Mahmoud v. Taylor is not a culture war case

The Supreme Court case Mahmoud v. Taylor has already been cast in stark moral terms: On one side, a public school district trying to foster inclusion and tolerance; on the other, a group of religious parents resisting progress.

But this case is not about banning books or rejecting diversity. It is about whether parents have a limited right to excuse their young children from specific public school lessons that conflict with their religious beliefs. That’s a First Amendment question — not a culture war skirmish — and it deserves to be treated as such.

The families challenging Montgomery County schools are Muslim, Christian and Jewish. Their children attend elementary school, where a handful of picture books featuring same-sex couples and discussions of gender identity are used in literacy lessons. The parents are not asking that these books be removed. They are asking for notice and the opportunity to opt out of particular lessons, so they can address those topics at home, in accordance with their faith.

The district initially allowed such accommodations. Then it reversed course. No more opt-outs, not even for kindergartners.

The district says its curriculum reflects its commitment to inclusivity, and that letting  families withdraw from certain lessons could undermine that goal. But the parents are not asking the state to affirm their beliefs — only to give them space to raise their children without contradiction from mandatory school messaging.

We’ve seen versions of this question before. In West Virginia v. Barnette (1943), the Supreme Court ruled that public schools could not force students to salute the flag or recite the Pledge of Allegiance. In Abington v. Schempp (1963), the court barred mandatory Bible readings in public classrooms. Though the content in those cases differed, the principle was the same: Public schools may not compel students to participate in messages that contradict their convictions.

The message in Mahmoud is not patriotic or religious, but it still carries moral weight. The lessons are designed to promote inclusion and affirm diverse identities and family structures. The question is whether families may decline to participate when those lessons conflict with their religious beliefs.

The district allows opt-outs in other contexts — for example, when students object to religious songs in choir or to depictions of the Prophet Muhammad in literature. But it has drawn a hard line at objections from religious families responding to LGBTQ-themed books. As Justice Gorsuch noted, when the government allows some exceptions and not others, it raises concerns about religious discrimination.

In Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (2021), the court held that when a policy allows officials to grant exemptions, it cannot deny a religious exemption unless it can meet the highest standard of constitutional scrutiny. That reaffirmed a core principle of the free exercise clause: When government creates space for individualized judgment, it must treat religious claims with the same respect it gives to others.

Understandably, some worry about a slippery slope. If parents can opt out of LGBTQ-inclusive material, what about civil rights history, feminism, or even basic science? That concern is real, but not new. Courts have long been able to distinguish between good-faith conscience-based requests and efforts to undermine public education.

The deeper problem is that we increasingly treat constitutional questions like Mahmoud as moral referenda. Once a case is framed as progress versus prejudice, there’s no room left for pluralism. Disagreement is interpreted as hostility. Rights become conditional on political alignment.

Yet the genius of the First Amendment is that it protects conscience across lines of ideology. If secular parents have the right to object to religious instruction in schools then religious parents should have the right to seek limited accommodation from secular messaging that conflicts with their faith.

You do not need to agree with the parents’ theology to understand why their rights matter. If public education is to serve a pluralistic society, it must allow space for real moral diversity. That includes LGBTQ students and families, and it also includes those whose beliefs about family and identity are shaped by longstanding religious traditions.

The court’s decision in Mahmoud could help reestablish that balance. But for the conversation to move forward, we must first abandon the assumption that all dissent is an attack. Sometimes it is simply an act of conscience. And in a constitutional democracy, we are supposed to protect that — even, and especially, when we disagree with it.  Stories default to familiar caricatures, offering little to promote a nuanced understanding of the complexity of the case. Mahmoud provides an opportunity to tell a new and better story — of a society in which deeply held differences can coexist.