CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on Friday that the Supreme Court siding with parents who want to opt their children out of mandated LGBTQ storybook lessons was a victory for the First Amendment.
The court ruled 6-3 that parents would probably prevail in their claim that the Montgomery County Board of Education breached their First Amendment rights by refusing in March 2023 to allow parents to opt out of required readings involving pronouns, transgender children and pride parades. Honig, on “The Situation Room,” said the ruling marked “an expansion of First Amendment free exercise of religion principles.”
WATCH:
“The public elementary school adopted curriculum that involves stories that have LGBTQ characters or themes to them. A group of parents from different religions objected on free exercise of religion basis. They did not say, ‘We wanna block the schools from teaching this materials’ What they did say is, ‘We wanna have the opportunity to pull our students out of class for those lessons.’ And now the Supreme Court has agreed with the parents,” Honig said. “They have said that yes, the parents do have the right under the First Amendment, freedom of religion, free exercise of religion clause, to pull their students out of those specific classes … Elementary school kids in public schools in Maryland.”
“Look, this is a win and an expansion of First Amendment free exercise of religion principles,” he continued. “It’s consistent with where this Supreme Court has gone. And it’s a setback for the school district, but it’s really more of a win for the parents who sued here.”
A group of Christian and Muslim parents sued the district in May 2023.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion that the school board’s refusal to provide the parents the choice to opt out unconstitutionally burdens their rights to freely exercise their religion. He added the parents have demonstrated they were entitled to a preliminary injunction until the end of their Mahmoud v. Taylor lawsuit.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a dissent joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan that schools should “offer to children of all faiths and backgrounds an education and an opportunity to practice living in our multicultural society.”
“That experience is critical to our Nation’s civic vitality,” Sotomayor wrote. “Yet it will become a mere memory if children must be insulated from exposure to ideas and concepts that may conflict with their parents’ religious beliefs.”
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