The last organizations any of us would trust with our children are Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. And yet, in my home state of Louisiana, that’s exactly who some legislators are teaming up with to impose a state-wide mandatory sex education policy on every school district in the state.
Louisiana’s longstanding policy has been to authorize — but not require — local school boards to teach sex education to students in grades 7-12. The instruction has to be integrated into an existing course of study like biology, science, physical hygiene, or physical education. Under the current law, all information has to be of factual biological or pathological information. It also specifies that the course can’t be used to promote or counsel for abortion or utilize any sexually explicit materials about male or female same-sex activity. Abstinence, the law makes clear, should be the major point of emphasis for unmarried persons.
That should explain why Planned Parenthood and a who’s who of liberal organization have teamed up with State Representative Pat Smith in introducing a model legislation that turns Louisiana’s law on its head. Smith temporarily pulled her bill, HB 499, last week from a committee hearing when opposition surfaced. But that opposition exploded before it became known that her bill is almost word-for-word the work of a coalition of Planned Parenthood, Advocates for Youth, ACLU, and the radical Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
The Smith/Planned Parenthood/ACLU bill turns current law upside-down, starting with how it rips the decisions out of the hands of parents and local schools and turns them over to Planned Parenthood. The instruction, as dictated by the state (Planned Parenthood), makes it clear that elementary schools and parent committees will no longer be involved in developing or reviewing the materials used in these courses. HB 499 would demand “sex education programs that are paired with broader, more comprehensive instruction.” And what is that “comprehensive” instruction? Lessons that don’t just focus on sexual activity and contraception (which is bad enough), but also double as extreme indoctrination on “gender identity, gender expression, sexuality, and sexual orientation.” (An ideology, not so coincidentally, that the American College of Pediatricians calls “child abuse.”)
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A hearing is scheduled for this coming Wednesday in the House Education Committee. If you live in Louisiana, take the time to contact any of these representatives. The last thing any state should be doing is pushing an approach to sex education that, even Obama’s administration admitted, does more harm to students than good.
LifeNews Note: Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council.
