Sex ed is the most controversial issue in many school board elections, columnist Betsy McCaughey says
The facts of life haven’t changed, but sex education is entirely different now from what you likely learned in school.
Sex ed in middle school now includes graphic lessons on anal sex, oral sex and masturbation, with stick figures to illustrate body positions. Supplemental reading in middle school libraries includes “Sex, Puberty, and All That Stuff,” a book explaining foreplay and how to rub the clitoris to produce pleasure. Massachusetts’ curriculum tells seventh graders how to use cling wrap as a dental dam around their teeth for safe oral sex.
A majority of states now require sex education be labeled as “comprehensive,” thanks to aggressive lobbying by activists. Planned Parenthood, the largest producer of sex ed curriculum for public schools, argues that children are entitled to know how to “experience different forms of sexual pleasure.”
Eugene, Oregon, high schoolers were recently assigned to write a sexual fantasy featuring massage oil, flavored syrup, a candle, music, feathers or a boa. How about teaching them math and English instead?
Nationwide, these racy lessons are outraging parents. Last week, protests forced the Gwinnett County, Georgia, school board to shelve voting on a proposed sex ed curriculum. Holly Terei, a parent, explained that it’s one thing to monitor social media and the movies kids watch, and it’s another to have to worry about “our children being exposed to curriculum that teaches them how to perform sexual acts.”
Sex ed is the most controversial issue in many school board elections. Contests are nominally nonpartisan, but generally, Republicans are demanding parental controls.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party is becoming the poster child for adolescent promiscuity.
Expect this to be a defining issue in next year’s national elections. In Iowa last week, former President Donald Trump warned the crowd that schools “are focused on sexualizing our children.”
Most sex ed lessons are not published by textbook companies. Instead, sex ed has been hijacked by left-wing, well-funded groups with their own agendas. These include Sex Ed for Social Change, Advocates for Youth (an LGBTQ group) and the American Civil Liberties Union, which argues that children have sexual rights. They all press for Comprehensive Sexuality Education. The word “comprehensive” is misleading. What the curriculum stresses is pleasure.
Many Massachusetts districts use Planned Parenthood’s “Get Real” curriculum. The eighth grade teacher’s manual suggests discussing a hypothetical scenario about two middle school boys who “enjoy the sexual part of their relationship.”
In Florida, the Leon County School Board tabled voting on a sex ed curriculum early this month when parents like Brandi Andrews objected. She says a cartoon video of a laughing clitoris, part of the curriculum, would encourage young girls to be promiscuous.
Advocates for CSE argue that “how-to” information about sex keeps children safer. Don’t believe it. A review of 60 studies of sex education in U.S. schools, published in the scholarly journal Issues in Law and Medicine, found that comprehensive sex education more often resulted in more harm, including more unplanned pregnancies and STDs.
Those are physical harms. Kids can also suffer emotional and spiritual harm. Educators in Fairfax County, Virginia, want to teach middle school sex ed in coed classes. Parents know better — a staggering 84% oppose this. What about modesty? What about embarrassment for the kids who are developing the fastest?
The backlash against extreme sex ed is exploding. Proponents insist they just want to provide information. Nonsense. When lessons include more than biology, someone’s values are being imposed.
Comprehensive sex education is an ideology or religion, stressing gender fluidity, sexual experimentation and pleasure seeking, while repudiating parents’ roles and traditional values. Some families share those views, and many don’t.
Recently, hundreds of Muslim Americans protested a Dearborn, Michigan, school board meeting, holding signs with messages such as “Keep your porno to yourself.” Christians, Jews and Muslims have all been told they must keep their religious teachings out of public schools.
Allowing CSE in school is no different from entrusting sex education to a priest or a rabbi, to the exclusion of all other views.
Parents, it’s time to take control of what our kids are being taught.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey. To find out more about Betsy McCaughey and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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