meditate upon, perhaps to venerate and obey” the Commandments and therefore violate Stone v. Graham—“there is no opt-out option,” the judges stressed. edweek.org Texas’ newly signed Senate Bill 10 demands a state-approved, 16-by-20-inch poster in every classroom and has drawn a free-exercise and parental-rights lawsuit from some families. texastribune.org

Supporters claim a wall poster differs from curriculum because it supplies “history” rather than instruction—and because, unlike storybooks, no lesson plan forces students to engage. But that distinction collapses under Mahmoud’s logic. A poster is unavoidable: students cannot avert their eyes for seven hours a day, and parents cannot “opt out” of a fixed display any more than they could opt into a parallel classroom. Both the district judge and the Fifth Circuit in the Louisiana case rejected the state’s suggestion that children could simply “tell your child not to look,” calling the display inherently coercive because “for all practical purposes, they cannot opt out of viewing the Ten Commandments when they are displayed in every classroom.” jta.org. Barnette’s ban on forced flag salutes and the compelled-speech cases that followed reinforce the point: a government message omnipresent in a captive setting compels exposure, even if no one quizzes the child afterward.

Mahmoud also hints that parental control is now “quintessentially and intimately tied” to religion—the category Justice Barrett flagged in Fulton. If so, free-exercise doctrine could subsume what earlier generations treated as substantive due process. That leaves secular parents to argue under the Free Speech Clause, invoking Barnette, Tinker, and the compelled-listening corollaries: if the state may not force devout parents to yield on theology, it may not force atheists to yield on ideology. Whether the Court chooses a single free-exercise pathway or a twin-engine (speech plus exercise) test in the coming Commandments cases will decide whether Mahmoud marks a narrow religious carve-out or the opening move in a broader parental-speech revolution.

Meanwhile, Louisiana is preparing a cert petition and Texas officials vow to “defend the foundation of our moral code.” Look for emergency stay requests as soon as district courts rule—likely before the 2025-26 school year begins—setting up a potential Supreme Court showdown as early as the 2026 Term.

Mahmoud v. Taylor, 606 U.S. ___ (2025). Slip opinion, 27 June 2025, https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24-297_4f14.pdf.

Plain-Language Snapshot

What happened?
The Supreme Court’s Mahmoud decision says parents can’t be forced to let their kids take part in classroom activities that clash with their faith. The Court relied on its old Yoder precedent (protecting Amish parents) and applied the toughest legal test—strict scrutiny—without overturning the 1990 Smith case that usually makes religious-freedom claims harder to win.

• Why is it important?
  By treating a parent’s role in shaping a child’s beliefs as core “religious exercise,” the Court effectively gives faith-based objections more power than ordinary “parental rights” arguments that rest on other parts of the Constitution.

• What about posters of the Ten Commandments?
  Texas and Louisiana have passed laws requiring the Commandments in every public-school classroom. Supporters say a poster is just “history,” not instruction. But under Mahmoud that line is shaky: students sit in front of the poster all day and can’t “opt out,” so the burden on parental control may be even heavier than a one-time storybook lesson.

• Key legal questions ahead

  1. Will the Court extend Mahmoud to strike down the Commandments displays on free-exercise or compelled-speech grounds?

  2. If faith-based parents get an exemption, will secular parents get the same protection under the Free Speech Clause?

  3. How will the justices decide which classroom mandates are “quintessentially” religious and therefore trigger strict scrutiny?

Bottom line: Mahmoud gives parents—especially religious ones—a stronger hand to challenge what their children see in school, and the upcoming Ten Commandments cases will test just how far that new leverage goes.

Discussion Prompt

In Mahmoud v. Taylor the Supreme Court applied Yoder-style strict scrutiny to strike down a school district’s mandatory use of LGBTQ-themed storybooks, characterizing parental authority over a child’s moral and religious formation as a protected exercise of religion—while leaving Employment Division v. Smith formally intact and expressly rejecting the “hybrid-rights” label.

Assume the Court soon faces challenges to the Louisiana and Texas statutes requiring Ten Commandments posters in every public-school classroom, where no opt-out is possible.

How should the Court reconcile its Mahmoud reasoning with these poster cases?

Specifically, address whether compelled exposure to a religious text that students cannot avoid (and parents cannot opt out of) should be analyzed under the Free Exercise Clause, the compelled-speech branch of the Free Speech Clause, both, or some emerging doctrine of “quintessentially religious” parental rights. In your answer, consider the logical limits of treating parental rights as religious exercise, the position of secular or non-theistic parents, and the Court’s longstanding requirement of denominational neutrality.