WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court's conservative majority on Tuesday signaled support for the religious rights of parents in Maryland who want to remove their children from elementary school classes using storybooks with LGBTQ characters.
The court seemed likely to find that the Montgomery County school system, in suburban Washington, could not require elementary school children to sit through lessons involving the books if parents expressed religious objections to the material.
The case is the latest dispute involving religion to come before the court. The justices have repeatedly endorsed claims of religious discrimination in recent years.
''I'm surprised this is the hill to die on in terms of not respecting religious liberty,'' Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, citing the county's diverse population and Maryland's history as a haven for Catholics.
The county school board introduced the storybooks as part of an effort to better reflect the district's diversity.
Parents sued after the school system stopped allowing them to pull their kids from lessons that included the books. The parents argue that public schools cannot force kids to participate in instruction that violates their faith, and they pointed to the opt-out provisions in sex education classes.
The schools said allowing children to opt out of the lessons had become disruptive. Lower courts backed the schools, prompting the parents' appeal to the Supreme Court.
Five books are at issue in the high court case, touching on the same themes found in classic stories that include Snow White, Cinderella and Peter Pan, the school system's lawyers wrote.
