The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 that Maryland’s Montgomery County Public Schools must allow parents to withdraw their elementary-age children from lessons that use LGBTQ-themed storybooks, granting a preliminary injunction while the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, proceeds. Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the conservative majority, said the district’s policy "poses a very real threat of undermining" the religious beliefs parents seek to instill in their children and therefore likely violates the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause. Under the order, the district must give parents advance notice whenever titles such as “Prince & Knight” or “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” are used and provide an opt-out alternative. The decision reverses lower-court rulings that had sided with the school system and reinstates a practice the board abandoned in 2023 after saying widespread absences made opt-outs unworkable. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, warning that the majority’s approach could usher in “chaos for this nation’s public schools” by forcing administrators to accommodate a potentially broad range of religious objections to standard curricula. The lawsuit was brought by a coalition of Muslim, Catholic and Ukrainian Orthodox parents after the district integrated about two dozen LGBTQ-inclusive texts into the elementary English curriculum in 2022. Friday’s decision is not a final ruling on the merits but signals that the parents are likely to prevail when the case returns to lower courts. The judgment extends a recent line of Supreme Court decisions expanding religious-liberty protections and is expected to influence similar disputes nationwide. Montgomery County officials said they are reviewing the opinion, while religious-rights advocates called it a significant victory for parental control over children’s education and LGBTQ groups expressed concern about the impact on inclusive classroom environments.