Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court issued a monumental ruling in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the lawsuit brought by parents challenging California’s policy that required schools to aid students in their gender transitions, and conceal it from parents. In one case, the parents did not learn of the school’s conduct until their daughter attempted suicide. Thankfully, the ruling issued yesterday by the nation’s highest court struck down this vile policy.
But what made the ruling even more monumental was that it clarified in no uncertain terms that the landmark Mahmoud v. Taylor decision issued last year applies beyond the context of curriculum in schools. You may recall that in Mahmoud, a group of Maryland parents sued their children’s school district for denying them the ability to opt their children out of LGBTQ curriculum, even after the parents objected on religious grounds. In delivering a victory for the parents, the Court found this to be a violation of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion.
Importantly, although the Supreme Court did not restrict the Mahmoud decision to curriculum opt outs, lower courts have been ruling as if it did. Case in point – our vaccine exemption lawsuit on behalf of Milford Christian Church was dismissed last year in large part because the Court refused to extend Mahmoud to apply to religious exemptions for vaccines in schools. But with the Mirabelli ruling yesterday, the Supreme Court made clear that Mahmoud indeed extends to other contexts than school curriculum:
Indeed, the intrusion on parents’ free exercise rights here—unconsented facilitation of a child’s gender transition—is greater than the introduction of LGBTQ storybooks we considered sufficient to trigger strict scrutiny in Mahmoud. … For these reasons, the parents who object to the California policies on free exercise grounds are likely to succeed on the merits. The same is true for the subclass of parents who object to those policies on due process grounds. Under long-established precedent, parents—not the State—have primary authority with respect to “the upbringing and education of children.”
That’s why, in response to this pivotal ruling, we immediately filed a supplemental letter with the Second Circuit, where the Milford Christian lawsuit is pending on appeal. We are asking the court to overrule the district court’s dismissal of our case in light of Mirabelli, and find that the Mahmoud precedent indeed provides parents with the right to opt their children out of vaccinations on religious grounds. It is not an understatement to say that this is the most important legal development yet in our quest to restore the religious exemption in Connecticut and beyond, a proverbial “silver bullet”.
Our Co-Founder Brian Festa, Esq. will be going live today, March 3, 2026, at 12 p.m. EST to break this all down further. You can watch the livestream and the replay HERE.
This work – and our continued fight to restore religious liberty for parents in Connecticut, California, and beyond – is only made possible through the generosity of our supporters. We thank you for standing with us, and ask that you please consider a contribution to help fuel our mission to win back the right to refuse for every parent in America!