There’s a place just outside the nation’s capital where something pretty amazing happens every day. In the public schools of Montgomery County, Maryland, kids from all over the world learn side by side. Some are the children of diplomats. Some are the children of refugees. Some speak three languages at home. Some are the first in their family to go to school in the US.

The three most diverse cities in America — Gaithersburg, Silver Spring, and Germantown — are all nestled in Montgomery County. On any given school day, children boarding the bus might include Baptists, Buddhists, Catholics, Coptic Christians, Hindus, Latter-day Saints, mainline Protestants, Muslims, Orthodox Jews, and followers of several other faiths and traditions.

This isn’t like most places in America. In fact, there may be nowhere quite like it.

And Montgomery County is special in another way. While in many places families turn to private schools for a better education, people move to Montgomery County for the public schools. They’re known for being some of the best in the country. And because so many people from different backgrounds live there, the schools reflect that: diverse, vibrant, and deeply committed to inclusion. I would know. I taught there for many years.

That’s what makes the Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor so important — and so emotional. In one of the most diverse school districts in America, a major question is being asked: Can public schools require students to learn about LGBTQ+ people even if their parents think it conflicts with their family's religious beliefs?

Today, I’ll walk you through the case from each perspective, and let YOU decide which side has the more compelling argument. More at the end.

The background

Back in 2022, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) added a new set of picture books to its elementary-school English curriculum to “assist students with mastering reading concepts and to teach respect for other students,” according to a legal brief. The school district says that the books — recommended for children ages four to eight — are treated like any others in the curriculum: placed on classroom shelves for students to access, and available for teachers to use in reading groups or read-alouds.

MCPS, like most school districts, has a curriculum adoption process that is open and transparent — the books are available for 30 days before adoption, and there is a multi-level appeals process if parents don’t think they belong in the curriculum.

The books — Prince & Knight, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, Born Ready, and several others featuring LGBTQ+ characters — were added to other titles already in the schools to help ensure that every student could see themselves reflected in the stories they read.

Lawyers for the school system argue that the books “tell everyday tales of characters who experience adventure, confront new emotions, and struggle to make themselves heard,” and that the books explore themes similar to those in classic stories like Snow White, Cinderella, and Peter Pan. The titles were selected “in order to better represent all Montgomery County families,” and teachers may not use them “to pressure students to change or disavow religious views,” the lawyers wrote.

MCPS initially allowed opt-outs after some teachers, administrators, and parents raised concerns about the books, questioning their “efficacy and age-appropriateness.”

According to a legal brief filed by parents, several elementary school principals signed onto a document that identified instances in the storybooks of age-inappropriate content, like depicting young children “falling in love” with another individual, regardless of orientation.

But MCPS officials later ended the opt-out policy, saying that the number of requests for opt-outs was logistically too burdensome. The need to shuttle students in and out of the classroom was highly disruptive, and some schools were experiencing unsustainably high numbers of absences.

From the school district’s point of view, this wasn’t just about the difficulty of letting kids skip certain lessons, or just about a few books. It was also about something bigger: a principle. The district wouldn’t allow students to skip lessons about Black, Muslim, or Jewish people because of someone’s religious beliefs. So why should it be acceptable to skip lessons about LGBTQ+ people?

But the debate goes beyond which books are being read in class. It’s also about how teachers are supposed to talk about those books.

Some parents say that teaching materials provided to teachers indicate that the books and related lessons were meant to disrupt students’ either/or thinking about gender and sexuality.

Teachers were apparently instructed to explain that “people of any gender can like whomever they like.” If students didn’t agree, teachers were encouraged to ask questions and challenge those beliefs.

To help students understand gender identity, teachers were guided to explain that “not everyone is a boy or a girl,” and that some people identify as both or neither.

If students disagreed, teachers were advised to say those views could be “hurtful” to others. They were encouraged to give relatable examples, like “Men can paint their nails or wear dresses,” and say, “Sometimes when we learn information that’s different from what we always thought, it can be confusing and hard to process.”

Not everyone agreed with the district’s approach.

A group of Muslim, Catholic, and Ukrainian Orthodox parents, led by Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, filed a lawsuit. They argued that the no-opt-out policy violated their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion. Their children, they said, were being required to read or listen to books that conflicted with their beliefs, without the option to opt-out. The parents believe this instruction “substantially interferes” with the teachings they are trying to impart to their children.

The parents are not challenging the presence of the books in schools or their inclusion in the curriculum. What they want is to be able to ensure their children will not have to participate in lessons including these materials.

Attorneys for the school district argued that the disputed books are age-appropriate and “impart critical reading skills” to young students. Their brief also noted that MCPS told teachers they couldn’t use the books to try to change anyone’s religious beliefs or make students feel like they had to agree with the stories. The books weren’t part of health or sex ed — they were just regular reading materials.

What Did the Lower Courts Say?

The case first went to the US District Court for the District of Maryland, where the parents lost.

The legal opinion said that reading a story isn’t the same as being forced to believe it — schools can teach about all kinds of people and ideas, and students aren’t required to agree.

The ruling also pointed out that the parents didn’t say their kids were punished for their beliefs or forced to do anything against their religion.

Then the case went to the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, and the parents lost a second time. The court found that the parents had not shown that simply being exposed to the books compelled them to violate their religious beliefs.

But the parents appealed again. They asked the Supreme Court to take the case. And in early 2025, the Court agreed.

This isn’t just about one school district anymore. The decision could shape how all public schools across the US handle religion, diversity, and curriculum.

THE BEST ARGUMENTS

This case is tricky, right? On one hand, you want to respect the religious beliefs of all members of the community. On the other, you want all children to feel welcomed, no matter who they are or what their family looks like. What happens when these two admirable goals conflict?

I’m going to present my best case for each side of this debate, and then let you tell me in the comments which is most compelling. These may or may not be the arguments presented before the Supreme Court, as what is said during the hearing is often shaped by the specific legal questions of the justices.

VIEWPOINT ONE: PARENTS SHOULD BE ABLE TO OPT OUT OF LGBTQ+ INSTRUCTION.

1. It is largely the national consensus that parents should be the primary educators on matters of sexuality and gender.

Many parents have sincerely held religious beliefs that preclude them from exposing their families — particularly young children — to ideas that run contrary to their religious beliefs. No one disputes that these topics are of significant religious importance, and schools do not have the right to substantially interfere with the religious development of their students.

Some faiths require that when children are presented with information about these sensitive topics, they also be taught their religion’s moral principles about them.

Teachers aren’t able to teach religious moral principles in the classroom, and parents aren’t there to make sure that their child is not exposed to teaching that runs counter to their religious beliefs.

Parents don’t think it’s too much to ask that their child be allowed to leave the room or be given an alternative assignment so that these subjects can be broached in a way that is appropriate for their family.

2. Opt-out policies must be religion-neutral, and cannot favor one religious group’s teachings over another.

Schools routinely offer opt-outs for a variety of other activities. This allows parents, not the schools, to decide when their religious teachings align with the curriculum. For example: holidays like Halloween and Valentine’s Day, even when they are presented in as secular a manner as possible, have their roots in certain faith practices. For some religious groups, this goes beyond a simple “we don’t celebrate that” and veers into “my faith expressly forbids celebrating another religion’s holidays.”

It’s not a preference. It’s a religious mandate. To require that a student sit through the celebration of a holiday with religious origins that are different from their own may substantively interfere with their own beliefs.

In addition to holidays, parents are permitted to opt their children out of family life or sex-ed instruction if their religion requires. This has been standard policy around the country for many decades, but when parents who came to school board meetings brought this up, they were allegedly compared to “white supremacists and xenophobes.” They said they were told that objecting to the LGBTQ+ books in elementary school was akin to a “dehumanizing form of erasure.”

The only religious objections to curriculum that were left unprotected were related to LGBTQ+ instruction. Telling parents they don’t have the right to opt out in this instance means that a 14-year-old can be excused from instruction on gender and sexuality during sex education, but a four-year-old must be exposed to similar ideas in a language arts lesson. Which brings me to the third argument:

3. Young children are uniquely impressionable.

Young children and children with intellectual disabilities love and trust their teachers, and they often believe that whatever their teacher says is true. This makes them uniquely vulnerable to suggestion and back their parents into an unwanted corner: Either they must remove their child from public schools and forgo the substantial benefits they offer, or their child is subjected to ideas they don’t have the intellectual capability to combat.

The parents of Grace Morrison (who aren’t part of this lawsuit) faced this exact dilemma when it came to their daughter’s education.

Grace has Down Syndrome, and her parents said because of her disabilities, her ability to make independent judgments is impaired. Her parents asked the teacher for a curriculum schedule so they would know when lessons on LGBTQ+ topics were going to take place, but they said the teacher told them they could know what was being taught, but not when.

Because of that, Grace’s parents say they were forced to pull her out of public school and pay out of their own pockets for instruction, therapy, and supplies. This came at a burdensome cost of $25,000 per year.

And it’s not just Grace who is vulnerable. If a child’s parents say one thing and their teacher says the opposite, how is a five year old meant to discern who is telling the truth? Unlike older students who have developed abstract thinking skills and are better equipped to critically examine issues about their own beliefs and the teachings of their faith, young children are not.

VIEWPOINT TWO: PARENTS SHOULD NOT BE ABLE TO OPT OUT OF LGBTQ+ INSTRUCTION.

1. Exposure is not coercion, and inclusion is an important part of a safe learning environment.

Simply being exposed to material that represents viewpoints that differ from parents’ religious beliefs does not mean their child is forced to agree with those differing views.

Characters in books do things parents disagree with all the time — they lie, cheat, steal, and make other bad choices, but we wouldn’t argue that reading a book about a character engaged in acts that we might consider “sinful” coerces children into violating the tenets of their faith.

Coercion and exposure are not synonyms: coercion would require that a child be compelled or pressured to alter their religious convictions or practices.

By reading stories of families that look different from their own, children learn to be more understanding of other people, even if they do not follow the same religious teachings.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson zeroed in on this during the recent oral arguments before the Supreme Court, saying that children in school might have a gay teacher who has a photograph of their spouse on their desk or who talks about their wedding. There could be a transgender child in the classroom.

Wouldn’t allowing children to opt out of hearing stories about kids with gay parents be the same as telling a teacher they couldn’t talk about their spouse, she asked?

These parents are choosing to send their kids to public schools, where the curriculum is not based on religious principles. Because of that, children are going to be exposed to thinking and concepts that might be different from what they would be learning in a religious setting.

But no child is being forced to believe something that goes against their own religious beliefs.

Additionally, exposing kids to a wide variety of stories, especially those with LGBTQ+ characters, helps students from all family types and lived experiences feel included.

According to the American Psychological Association, which filed a brief in support of the school district, “inclusion isn’t optional,” and by allowing parents to opt out of this aspect of the curriculum, we’re sending the message to kids that intolerance is OK.

“Research shows that inclusive curricula are most effective when taught consistently and universally,” the APA said. Universal teaching “is the only effective way to reach all students, including LGBTQ+ students and those prone to participate in bullying of LGBTQ+ students. Moreover, opt-out policies may signal to students that respect and inclusion are optional values in school and operate like other forms of state sanctioned discrimination to create an environment intolerant of LGBTQ+ students.”

2. The First Amendment says that the government cannot create prohibitions on the free exercise of religion. It does not entitle people to a lack of perceived “infringement.”

The Free Exercise Clause in the First Amendment states: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

The Constitution guarantees that the government will not prohibit a person’s religious practices, not that there are zero limitations on them. In other words, not all religions can be practiced in full everywhere, every day, in all possible ways.

Learning about a topic, even if it might infringe on the teachings of your religious faith, does not by default create a prohibition on the practice of your faith.

Sitting at a restaurant where a family with two moms is having dinner with their children might infringe on one’s religious preferences, but it does not create a prohibition on your free religious exercise, and neither does hearing a story about someone with gay uncles. There is no Constitutional guarantee about freedom from discomfort — in fact, that’s sometimes part of living in a pluralistic free society: we have to tolerate ideas we don’t care for if we want the freedom of our own thoughts and beliefs.

3. Opt-outs are not always logistically possible without creating major disruptions to the learning environment.

It is impractical for schools to accommodate every possible opt-out for every lesson. What if a white supremacist parent wanted their child to be able to opt-out of every lesson that involved people of color, or to boycott Black History Month? What if they said their sincerely held religious beliefs forbid them from associating with Muslim children?

Opt-outs are allowed on religious grounds when it comes to sex ed classes because the nature of the class is to teach about sexuality, but parents cannot opt out of reading, writing, and storytelling, which is integral to the language arts.

Additionally, sex ed classes have a clearly defined schedule, which makes it much easier for children to leave the classroom on days when certain things are discussed, or even for a student to opt out of the class altogether. But opting out of language arts, which are a core part of the curriculum, is not permissible or feasible.

Accommodating 50 children whose parents are asking for opt-outs presents very real challenges for the finite resources of an elementary school — where are they all to go, and how will they be accommodated. In this case, MCPS says they sincerely tried to accommodate the opt-outs, only to find that it was negatively impacting the school as a whole.

Now that I’ve laid out both sides, I’d love to hear what you think.

It’s nearly impossible to find places to engage in good faith debate on the wild west of the internet, and I’d love to invite you to take part in the discussion here.

Paid subscribers: join us in the comments, which is full of people who think deeply and want to engage in the world in a way that isn’t just about parroting party lines.

Let’s discuss.