Christian parents are suing a Maryland school district after claiming the district would not allow their daughter to graduate after refusing to participate in an LGBTQ+ health class. The student, referred to as “Jane,” is a senior at Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) with an impeccable 4.76 weighted GPA who has not participated in a health class required by her school. Her parents consider the course to be  due to be anti-Christian and “LGBTQ+ affirming.” They have fought with the district for two years about allowing Jane to attend an alternative course at a private Catholic school or to opt out of the course completely. MCPS has rejected those options, stating Jane must take the class with an MCPS teacher or at a community college, which would conflict with Jane’s current schedule and also contains similar objectionable content. “She’s pretty distraught about not being able to graduate with all her friends and experience that rite of passage,” her father told Fox News.

Alleged training documents for teachers of the course instruct teachers to review LGBTQ+ resources throughout the year and to go over oppressed/ privileged people groups, such as privileged Christians and oppressed non-Abrahamic religions.  The inclusion throughout the entire curriculum of such material violates state law, according to Jane’s legal team, with the material supposed to only be included in a section called Family Life and Human Sexuality, which Jane could have opted out of. “We are trying to get MCPS to keep that teaching restricted to the Family Life and Human Sexuality part of the curriculum so we can get notice of it and opt-out our daughter, or if MCPS is allowed to spread LGBTQ+ instruction throughout the entire health class, as its teacher instruction materials say it is doing, it follows that MCPS should allow us to opt-out our daughter from the entire class,” Jane’s parents wrote in an appeal to the Maryland State Board of Education. “We are trying to get MCPS to refrain from discriminating against religion.” The Board rejected their request, leading the family to appeal to the Circuit Court of Montgomery County in August 2024. That appeal was also rejected, with the family now appealing to the Appellate Court in January and petitioning for a writ of certiorari to the Maryland Supreme Court while the case is decided in the Appellate.

Montgomery County is undergoing a similar legal case through the Supreme Court as a group of parents of various religious backgrounds has sued for the right to opt out of elementary school instruction that includes LGBTQ themes. In the case of Mahmoud v. Taylor, Jewish, Muslim, and Christian parents are suing over LGBTQ books that are included in grades as early as Pre-K, claiming such books violate their religious beliefs. The Supreme Court heard arguments for the case on April 22, with many speculating conservatives, who hold a majority of the Court, favored the parents. The court’s decision on the case will be handed down in June.