Supreme Court releases ruling that opens the door to ban Bibles from school
Source: Raw Story
June 27, 2025 11:22AM ET
In a case involving a Muslim family in Maryland, Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the 6-3 majority that having LGBTQ books in schools places an additional burden on families that oppose LGBTQ people.
In Mahmoud v. Taylor, the court ruled that the "parents in this case are likely to succeed in their challenge to the school board's policies foreclosing the opt-out option," explained SCOTUS blog's Amy Howe. "We have long recognized," Alito writes, "the rights of parents to direct 'the religious upbringing' of their children. And we have held that those rights are violated by government policies that substantially interfere with the religious development of children."
The School Board's "introduction of the LGBTQ-themed books and the failure to provide notice and opt-out options for parents meets that test: it does interfere with the children's religious development and imposes a burden on religious exercise," wrote Howe in her explainer.
The key piece of the ruling gives the option for anyone to object to any book in schools based on religious concerns.
Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/justice-alito-2672446585/
When I was following SCOTUSBlog as Amy was posting this, I was like - I guess Alito is living in such a cloistered bubble world where he doesn't realize that his explanation and justification can be applied to anything dealing with an objection to "religion" (or a desire for what it should be - at least in public schools - secular/non-religion).
= new reply since forum marked as read
... will we be able to ban books from a school library if they mention or show a Christmas tree? That's arguably more of a religions symbol than a same-gender couple.
... for clarifying. I am aware of the "opt out" letters. We have them in CA. I am not aware of any about LGBT issues. Our same sex couples go to their kids' "open house" with everyone else and are treated the same as all the other parents.
