Fayette County parents were upset recently about the school system’s bringing in a radical LGBT group to train school nurses on “gender identity” issues. But Fayette is only one of many school districts opening the door to sexualization of even young children. A recent example comes from DeKalb County School District (DCSD).
According to a report from Fox 5, Lithonia Middle School recently administered a test in health class asking 6th-graders to respond to questions about “cisgender,” “gender queer,” and “gender fluid,” among other terms created as part of a political rather than scientific agenda. As a diligent parent and rational human being, mom Octavia Parks objected to testing students on fabricated, sexualized nonsense and to usurping parents’ role in explaining these concepts in their own way and on their own timetable.
But this wasn’t just a radical teacher going rogue: It’s the DCSD curriculum. According to the district, “The teacher correctly utilized DCSD’s Family Life and Sexual Health (FLASH) curriculum, an abstinence-based, evidence-informed sexuality education program adopted in June 2014 ….”
What is the FLASH curriculum? Despite DCSD’s anodyne description, it’s a “comprehensive” sex-education program “especially” recommended by Planned Parenthood (which makes no money from abstinent kids). FLASH pushes and in some cases demonstrates birth-control methods without warning about failure rates or health risks. FLASH’s Curriculum Mapping Tool for grades 6-8 lays out the orientation of the program: “The role of the educator is to foster attitudes that will lead students to seek healthcare and, especially, to seek condoms and prescription contraception.”
No wonder Planned Parenthood loves it – what better way to suck underage girls into the dark but lucrative world of promiscuity and contraception followed by abortion(s) and STD treatment? The program also references Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation as teacher resources.
To be considered comprehensive among agenda-driven “experts,” a sex-ed program must also discuss LGBT issues. The excuse is that those kids too must learn how to protect themselves (never mind that learning the value of abstinence protects everyone of any sexual proclivity). But comprehensive programs use this excuse to inject a hefty dose of LGBT propaganda into lessons even for young children. As illustrated by the Lithonia Middle lesson, much of this is simply designed to normalize any type of sexual behavior or confusion.
The indoctrination is direct. One 4th-grade lesson teaches that all family structures – mom/dad, mom/mom, dad/dad, whatever – are equally valid and healthy. Other middle-school lessons celebrate different sexual orientations and gender identities.
Some parents agree with this philosophy and certainly have the right to teach their beliefs to their children. But others don’t accept it, because it conflicts with their faith and/or because they recognize that children need both a mother and a father to have the best chance of thriving. Why are their beliefs disregarded?
DCSD emphasizes that parents may opt their children out of the lessons in accordance with Georgia law. So does this resolve the problem?
No. For one thing, Ms. Parks claims she did opt her daughter out of the instruction but that her wishes were ignored (DCSD hasn’t responded publicly to this claim). And are DCSD parents given full information about what the health curriculum contains – “gender queer” and all – or just a statement of the general topics to be covered? Parental opt-out may be less meaningful than it appears.
But more fundamentally, the statutory opt-out language was adopted decades ago, in the more innocent days when the legislature sought only to limit governmental intrusion on parents’ right to teach the biological, emotional, and religious aspects of sex. Legislators certainly never imagined a school would use the health course to teach concepts that are not only scientifically unsupported but part of a political agenda to indoctrinate children into a particular worldview.
Imagine the opposite situation. Suppose a school taught that the ideal family structure consists of mother, father, and children and that there’s no scientific basis for “gender fluidity,” but allowed parents to opt out of that instruction. The political shrieking would be audible from the moon.
So why are traditional parents, who certainly comprise the vast majority of Georgians, treated like a weird minority who must seek special dispensation from the school to protect their children from alien beliefs? Why don’t schools just stay out of this minefield and let parents handle it?
DeKalb parents must demand answers from their superintendent and school board. And parents in other districts should find out how much of this sexualized political agenda is currently being taught in “health” class. If it’s not happening now, it’s coming soon.
Jane Robbins
Senior Fellow, American Principles Project
1130 Connecticut Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.
