Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case about whether Maryland parents can opt their children out of LGBT-themed instruction that contradicts their religious beliefs. In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review the case and will hear oral arguments on April 22, 2025.

A coalition of parents from various religious faiths, including Christian and Muslim, are contesting a policy change from the Montgomery County Board of Education that no longer requires parents to be informed when the themed instruction will occur, nor allows them to opt their children out. The LGBT instruction includes more than “22 LGBTQ+-inclusive” storybooks infused with radical gender ideology, such as the false idea of “gender transitions,” “Pride parades,” and same-sex romances between minors. The books are used for instruction in pre-K through eighth grade classrooms where some are taught to children as young as three years old. The parents seek to block the cancellation of the opt-out policy by arguing this instruction interferes with their religious beliefs on gender and sexuality as well as their constitutional right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

In June 2023, more than 1,000 parents came out in person to a Montgomery County school board meeting to protest the addition of the books and the cancellation of the opt-out policy. Many parents testified that the school’s instruction on gender ideology was inconsistent with their respective religious faiths and that young children should not be exposed to it at all. The school board then accused those parents of promoting “hate” and likened them to “white supremacists” and “xenophobes.” Three families later filed the lawsuit claiming that excluding parents from these educational decisions violated both Maryland law and the U.S. Constitution.

However, in August 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman ruled in favor of the school board determining that mandatory LGBT material did not automatically coerce children into the activity portrayed in the books, and, therefore, did not constitute an infringement on religious liberty. Judge Boardman also expressed concern that too many parents would opt out of the material leaving students who related to the material feeling ostracized. She noted that parents should just discuss the lessons at home after they were taught.

The U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the lower court’s decision 2-1 declining to require the school to provide notice or an option for parents to opt out. Since the Fourth Circuit considered the parents’ free exercise claims “broad” and precedent on the issue “threadbare,” it determined the parents did not produce enough evidence that exposure to the material violated their rights or the law. 

In the decision, Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr. dissented saying he would have ruled in favor of the parents. He reasoned that denying religious opt-outs does in fact burden the parents’ right to exercise their religion and to direct the upbringing of their children, especially about sex, human sexuality, gender and family life. Judge Quattlebaum noted that burdening the free exercise of religion is not limited to “direct coercion” by the state but can also result from “substantial pressure” to modify beliefs or behavior. Simply forcing the choice of either compromising religious beliefs or foregoing a public benefit, such as a public education for one’s children, does in fact create a “burden upon religion,” wrote Judge Quattlebaum. 

In the amicus brief, Liberty Counsel argues that the State undoubtedly has an interest in providing public education, but that responsibility must yield to the rights of parents to direct the education and faith of their children. In this case, the Montgomery County School Board seeks to educate young children about sexuality, “transgenderism,” and sinful fetishes. Teaching this curriculum without any ability to opt out compels affirmation of repugnant beliefs, degrades the purity of children, and imposes a penalty on religion by making public education – a government benefit – contingent upon lessons that burden parents’ faith, wrote Liberty Counsel. 

The child is not a mere creature of the state, stated Liberty Counsel. Exposing children to worldly influences, like that contained in this curriculum, substantially interferes with the religious development of children, creating a “cognizable free-exercise burden.” 

“The Free Exercise Clause does not require children be lured off the gender-ideology cliff by the State’s transgender pied piper before there is harm. The First Amendment gives parents the right to prevent the harm from ever occurring,” concluded Liberty Counsel. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Children do not become wards of the state by merely attending public schools. Parents have the right to direct the education and provide for the welfare of their children. The First Amendment does not allow government schools to require families to sacrifice their religious beliefs for their children to attend school. It is unconstitutional to coerce parents into subjecting their children to propaganda that is antithetical to their beliefs. Parents must be given adequate opportunity to review any instructional material and must be given the ability to opt their children out of instruction that violates their faith.”