Montgomery County, Maryland, is facing a $1.5 million price tag after a federal court approved a settlement forcing the deep-blue county’s school board to pay damages to religious parents.
The issue goes back to 2023, when Montgomery County’s school board decided parents no longer had the right to opt their children out of books promoting transgender ideology. At the time, the school district said, “Students and families may not choose to opt out of engaging with any instructional materials, other than ‘Family Life and Human Sexuality Unit of Instruction’ which is specifically permitted by Maryland law. As such, teachers will not send home letters to inform families when inclusive books are read in the future.”
A coalition of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish families banded together for the case, signifying the gravity of the issue and unifying on the principle that the government cannot usurp the parents’ right to raise their children according to their faith.
The parents were handed a win in June 2025, when Supreme Court justices ruled 6-3: “A government burdens the religious exercise of parents when it requires them to submit their children to instruction that poses ‘a very real threat of undermining’ the religious beliefs and practices that the parents wish to instill.”
“The Board’s introduction of the ‘LGBTQ+-inclusive’ storybooks, along with its decision to withhold opt-outs, places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the majority.
The latest order, signed by District Court Judge Deborah L. Boardman, delivers another win to parents. The Board is to “notify the Plaintiffs in advance whenever one of the books in question or any similar book is to be used in any way and shall allow Plaintiffs to have their children excused from that instruction.”
Notice may be given through email, instructional texts, and via educators when parents request information “about when any such approved texts or materials will be used in the classroom.”
In a similar win for parents, a federal judge granted a Lexington father a preliminary injunction, permitting his son to leave school lessons featuring LGBT material.
“While defendants contend that implementing the notice and opt-out procedures contemplated by plaintiff’s proposed injunction would burden them to some degree, any potential harm they face does not outweigh that faced by plaintiff — particularly where defendants concede that [the parent’s son] must be opted out of at least some materials,” U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV wrote in the order.
“Under well-established constitutional principles, defendants cannot force plaintiff to choose between foregoing the valuable benefit of having his child attend public kindergarten and exposing his child to materials that would burden his free exercise of religion,” the judge added.
