The Centaur Scrolls: Sexual Freedom and Its Dangers, Part III

Reader,

In the late 1800s and the early 1900s, the United States restricted the ability of children to work, and made education available and mandatory for children under the age of sixteen. The act brought hope to Europeans, who saw America as the land of opportunity where education and social improvement was possible. And no one, I believe, will challenge that this was a positive improvement in our society.

Education today, however, has dramatically changed in nature. Instead of being the tool for improving their integration into our society, today’s curriculum is being guided by an agenda which attacks the very foundation of our society: the family. Research suggests that our children are being trained to live as independent, individualistic machines, programmed to march in lockstep with the dictates of foreign entities in the name of “globalization” and “being a world citizen.” Sexual education programs are one of the ways in which this agenda is accomplished.

What do I mean by “sex education”? First, let us not speak of programs around the world which protect Muslim girls from sexual slavery in a harem, or programs in Africa which warn girls and boys about the dangers of sexual slavery and the like. These situations do not assist us in bringing clarity to the situation. I want to confine our discussion to the curriculum used in the United States to teach middle-, high-, and in some cases elementary-aged children about reproductive services, and how unhealthy these “services” really are.

Providing useful information to the next generation is not a crime. But this proposition requires us to answer two fundamental questions: 1) Who should teach children about sexual health, and 2) What should they be taught? For thousands of years, parents have fulfilled the teaching aspect of these propositions. Yet in recent years, there has been a trend away from parental guidance toward school “professionals” to teach sexuality. What is the difference? Parents offer the information out of love, while professionals offer it out of interest.

What do I mean by this? Parents have the incentive to offer the soundest advice to their children, because these are their children. While health professionals in schools are certainly not conniving, evil creatures who seek to poison, steal, kill, and destroy, they have an agenda behind what they teach. And that has consequences.

One of the gravest consequences is that important sexual health information is noticeably absent from the curriculum. It almost goes without saying that sex education encourages earlier sexual activity. Current science is discovering that when children learn about sex at earlier ages, they tend to become sexually active earlier. This becomes a problem when children are taught about sex without being told important health facts, such as the increased vulnerability of girls to HPV and HIV before their bodies have fully matured. Sex education supporters are hurting young people; they are doing them no favor.

These courses often stand opposed to the will of parents because sex ed encourages irresponsible behavior through the use of technology. Even though abstinence, the most prescribed form of education by parents, has a significantly better success rating at avoiding harmful diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and future health problems, schools present abstinence as only one of many acceptable choices. A ninth-grade textbook tells students, “Testing your ability to function sexually and to give pleasure to another person may be less threatening in early teens with people of your own sex,” and that “You may come to the conclusion that growing up means rejecting the values of your parents.” And sex education proponents wonder why people like me are upset, :)

My row with this textbook is not so much the words on the page (though I do take issue with them), so much as what is not said on the page. Dr. Miriam Grossman’s research in the field, released recently, indicates that homosexual relations—-or any form of sexual relations during your early teens, for that matter—-are not “less threatening” from a health standpoint, and individuals who engage in these activities have a higher chance of developing cancer and sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Furthermore, students were encouraged not to take this book home, but to leave it in their lockers. Why? Because the teachers knew that parents would not approve. If this information is really best for the student and backed by clinical evidence proven in the field, why are they hiding it? Why didn’t the school officials talk about this with parents at a teacher-parent meeting to make sure that the parents were educated? Because the research to back it up doesn’t exist.

Some may object, “But can’t our children opt out of sex education programs in their curriculum?” While schools may give that option, courts have split on whether or not parental permission is required for such teaching to occur. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Fields v. Palmdale School District in 2005 that “once parents make the choice as to which school their children will attend . . . their fundamental right to control the education of their children is, at the least, substantially diminished,” and that “While parents may have a fundamental right to decide whether to send their child to a public school, they do not have a fundamental right generally to direct how a public school teaches their child.”

Opposing sex education is not “pulling the wool over your child’s eyes,” but rather an age-old principle of allowing parents—who know their child best—to determine when they learn about a very important part of life. Parents need to maintain their right in this area of our society without interference from the government, “professionals,” or others who would strive to take their place.

Watching the stars,

Centaur