SCOTUS: Parents Can Opt Children Out of LGBTQ+ Instruction, Position Taken By LIF In Amicus Brief
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.”
In early March, the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF) filed an amicus curiae, or friend-of-the-court, brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in a case concerning parental rights and the impact of some pretty gross LGBTQ+ instruction on (in some cases very young) children. The case also concerned whether denying parents the right to opt their children out of the instruction “burdened” their Constitutional right to the Free Exercise of Religion under the First Amendment. For review, see: Brief Supporting Parental Right to Opt Kids Out of “Gender and Sexuality” Instruction Filed by Legal Insurrection.
To summarize, our amicus brief, available here, argued that (i) parents’ right to control their children’s upbringing is a fundamental liberty that the lower courts had failed to honor, (ii) forcing children to attend and absorb LGBTQ+ instruction opposed to their religious upbringing burdens their and their parents free exercise of religion and (iii) it is settled law that a government entity may not force someone to choose between receiving a benefit (i.e. free public education) and adhering to their faith.
In late April, the Court held oral arguments and it seemed to go well for the parents. See our post on the subject: SCOTUS Seems Likely To Allow Parental Right to Opt Kids Out of “Gender and Sexuality” Instruction.
And now, Thank God, the Court has decided, 6-3, that:
[T]he parents have shown that they are entitled to a preliminary injunction. A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses “a very real threat of undermining” the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill. Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U. S. 205, 218 (1972). And a government cannot condition the benefit of free public education on parents’ acceptance of such instruction. Based on these principles, we conclude that the parents are likely to succeed in their challenge to the Board’s policies.
This means that the parents must, starting right now, be given the option to opt their kids out of LGBTQ+ instruction if they want.
It also means that the Court agreed with everything we argued in our amicus brief.
You can review the Supreme Court’s opinion here, and at the of this post (check out the pictures from some of the LGBTQ+ books).
From Fox News: Supreme Court decides whether to allow parents to shield children from LGBTQ books in school:
The Supreme Court held Friday that a group of Maryland parents are entitled to opt their children out of school lessons that could violate their beliefs in a case centered on religious freedom.
The justices decided 6-3 along ideological lines in Mahmoud v. Taylor that parents can exclude their children from a Maryland public school system’s lessons that contain themes about homosexuality and transgenderism if they feel it conflicts with their religious faith.
“A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority. “And a government cannot condition the benefit of free public education on parents’ acceptance of such instruction.”
* * * *The Maryland parents who sued said in their petition to the high court that the school board introduced books to their elementary school students that promoted “gender transitions, Pride parades, and same-sex playground romance.”
The parents said the school board initially allowed parents to opt their children out of lessons involving those books but then ceased doing that.
They also said the presence of the books created “indirect pressure to forgo a religious practice,” which created enough of a burden to violate their religious freedom rights.
The parents who brought the suit span a range of religious backgrounds. Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat are Muslim, while others fall under different denominations of Christianity…
Rosalind Hanson, a member of the conservative group Moms for Liberty, told Fox News Digital during a recent interview in front of the Supreme Court that she and other parents who helped bring the case were “not trying to change the curriculum” for parents who did support their children being exposed to the books.
“The majority of states across the country have said you can have an opt-out for these very sensitive issues and topics, especially because of the religious component, but also because of the age appropriateness,” Hanson said.
We here at Legal Insurrection would like to offer a heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Attorney Eric Hudson, a partner at the Terrazas Law Firm in Austin, Texas, who authored LIF’s amicus brief in this case on our behalf. He (obviously) did a great job and (obviously) strongly influenced the opinion of the Court in the right direction.
🚨 #BREAKING: The Supreme Court just ruled parents ARE allowed to opt their children out of being indoctrinated with LGBTQ+ propaganda
HUGE WIN for religious liberty!
Government Schools were attempting to EXPEL CHILDREN for this. pic.twitter.com/i0BBh8Q7PQ
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) June 27, 2025
🚨BREAKING: SCOUTS rules 6-3 that Parents can OPT-OUT of LGBTQ+ curriculum's in their kids schools
MORE WINNING!! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/gMYndBF74X
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) June 27, 2025
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor is a major win for religious liberty and parental rights.
The Court rightfully held that schools can’t shut parents out or disregard their religious obligations to their children.
A great day for parents and education champions! pic.twitter.com/eZkT8Qu7kY
— Secretary Linda McMahon (@EDSecMcMahon) June 27, 2025
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Comments
OK so I know that six justices – more or less – decide cases based on what does the constitution say on the topic and 3 decide based not on what does the constitution say but what advances their leftist politics –
And I understand the conservative or constitutional view point – the constitution is clear the government cannot its views over the practice of religion (and of course free speech and press etc are in that first amendment)
But what is the argument of the three? Clearly traditional western religion (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) reject homosexuality and transgender ideology. It’s foundational in Judaism. How could anyone possibly believe that mandating promotion of homosexuality and transgender ideology does not conflict with the first amendment?
I’d be interested for the author to include that in this post.
Don’t shoot me. I am just responding to your question.
Previous Supreme Court rulings have stated the purpose of public education is to make better citizens. In that there are laws protecting sexual orientation, the Justices felt that teaching LGTBQ+ was a part of education that makes better citizens,
From the ScotusBlog:
Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented, in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sotomayor warned that Friday’s decision “threatens the very essence of a public education” because it “strikes at the core premise of public schools: that children may come together to learn not the teachings of a particular faith, but a range of concepts and views that reflect our entire society.”
The other part of their thought process was that schools are established to teach and the three Justices saw the opt-out as “micro-managing” the School Board Approved curriculum.
That was their thinking.
(As a side note, the parents were objecting to the use of textbooks in a language arts class that had LGBTQIA+ themes. Up until 2023, the parents had been able to opt out of those books being used to instruct their children. In 2023, the School Board removed the option to opt out, even though parents could opt out of other topics, such as sex-ed. Personally, I am not sure what LGBTQIA+ themed books with illustrations at the elementary school level have to do with language arts, but that is just me.)
I get it but this is not a peripheral idea in western religion. It is not keeping kosher or praying the rosary. Prohibited relationships – for Jews at least – are one of only three violations that a Jew must give up his life and not perform. This is a major tenet of western religion. How could the first amendment not trump other considerations?
You are making the assumption that the courts in the United States have the right to determine the validity of the beliefs of a religion and contrast those beliefs with other religions.
For example there is a church called “Flat Earth Christian Community” which teaches the earth is flat. Should parents be allowed to opt out of an astronomy unit in a science class that teaches the earth is a spheroid?
Should people with the religious beliefs such as those as the Westboro Baptist Church be able to opt out of the history of the 13th Amendment and equality of people?
Is there a governmental interest in teaching the earth is a spheroid and that people are equal under the law?
That’s where this gets tricky.
My personnel belief is that while LGBQTIA+ would be more suitable in a course on sex ed, the people in Montgomery County tried to sneak LGBQTIA+ ideas (and acceptance) in an non-related subject. In other words, proponents tried to get this in from the side, and then changed the rules on opting out for no reason.
Improves your Street Vocabulary.
Depending on what the course material is, it might cross the boundary of “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” and with the state having “age of consent” laws on the books crossing that line with children below the state mandated age of consent should put the teachers and administrators in hot water.
I a sane country we would not be begging 9 hacks to rule whether parents can choose to not have their children subjected to abusive sexual perversion. We would be imprisoning or executing the abusers.
At the very least, firing them and canceling their professional licenses.
Speaking of,…some of the stuff presented to children can be classified as kiddie porn, explicitly descriptive sex acts performed by and on minors. Why hasn’t some state AG, or even Blondie prosecuted ?
SIX
THREE
And it’s always The Confidently Wrong Trio.
The Three ‘Tards strike again
Olympia Washington’s K-5 schools hit hardest.
Except everyone already pulled their kids out of the public school system there.
The books are little more than smut and have zero educational value for children.
Tools of indoctrination…
The real argument is why are the schools teaching sex education in the first place. It should be left to back alleys where most of us got our education (and a fine education it was).
Many publics schools are failing in their primary task of sufficiently educating children to be able to function in a 21st century high tech society. If they can’t perform this task they should not be dabbling in anything else. Even in a high performing school they shouldn’t be making nonessential classes mandatory. They should have core curriculm and offer electives. That is all.
Sex as part of biology or a health class, no earlier than middle school, is appropriate. In elementary school, it is not.
Exactly. Sex ed is the parents’ responsibility. Teach biology at school, and sex ed at home. The two are not the same.
They don’t need your kids to get good jobs and make big money.
They need them to vote and breed — in that order of importance.
It’ll be hard for the kids to breed when their teachers insist on transing them.
They don’t trans their own kids, they trans yours.
They kill their own kids.
Don’t ask me to explain the logic of this, I can’t.
The books at issue were not part of a sex-ed class.
They were part of a language arts class.
If you are unfamiliar with “language arts,” it is “the subjects (such as reading, spelling, literature, and composition) that aim at developing the student’s comprehension and capacity for use of written and oral language.”
Clearly language arts should be a part of a core curriculum.
As for “why should schools teach sex-ed,” while you may be a wonderful parent and educator on the subject, many parents are not. I have worked with young people for many years and some of the ideas that are being taught (or not being taught) at home I have heard are things like “kissing can get a girl pregnant,” “if a guy pulls out before ejaculation, a girl cannot get pregnant,” “condoms don’t protect against becoming pregnant and STDs.”
So yeah, kids need a place to get accurate, scientific information on sex, pregnancies, STDs. etc.
You may not be aware, but in Montgomery County, MD, where this case originated, the School Board allowed parents to have their kids opt out of sex education (and still do.)
Up until 2023, the parents were allowed to opt out of the language arts where the books with LGBTQIA+ ideas were presented and in some cases instances, presented graphically. In 2023, the School Board reversed itself saying parents could no longer opt out of the language arts class with the books that were “objectionable” and contrary to the teachings of their respective religion
This case was not about “sex ed.” It was about sliding books into the classroom of another subject that 1) parents could not opt out and 2) taught ideas and morals that were against the religious teachings in the home and of the parents.
First they’ve been teaching sex education for scores of years. That parents don’t know indicates it didn’t take. Teaching more doesn’t guarantee that it will take.
You can teach basic sex education and focus on reproduction and how to prevent it. You don’t need to teach about the stuff the 3% of the population is in such a tizzy about because it has nothing to do with either topic. You don’t have to teach how-tos, You don’t have to politicize it. All that stuff is the rage these days among the progressives.
You are missing the point.
This case was not based on what was being taught in a sex-ed class. The issue was what was being presented in a language arts class.
Additionally, in Montgomery County, parents can opt out of sex ed classes but were not allowed to opt out of the materials used in the language arts class.
As for whether sex-ed “took” with the parents, it is not that the parents don’t know but they often don’t know how to present it to their kids.
I don’t have a problem with schools teaching sex ed as long as parents can opt out. But the sex ed classes were not what this case was about.
This case was more about teaching things contrary to the religious beliefs of families outside of the sex-ed class. The people who wanted it taught came at the students and families from the “side” instead of directly where it could be blocked.
Montco – says it all. Also kinda funny that here it’s the Jews who want / Demand all the tranny stuff and the hated Muslims think that Lia Thomas prob should not be in the girls locker room or playing against chix.
Some Jews you idiot. Stop putting us all in the same basket.
It’s liberals not Jews. Unfortunately many Jews are liberal and do not practice Judaism. Torah-observant Jews are nearly universally conservative.
Progressives not liberals is the appropriate term as long as we are discussing terms. Old school liberals were concerned about personal liberties such as those outlined in the bill of rights. Progressives focus on change – any change but the more radical the better.
I’ll add on to my previous content.
All of this crap was a fight I lived. I was willing to be that thorn in the side of the school district. I was willing to toss “All Lives Matter” back at them and make them openly state no we won’t allow this speech. I was willing to do this even though the majority of the voters (60%) were against me. Along with the monopoly of power. I took this fight with the gusto of Old Yeller taking on the bear.
It was not just this. It was the BLM month in February, it was the Principal vommitting her politics out in every news letter, it was at every single opportunity they had to ram their belief system into my kid.
My family was not of the same fighting spirit. It wore my wife to the last nerve and I could not see the logic of allowing my 9-12 year old daughter to be a pawn in this battle. A kid should be allowed to be a kid. Ultimately even I came to the conclusion that I will never get these years back.
We pulled our kid out. A popular move in Washington. About a third of Olympia School district has done the same. Home school paths were over flowing. Every kid that was pulled was about 20k taken away from those perverts. They had to consolidate a couple of schools.
Many of the admin and teachers were so nasty that even the libs were pulling their kids out. I’m talking about parents with Biden signs all over their yards.
With the declining birth rate, that blue state hell hole is on its own doom loop in about a generation.
If you haven’t lived this, you don’t fully understand. It’s been 2+ years and we still see our new red state school district as a breath of fresh air. They are not perfect, but if you have not lived in a blue state hell hole, you would never know how truly bad it is there.
I do believe the crime, the violence, the misery, the dystopian tyranny is the absence of God. They have chosen it. Let the results be what they will be.
At least with this ruling the few that are stuck without options have at least one stick to poke back with.
I am a teacher. Every time I hear “Black Lives Matter,” I reply, “All Lives Matter.”
As bad as it was for us, we KNEW there were teachers in that school who were either conservative OR had the common sense to know that this was just evil regardless of politics.
We hated abandoning them. They have zero support in fighting back… as the case illustrated here on LI has shown.
Sanity prevailed. Can teachers who got fired for not teaching that get their job back?
Four years ago saying that got people cancelled.
There is life after cancellation.
“Government Schools were attempting to EXPEL CHILDREN for this.”
Other than the financial hit to the parents. a great big Briar Patch.
How do you think it was for teachers who refused?
Exactly the same as it was for the teachers who refused the jab. What’s your point?
There are non-government schools. There should be several orders of magnitude more. Gee, maybe the parents of the expelled kids would make a big, fat, profitable prospect list to get something started. Maybe do a deal with a microschool coordinator like KaiPod. The possibilities are wide if not literally endless. And then instead of working for a continual succession of assholes, you can work for only one, and at least he happens to want exactly what you want.
This whole issue uncovers the insidious dark truth of “inclusion”, the I in DEI. Inclusion as a concept sounds all warm and nice at first until one deals with values. Taking “inclusion” to its logical end results in the stripping away of people’s values. Because to be inclusive we have to find the common set of values. This ultimately leads to the null set. So the plaintiff parents did not want to have their children educated only to shed their values. The fact that the school board rescinded the opt-out option because of a growing number of opt-out requests is an excellent indication that there was significant conflict between the values of the school parents and that of the school & the chosen curriculum. The school board, instead of addressing the values issue head on decided to side with an apparently shrinking minority. Good for parents who objected and the majority of the Supreme Court that saw the objectionable material conveyed particular values or viewpoints.
its as if someone threw an lgbtq-+??+_) off a roof
This was a no brainier decision. I tell my leftist friends that they should support this decision, because if, in the near future, their children are, as a condition of public education, required to pledge allegiance to Trump or have their children forced to attend classes that say homosexual or trans rights are wrong and forbidden, that they can opt out of these classes.
Good man, JR. But where were you back then?
As the various opinions noted, age matters on this issue. But what are the age limits on the right of parents to protect the religious freedom of their children? Is it 18, the age of majority?
If so, how does this work in a public university context? Kids as young as 12 have matriculated as freshmen. What are the parental rights of a college student in the days before an 18th birthday? Does the parent have the right to opt-out of new student orientation to the extent that it includes DEI and trans ideology?
If the parent opts out, and the student is later accused of making a transphobic comment, is there still strict liability when the student is called before the thought police / Title IX Staff?
Does the Title IX process burden freedom of religion, particularly if the school fails to apply the Davis v. Monroe County test?
A minor is a minor until he turns 18 or emancipates himself.
Treat it as the bright line that it is.
If a school can’t handle the legal issues involved with hosting 12 year olds, it ought not to matriculate any.
But if they can’t manage it, they’re less worthy than they were 50 years ago.
When I entered college, ALL the undergraduates were minors, except for a handful of people on military delay, and an daily-changing number of seniors. By the time I was halfway through college, ALL the undergraduates were adults, except for a handful of advanced-placement prodigies. And that’s because the legal age of majority changed.
The school really had only two changes to handle — who was or wasn’t responsible for his own expenses, and who was or wasn’t eligible to visit the single licensed pub. It was really no more complicated than that. We barely even noticed it happen.
Colleges used to straddle both these worlds near effortlessly, and a good one should be able to today.
The Three women are proving that they are the worst judges in SCOTUS history. They can’t even vote on their own but constantly gang up. I don’t want judges ruling on ideology, I want them ruling on The Constitution and The Law as written by The Legislature.
Hopefully, how bad they are may help keep ACB from joining “the mean girls”, as some decisions or hers have exhibited such a tendancy.