Authors in Supreme Court LGBTQ books case detail 'surreal' fight

Sarah S. Brannen, a children’s author and illustrator, published her first book, about a young girl’s anxiety surrounding her favorite uncle’s wedding, in 2008. She wrote it for her niece, who told Brannen she thought the ending of every story should be wrapped neatly in a bow, with two people in love living happily ever after. 

Nearly 20 years later, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” is at the center of a Supreme Court case that could decide whether parents may opt their children out of elementary school lessons with LGBTQ storybooks.

The justices, who this week heard oral arguments in the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, appear inclined to side with a group of parents arguing their Maryland school district’s lack of an opt-out option substantially burdens their First Amendment rights to freely exercise their religion. 

The parents, who fall on a spectrum of religious beliefs, are not challenging their school district’s curriculum or asking for books to be banned. But some LGBTQ and free speech groups have said a ruling siding with the parents could set a troubling precedent and affect more than just LGBTQ-related content. 

“I can’t begin to express how surreal it was for me when they first started talking about my book,” Brannen said in an interview following Tuesday’s arguments. “I’m a children’s book author and illustrator. This — this just doesn’t happen. I almost felt dizzy. I had to sit down.” 

In “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” a young Chloe learns that her Uncle Bobby has proposed to his boyfriend, Jamie. Her initial disappointment about the union, which she fears will mean Bobby no longer has time for her, is replaced with excitement after she spends time with Jamie, discovering that having two uncles will be even better than one. 

Brannen, who began working on the book in 2004 after her home state of Massachusetts became the first to recognize and license same-sex marriages, said she had been prepared for challenges when the title first landed on shelves. Months after its publication, a Colorado library-goer asked that the book — illustrated with anthropomorphic guinea pigs before it was reprinted in 2020 with humans — be removed from the children’s section, arguing the contents were not appropriate for young readers, the blog Mombian reported at the time. 

By 2020, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” ranked 99th on the American Library Association’s 100 most frequently challenged books of the last decade. That sustained pushback was not something Brannen had anticipated.

“It is a very simple story,” she said. 

The justices appeared to disagree, dissecting Brannen’s book across more than two hours of arguments. 

“We could have a book club and have a debate about how Uncle Bobby’s marriage should be understood,” Justice Samuel Alito said at one point. “It just — it doesn't just say that Uncle Bobby and Jamie are getting married. It expresses the idea subtly, but it expresses the idea this is a good thing.” 

Brannen told The Hill, “It’s meant to be understandable for a 5-year-old, so I don’t really think there’s any question at all about what it’s saying and what it means. I felt that Justice Alito was being disingenuous. He had a point he wanted to make.” 

Alito was one of four justices in 2015 to vote against the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right to same-sex marriage nationwide. He wrote in a dissenting opinion that the decision “creates serious questions about religious liberty.” 

In another notable moment on Tuesday, Justice Neil Gorsuch said that Robin Stevenson’s “Pride Puppy!,” also cited in the case, includes a character who is a sex worker — “It’s a drag queen,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett later corrected him — and makes inappropriate mentions of leather and bondage. 

The book, about a dog who gets lost at a Pride parade, does not reference bondage or sex work. The only mention of leather is a description of a jacket. 

Stevenson declined to be interviewed. Her publisher, Andrew Wooldridge, said in an email that the picture book is intended for very young children. 

“There is no storyline involving sex work, leather, bondage or any adult themes. Justice Gorsuch’s characterization of the book during the Supreme Court arguments is a misrepresentation,” he said. “Pride Puppy! simply depicts a diverse community enjoying a Pride celebration through a child’s lost puppy adventure, using an A-to-Z format. The reference to leather that he mentions is a woman wearing a standard leather jacket. There is no sex worker mentioned or illustrated.” 

“The book has very few words and would be a quick read to confirm these things,” Wooldridge said. 

Charlotte Sullivan Wild, whose book “Love, Violet,” about a young girl with a crush on a female classmate, is also referenced in the case before the Supreme Court, said she worries the justices’ mischaracterizations of hers and the other authors’ work will further dehumanize LGBTQ people. 

“Some people only see us as a negative thing because of this group that we belong to. It completely erases our humanity,” she said. “That’s what really worries me for children. Because that's what we're telling children, that it's OK to do that to your classmate, to only see them as one thing.” 

Wild’s book reflects her own experience as a queer child, she said in an interview, describing her upbringing as at times isolating without other LGBTQ people or stories. 

“When people say, ‘Oh, I don't know what about the age level,’ it's like, this was my age level. This was me,” Wild said. “I'm asking you to see me as a human being and to see the children who are in these classrooms as real human beings worthy of kindness and respect. That's what our books are about.” 

“The world is diverse. America is diverse, and so I think it's a false narrative that these books disrupt,” said Jodie Patterson, whose book “Born Perfect” is also cited in the case. “I think these books actually uncover a bit of the life that I know to be true.” 

More than 2,000 unique titles were challenged in libraries across the country last year, according to the American Library Association, which has tracked book challenges and censorship attempts in libraries and schools since 1990. Just 16 percent of challenges last year came from parents, the group said, with most coming from what the organization has called “pressure groups” that include elected officials and school board members and administrators. 

A November report from PEN America, a nonprofit advocating for free expression in literature, recorded more than 10,000 book bans in the U.S. during the last school year. More than half included LGBTQ protagonists or characters of color. 

President Trump has also taken aim at diversity and inclusion in schools, vowing to rid classrooms of perceived “wokeness” and indoctrination. 

“We're literally taking away mirrors and windows into worlds that someone might need to see,” said DeShanna Neal, whose book “My Rainbow,” about a transgender girl whose mother makes her a rainbow-colored wig, is cited in Mahmoud v. Taylor. 

Neal, a Delaware state legislator, published the book with her daughter, Trinity, in 2020. It is based on one of the mother-daughter duo’s real-life experiences, which makes other parents’ or groups’ challenges to it feel more personal, she said. 

“The hardest thing I have had to learn as a mother is that not everyone's going to love your child the same way you do, and it doesn’t get easier,” she said. 

“As a mother, it hurts that my child is so monstrous to you,” Neal said, referring to claims that her book is not appropriate for elementary school students. “You’ve never met her. You’ve seen a caricature of her in a book, but if you honestly sat down with Trinity, she’s my oldest; she's the best big sister; she’s a college student who’s doing very well and she’s just an overall gentle person. Those are the exact qualities we are told that we are supposed to exude.”