The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday on an important case involving the intersection of the rights to exercise religion and to direct the upbringing of children. The court’s decision, expected by the end of June, may advance or curtail an expanding recognition of the fundamental right to exercise religion. 

In October 2022, the Montgomery County, Maryland, Board of Education announced a policy requiring the use of LGBTQ-inclusive storybooks as part of the English Language Arts curriculum for elementary school students. One book, for example, depicts a family whose puppy gets lost at an LGBTQ Pride parade. Each page focuses on a letter of the alphabet, with pre-kindergarten children looking for words such as “[drag] queen,” “intersex,” and “underwear.” 

The school board also provided teachers with materials to foster discussion and answer questions about the storybooks’ content. These urge teachers to “disrupt” students’ traditional views about gender by saying, for example, that “people make a guess about our gender” when we are born and “sometimes they’re wrong. … Our body parts do not decide our gender. Our gender comes from our inside.”

In other words, the message of the books and the follow-through by teachers are intended to promote the school board’s view about sexuality and gender. 

This controversial policy quickly ignited a firestorm. Some complaints came from parents on religious grounds, but many were from teachers and administrators questioning the efficacy and age appropriateness of this scheme.........

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