Schools: When religious parents object

A person holds a sign that reads 'restore the opt-out'

The parents' case is "part of a larger campaign"

(Image credit: Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

published 6 May 2025

Attention "left-wing culture warriors," said Ed Whelan in National Review: Religious families will not accept indoctrination. At the Supreme Court last week, a group of Christian and Muslim parents in a Maryland school district asserted the right to opt their elementary-school-age children out of lessons that use books celebrating same-sex relationships and a transgender child. The lessons, they argued, contradicted the religious teachings they wanted to pass on to their children. They "haven't challenged the curriculum itself" or promoted book banning; they've just asked the district to revert to its pre-2022 policy of allowing opt-outs. In response, the parents say, board members accused them of "hatred" and "aligning with racist xenophobes." If that's true, it's "inexcusable," said Stephen L. Carter in Bloomberg. One group's values should not take automatic precedence over another's, and "a humble respect for diversity is better than a cold and unblinking exercise of authority." That's why a majority of justices are likely to rule in the parents' favor.

The parents' case is "part of a larger campaign," said Robyn Nicole Sanders in Slate. Religious conservatives are waging a political battle "to weaponize parental control as a tool of exclusion"— to define exposure to different ideas and people as a moral offense. The point of teaching such material is to prepare children for a pluralistic society in which LGBTQ people exist, can legally marry, and form families. What if the court decides "parental conscience can trigger opt-outs" from any book or lesson they don't like? Would that include evolution or climate change? Texts containing photos of girls without head coverings? At that point, "the very premise of a shared public education begins to fracture."

As a parent in the district, "I deeply resent the whole mess," said Megan K. Stack in The New York Times. I'm skeptical of the board's claims that allowing opt-outs would be logistically complicated and would do emotional damage to children with same-sex parents or family members. But the religious parents, too, have done plenty of grandstanding by insisting "they can't properly rear their children in faith if the kids get exposed to a few picture books." In the modern, online world, kids will sooner or later be exposed to everything. This divisive battle has been "a demoralizing spectacle" of mutual intolerance and disrespect. Whatever the court decides, "it's already too late for our community to win."