The Supreme Court will decide whether a group of Maryland parents can opt to have their children exempted from LGBTQ-themed storybooks. The justices on Friday afternoon granted Mahmoud v. Taylor, in which a coalition of parents from Montgomery County, Md., contend that requiring their children to participate in instruction that violates their religious beliefs violates their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.
The announcement once again puts the justices in the center of the culture wars. It came just over six weeks after the justices heard oral arguments in a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In that case, three transgender teens and their parents argue that the ban violates the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection. They had asked the court also to decide whether the law violates the rights of parents to make decisions about their children’s medical care, but the justices declined to take up that question.
The dispute over the storybooks has its roots in the county’s 2022 approval of books featuring LGBTQ characters for inclusion in its language-arts curriculum. One book used for young children, Pride Puppy, tells the story of a puppy that gets lost during an LGBTQ Pride parade.
When the county announced in 2023 that it would not allow parents to opt to have their children excused from instruction involving the storybooks, a group of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian parents went to federal court.
The lower courts declined to issue an order that would temporarily require the county to notify the parents when the storybooks would be used and give them a chance to opt out of instruction. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit explained that on the “threadbare” record before it, the parents had not shown that exposure to the storybooks compelled them to violate their religion.
The parents came to the Supreme Court in September, and the justices agreed on Friday to weigh in.
The parental rights dispute was one of five cases granted on Friday afternoon, all of which will likely be argued in the spring at the end of the court’s current term.
In A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, the court agreed to weigh in on the standard of review when children with disabilities allege discrimination in education. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit held that the children must show that school officials acted with “bad faith or gross misjudgment,” but the plaintiff in the case – a teenage girl who suffers from severe epilepsy – contends that a less rigorous standard applies.
In Parrish v. United States, the justices will decide a procedural question relating to appeals. Specifically, when a litigant files a notice of appeal after the time to do so has expired, does he have to file a second notice when the time to appeal is reopened?
In Soto v. United States, the justices agreed to decide a technical question related to compensation for combat veterans.
And in Bowe v. United States, the justices will consider procedural questions arising from the application of the federal laws governing post-conviction relief for federal prisoners.
The justices did not act on some of the other high-profile cases that they considered at Friday’s conference, including the challenge to Maryland’s ban on assault rifles and a group of cases challenging a law enacted to improve safety in the horse-racing industry. The justices could act on those cases as soon as Tuesday at 9:30 am.
This post is also published on SCOTUSblog.
