The Montgomery County Board of Education will pay $1.5 million in damages to religious parents for trampling parental rights and trying to indoctrinate their children with LGBT content. The school board will also comply with court-enforced protections for parental rights.
The settlement comes after the Supreme Court ruled in June 2025 in Mahmoud v. Tayler that schools can’t force children to participate in LGBT classroom material without giving parents the right to opt out their children based on their religious beliefs.
“Public schools nationwide are on notice: running roughshod over parental rights and religious freedom isn’t just illegal – it’s costly,” Eric Baxter, senior counsel at Becket and lead attorney for the parents, said in a statement.
Baxter added,
The case stems from Montgomery County school board’s 2022 decision to use several LGBT children’s books in preschool through 12th grade language arts curricula. These books promote “gender transitioning, Pride parades, and pronoun preferences to children as young as three and four,” Becket, which represents the parents, states.
One book, Prince & Knight, “conveys the message that same-sex marriage should be accepted by all as a cause for celebration,” Justice Samuel Alito recounted in the Mahmoud decision.
A second book, Uncle Bobby’s Wedding, presents the message that “two people can get married, regardless of whether they are of the same or the opposite sex.”
Another book, IntersectionAllies: We Make Room for All, portrays a “transgender child in a sex-ambiguous bathroom” and “includes a discussion guide that asserts … ‘at any point in our lives, we can choose to identify with one gender, multiple genders, or neither gender.’” The book asks very young readers, “What pronouns fit you best?”
Yet another book, Born Ready, follows the story of Penelope, a biological female, who begs her mother to help her be a boy: “Please help me, Mama. Help me to be a boy.” After her mother agrees, Penelope exclaims, “For the first time, my insides don’t feel like fire. They feel like warm, golden love.”
The implication is that “it is seriously harmful to deny a gender transition and that transitioning is a highly positive experience,” Alito summarized.
When the school board first approved the curricula, it notified parents and allowed them to opt their children out of the material. In 2023, however, the district revised its policies and eliminated opt-outs.
Multiple religious families – including Muslims, Christians and Jews – successfully challenged the policy, arguing it violated their First Amendment right to freely exercise their religion.
In the Mahmoud decision, Justice Alito, writing for the Court’s majority, said, “The right of parents ‘to direct the religious upbringing of their’ children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom.”
“The Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive storybooks – combined with its decision to withhold notice to parents and to forbid opt outs – substantially interferes with the religious development of their children,” Justice Alito concluded.
Now, the school board will pay a $1.5 million settlement, and a permanent injunction requires the board to “provide parents with advance notice when instructional materials addressing family life and human sexuality will be used and allow parents to opt their children out of that instruction.”
According to Becket’s 2025 Religious Freedom Index, 62% of Americans support the Court’s decision in Mahmoud.
“It took tremendous courage for these parents to stand up to the School Board and take their case all the way to the Supreme Court,” Baxter said. “Their victory reshaped the law and ensured that generations of religious parents will be able to guide their children’s upbringing according to their faith.”
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Related articles and resources:
Talking About Sex And Puberty With Your Kids
How to Equip Your Teens with a Biblical Understanding of Sexuality
‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents
Supreme Court Defends Religious Freedom, Parental Rights Over ‘LGBT’ Curriculum
Supreme Court Sympathetic to Opt-Outs for LGBT Curriculum
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