The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled in favor of parents seeking to opt their children out of public school instruction that conflicts with sincerely held religious beliefs.
The case, brought by a group of Christian, Muslim and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland, sought a guaranteed exemption from the classroom reading of storybooks with LGBTQ themes, including same-sex marriage and exploration of gender identity.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson cast the dissenting votes in the 6-3 decision.
Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the court, said in the decision that refusing to allow parents to opt-out their kids from instruction that “poses a very real threat of undermining their religious beliefs and practices” violates the First Amendment protections for religious exercise.
The Montgomery County Board of Education’s “introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion,” Alito wrote.
The court found that the parents are also likely to succeed in their lawsuit over free-exercise claims, and have shown they are entitled to a preliminary injunction while their lawsuit proceeds.
In her dissent, Sotomayor accused the court of inventing a “constitutional right to avoid exposure to subtle themes contrary to the religious principles that parents wish to instill in their children.”
A U.S. Supreme Court police officer stands watch outside of the Supreme Court, June 26, 2025, in Washington.
Mariam Zuhaib/AP
She also reproduced in full one of the books at the heart of the dispute — “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” an illustrated children’s book about a gay couple and their niece — in the appendix of her dissent. Alito accused the book of advancing a “specific, if subtle, message” about marriage — that two people, regardless of their sex, can get married so long as they love each other — that is “contrary to the religious principles that the parents in this case wish to instill in their children.”
“The majority’s myopic attempt to resolve a major constitutional question through close textual analysis of Uncle Bobby’s Wedding also reveals its failure to accept and account for a fundamental truth: LGBTQ people exist. They are part of virtually every community and workplace of any appreciable size,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent while blasting Alito for his interpretation of the book. “Eliminating books depicting LGBTQ individuals as happily accepted by their families will not eliminate student exposure to that concept. Nor does the Free Exercise Clause require the government to alter its programs to insulate students from that ‘message.'”
In 2022, after introducing several LGBTQ-themed books into its language arts curriculum, the Montgomery County school board allowed parents to opt out if the content was deemed objectionable as a matter of faith. One year later, officials reversed course and said the opt-out program had become unwieldy and ran counter to values of inclusion.
The parents alleged that use of the books in an elementary school curriculum — without an opportunity to be excused — amounts to government-led indoctrination regarding sensitive matters of sexuality. The school board insisted the books merely expose kids to diverse viewpoints and ideas.
Pending the completion of the legal challenge, the school board “should be ordered to notify them 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,” Alito wrote.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled during oral arguments in April that it was poised to establish a right of parents to opt out for sensitive subjects, saying it should be common sense.
Eric Baxter, vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty who argued the case on behalf of the parents seeking the opt-out, called the ruling an “historic victory for parental rights in Maryland and across America.”
“Kids shouldn’t be forced into conversations about drag queens, pride parades, or gender transitions without their parents’ permission,” Baxter said in a statement. “Today, the Court restored common sense and made clear that parents — not government — have the final say in how their children are raised.”
An attorney representing the authors of some of the books involved in the case called the ruling “a deeply disappointing blow to the right to read under the First Amendment.”
“It is a fundamental betrayal of public schools’ duty to prepare students to live in a diverse and pluralistic society,” attorney Elly Brinkley, with U.S. Free Expression Programs, said in a statement. “By allowing parents to pull their children out of classrooms when they object to particular content, the justices are laying the foundation for a new frontier in the assault on books of all kinds in schools.”
Brinkley said opt-outs for religious objections “will chill what is taught in schools and usher in a more narrow orthodoxy as fear of offending any ideology or sensibility takes hold.”
President Donald Trump called the ruling a “tremendous victory for parents” during a White House press briefing Friday.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, during the briefing, thanked the Supreme Court for the decision, saying that restoring parents’ rights to decide their child’s education “seems like a basic idea, but it took the Supreme Court to set the record straight.”
“Now that ruling allows parents to opt out of dangerous trans ideology and make the decisions for their children that they believe is correct,” Blanche said.