by Bob Sullivan
When you were growing up, you may have learned about “the birds and the bees” from your mom or dad, and you may have sat through some “sex education” courses at school. If some people have it their way, this type of education will not happen for your children and grandchildren.
Today, there is an enormous effort to change the way our children learn about their bodies, their desires, and their relationships. One effort is through pornography, and the other is through K-12 schools and “sexual education” programs, which are very different from sex education.
It is called sexual education because it can be used to teach our children that there is no “opposite sex.” Instead, there is a supposed gender spectrum, and a person’s reproductive organs do not necessarily play a role in their identity as male, female, trans, nonbinary, nongender, questioning, and on, and on, and on (nor does their DNA). This is part of gender ideology, which teaches that humans are not created male and female; we get to decide what we feel like, and we can be absolutely anything we feel.
We all know this is a lie, but try saying that to someone like Stefonknee Wolscht. When he was 52, he left his wife and children because he identified as a 6-year-old girl. How could any man actually know how a 6-year-old girl feels when everyone agrees that he could not actually know what a 52-year-old woman was feeling? This is just one bizarre fact in one bizarre story, among dozens of very bizarre stories in the past decade.
Nebraska is certainly insulated from this insanity, right? Wrong. Nebraska’s State Board of Education is currently in the process of proposing a new set of Health Education Standards which they hope to make available (but not mandatory) for all Nebraska’s K-12 schools. While these are standards, not lesson plans, textbooks, and other aspects of curriculum, they establish the things which the State Board of Education wants each school to cover in each year of the child’s education.
Included within the first draft of these standards are some very disturbing topics for children. For instance, if the current health standards were adopted, kindergarten students would discuss different kinds of family structures, including same-gender parents. In the first grade, all students would learn to define gender, gender identity, and gender-role stereotypes. In the third grade, students would learn how to define sexual orientation.
This progression of sexualizing the child continues throughout the rest of their years in school. By the time the child is 13 or 14 years old, they will be taught that some laws and policies are tools of systemic racism, and that that sexism, homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, classism, and other “isms” can influence decisions regarding sexual behaviors. Such an education would teach our children and grandchildren that Stefonknee Wolscht is a little girl and not a 58-year-old man, and to merely disagree with that would be hateful, hurtful, and dangerous.
What the school actually uses for educational materials, such as textbooks, videos, guest speakers, etc., would depend on the school and the local school leadership. Just think of the attractive, colorful, and intriguing story books preschool and K-8 teachers and librarians might make available to their students!
On top of all this, the current draft is silent about teaching children about chastity, virtue, and waiting until marriage for their vocation of marriage and family. The draft standards do make reference to abstinence, but with all the “safety” practices and products included in the standards, it can be reasonably anticipated that at least some teachers may treat abstinence as an antiquated and overly unrealistic option.
Therefore, the current draft of the standards contains the full slate of Comprehensive Sexual Education promoted by activist organizations such as Planned Parenthood and the Human Rights Campaign, but they also include opportunities for schools to teach Critical Race Theory through health education, which is already part of mandatory standards the Department of Education has adopted in other subjects such as history.
This would deliver a 1-2 punch to our way of life here in Nebraska. First, it would undermine and potentially destroy any Christian virtue parents attempt to pass along to their children. For one thing, it would make many parents seem oppressive and unreasonable to some kids, adding a lot of stress and conflict to an already difficult parental task. By the way, I’m not saying all parents are fit for the job of parenting. Prime examples of this are parents who I believe exploit their own children
Secondly, it would at times be suggestive to children. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from 2015 to 2019, the percentage of 15- to 17-year-olds who claimed to identify as “non-heterosexual” rose from 8.3% to 11.7%. While some LGBT advocates say this merely shows that non-heterosexual teens are feeling a greater amount of acceptance and security, it may also indicate that media campaigns such as National Coming Out Day, which urges young people to “come out of the closet,” are encouraging some young people to experiment then experience a lot of confusion about their sexual attractions, their “gender identity” and the way their parents have tried to raise them.
As parents, we all need to do three things, and do them quickly. First, we need to start working very closely with our own children and grandchildren, teaching them things like theology of the body and basic human dignity.
Secondly, we need to contact the Department of Education and voice our disagreement with the current draft standards and engage in other work, up to and including running for public office, especially your local school board or the State Board of Education.
Finally, we need to pray and fast.
