A Boston judge has ruled in favor of a Massachusetts dad who sued his local school district to ensure his five-year-old son is never exposed to books featuring LGBTQ+ characters.

As the Boston Herald reported, the father, identified in court documents as Alan L., is described as a “devout Christian” who objects to the inclusion of certain children’s books featuring LGBTQ+ characters in the kindergarten curriculum of Joseph Estabrook Elementary School, where his son, identified as J.L., is enrolled.

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As Hemant Mehta explains in his Friendly Atheist newsletter, Alan L.’s son is already on an Individualized Education Program and spends most of his day outside of his general-education Kindergarten classroom. It is unclear whether J.L. was ever actually exposed to the two books with which his father took issue — Suzanne Lang’s Families, Families, Families! and Alexandra Penfold’s All Are Welcome — that are part of the school’s kindergarten curriculum. (Eight additional books Alan L. cited in his lawsuit do not appear to have ever been used in classrooms at Joseph Estabrook Elementary, according to Mehta.)

Nevertheless, Alan L. sued the school and Lexington Public Schools, claiming that his son had been compelled “to participate in classroom instruction that promote[s] sexualized and ideological messages directly contrary to his family’s faith” and that he has the right to both be notified before his son is exposed to such material and to opt J.L. out of any lessons or activities that “normalize or promote LGBTQ identities or lifestyles.”

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According to Mehta, the district’s lawyers argued that the materials in question merely acknowledge and teach the existence of LGBTQ+ people, and insofar as they contain a moral lesson, it is “geared toward mere tolerance—i.e., the acceptance of those who are different from us as being part of our world. They are not the tutorials on the moral equivalency of one’s gayness that Plaintiff would have this Court believe.” They also argued that Alan L. had failed in his complaint to describe how J.L. had been impacted by the books being read aloud in class — if, indeed, he was ever present when they were read.

But in his December 30 decision, U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV noted that the case falls squarely under the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s June 2025 ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which established parents’ First Amendment right to opt their children out of classroom instruction that includes LGBTQ+ characters and themes.

“As in that case, a parent has objected to his child being shown certain materials at school concerning LGBTQ+ relationships or values on the ground that the materials pose a threat of undermining the religious beliefs and practices the parent wants to instill in his child,” Saylor wrote. “As in that case, the school has indicated that it intends to continue showing the child at least some of the materials to which the parent objects. And as in that case, the parent seeks a preliminary injunction on the basis that the school’s failure to provide him notice and a reasonable opportunity to opt his child out of classroom instruction utilizing those materials violates his free-exercise rights.”

“The question presented here is not whether the viewpoints of plaintiff, or those of the school officials, are ‘correct’ as a matter of religious faith or political or social belief. Nor is it whether the materials should be part of the kindergarten curriculum for other students,” Saylor, a George W. Bush appointee, explained. “Instead, this case presents a narrow question: whether these specific defendants have provided the required notice and opportunity to review materials that this specific plaintiff may find objectionable, so that he may opt his child out of classroom instruction that violates his religious beliefs.”

In granting Alan L.’s request for a preliminary injunction, which will remain in place while the case proceeds, Saylor ordered the school and district to “make reasonable efforts to ensure that J.L. is not taught or otherwise exposed to the content of the Identified Books, whether in the classroom or any other school setting” and to ensure J.L. receives “reasonable age-appropriate alternative instruction.”

In a statement responding to the ruling, the Massachusetts Family Institute, one of three right-wing groups representing Alan L., said that “Public school districts will now be on notice that playing fast-and-loose with parental rights will expose them to significant liability,” according to the Boston Herald.

Lawyers for Lexington Public Schools, however, said the district looks forward to “aggressively defending against these claims.” In a statement, attorneys Douglas I. Louison and Alexandra M. Gill noted the district’s existing religious-based opt-out program and that the Supreme Court’s Mahmoud decision “made it clear that depicting the mere existence of potentially-offensive values or lifestyles is not enough to warrant an opt-out, and that it is the messaging associated with those potentially-offensive materials that determines whether an opt-out is warranted.”

“In this case, the materials are not associated with any LGBTQ+-focused curriculum or paired instruction, nor was the student even exposed to the two books at issue,” Louison and Gill added, according to the Herald.

Louison and Gill also noted the burden opt-out demands like Alan L.’s place on schools.

“This is not like a student with a peanut allergy, where the implementation of an accommodation to protect the student is reasonably clear,” they wrote. “Schools are burdened enough without having to scour the pages of a storybook for potentially gay-appearing characters. At what point, for instance, is a character’s haircut too short to presume they are a woman? Are two men sitting together at a restaurant presumed to be gay, or might they just be friends? There are innumerable scenarios like these, and schools are now being forced to make near-impossible judgments.”

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