A group of concerned parents in California fear that newly proposed guidelines for the state’s health curriculum in the public schools could endanger their children and strip them of their parental rights.
The 1,000-page Health Education Framework immediately raised eyebrows when the California Department of Education first released it for public review in March 2018. The document, which is designed to guide K-12 curriculum development on nutrition, substance abuse, exercise, and sexual health for the next decade, is the practical result of the Healthy Youth Act, a law passed in 2015 requiring all California public and charter schools to provide comprehensive sexual health education. The law forces schools to affirm different sexual orientations and teach about gender identity and gender expression. Though parents are allowed to opt their children out of sexual health lessons entirely, they cannot pull their children from individual lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity because the law says that would violate anti-discrimination laws.
The guidelines for kindergarten through third grade instruct teachers to introduce the concept that an individual’s gender does not always match his or her sexual and reproductive organs. “In the classroom, we may use the term ‘female reproductive organs’ but some people who identify as male have these organs,” the guidelines state. They also recommend inviting transgender individuals to elementary classrooms and reading picture books such as Who Are You? The Kids Guide to Gender Identity, which includes an interactive wheel that lets students choose their own body and identity and tells them adults simply guess about a baby’s sex at birth.
Seventh and eighth grade instructors are told to use the term “partner” in place of boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, and wife to avoid assumptions about gender and sexual orientation, adding “some students may be non-monogamous and the term ‘partner(s)’ may also be used to be more inclusive.”
The high school guidelines give a long list of possible sexual orientations and their definitions, including bisexual, pansexual, and polysexual, warning, “Gender and sexuality are often fluid and do not always fit neatly into these categories. This can be challenging for some to grasp.” And both the middle and high school guidelines reference “spiritual abuse,” described as “forcing others to adhere to rigid gender roles” and “not allowing partners to do things they enjoy.”
The state’s Instructional Quality Commission released the curriculum guidelines again on Nov. 1 for a second review period. The commission is reviewing the feedback and will recommend final edits to the State Board of Education at meetings on March 22-23. The board is expected to adopt the guidelines in May.
A group of concerned parents plans to hold a rally in Sacramento, the state capital, on Friday to oppose the proposed framework. They argue the guidelines go against a California statute affirming that “parents and guardians have the ultimate responsibility for imparting values regarding human sexuality to their children” and that the framework fails to meets its own stated standards of being age-appropriate, medically accurate, and unbiased.
“[They] are trying to override the values and morals of a lot of California families by undermining what parents teach at home through the framework,” Aileen Blachowski, a member of the group Informed Parents of California and a mother living in Orange County, told me. She said the guidelines are an example of incrementalism, tiny steps away from common sense: “In 2016, very few people were aware that the [Healthy Youth Act] passed, that it contained what it contained.”
Now Informed Parents of California is working to build a team of parents to respond to the guidelines in all 58 counties in the state.
“We intend to show up at their Instructional Quality Commission meetings, at the State Board of Education meetings … to prove that we are parents who have read every letter of this and we’re very well aware of what it is and we have constructive comments to be made,” Blachowski said. “We’ve been told they do want to hear us.”
But they face an uphill battle. California has championed LGBT advocacy in schools, passing laws that other states copy, and activists are continually lobbying for more. This month, the Human Rights Campaign released a report on LGBT youth in California and called on the state to implement more laws requiring education on LGBT affirmation.
Blachowski said those efforts are a threat to what Christians know to be the good, the true, and the beautiful: “To many parents it feels like the state is trying to rip our children’s hearts and minds right out from underneath us.”
Comments
VolunteerBB
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 04:22 pmSo parents cannot opt out their kids from this sex ed lesson because it would violate anti-descrimination laws? Oh, the irony!
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 05:48 pmRegarding teaching little children about sexual stuff:
I think I feel the groung trembling.
I hope Pelosi is somewhere in California when Arizona sees their long promised beachfront property.
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 05:56 pmAnd both the middle and high school guidelines reference “spiritual abuse,” described as “forcing others to adhere to rigid gender roles” and “not allowing partners to do things they enjoy.”
It sounds like I would have to allow my partner to do bad things to me because it might be something s/he would enjoy.
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 06:08 pmRe: Elementary Indoctrination
The real reason people are moving out of California in droves.
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 06:11 pmIf you are interested in dating someone, are you allowed to ask them if they are non-monogamous, bisexual, pansexual, or polysexual?
I didn't tell you I am married because I'm non-monogamous. It has nothing to do with you. It's just who I am. Wha!!!
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 06:15 pmI wonder if there is anything in the indoctrination to convince children it's ok for Uncle Bob to be friendly.
Hollywood has been telling the media for a long time that children feel bad about being touched or whatever because we told it's bad.
NEWS2ME
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 06:20 pm"adults simply guess about a baby’s sex at birth"
Parents aren't very smart if they have to guess what a baby's sex at birth is.
Are they going to do that with animals? Just because our puppy acts like a boy doesn't make him a boy. But we think it is a little young to know what it is yet. We thought we would take it to a animal gender psychiatrist.
JerryM
Posted: Fri, 01/25/2019 07:13 pm"...the Human Rights Campaign released a report on LGBT youth in California and called on the state to implement more laws requiring education on LGBT affirmation."
We need to be clear: This is indocrination.
What is happening to California (and so much of the US and the West) brings to mind C.S. Lewis's Screwtape letters and wormwood character.
I am grateful for the action of these parents that are stepping up to speak the truth. A big part of the problem is the church, by and large, does not.
Xion
Posted: Sat, 01/26/2019 01:49 pm“Gender and sexuality are often fluid and do not always fit neatly into these categories."
That statement is categorically false. It is false according to science, history, religion and so on. The entire LGBQT agenda is based on a lie. Remember when people used to complain about forcing religion down their throats? Well, now they are doing the very same thing.
DS
Posted: Mon, 01/28/2019 10:46 amSo, first off, they are using the word "descriminate" wrong. The way they use it makes it seem like it means "to shun those unlike yourself", but what it really means is "the ability to tell one from another"; in other words, the ability to tell circles from squares, red from blue, men from women, etc. Discrimination (in the correct meaning of the word) is a God given gift, and so, it is good. But now, to use the corrupted meaning of the word, I will say this: I feel discriminated against. I feel like I and my beliefs and feelings are constantly being shunned.
Second, and probably much more obviously (I'm just steaming here), if we should chose one over the other of the two proposed courses that California has, I would say the sexual health one should be the manditory; not that it would be of much use. But the gender identification course, if it becomes a course, should never be manditory. It should never become a course, but if it does, parents should have the option to opt out of that one. To quote Propaganda, in his piece called "Bored of Education", "In no point in our actual lives do we sit in rows and listen to pontification," and this pontification we don't even want to hear. In fact, we need to not hear it, and here's why: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)".
Now I could go on and on like this, but I will stop here.
About the other subarticles, I'm impressed that Facebook is trying to help those who are showing signs of eminent suicide and I'm glad for the steps they've taken. I'm also glad that the authorities have caught the guy responsible for raping that helpless woman in the healthcare facility in Arizona. And I wholeheartedly agree with Meghan Cox Gurdon's assertion about reading to our children vs. letting them spend too much time on a screen (I find it slightly funny and ironic that this subarticle is digital).
Bear
Posted: Tue, 01/29/2019 03:34 pmWhy is the obvious lost to everyone pushing the LGBTQ agenda, like the confict between the AZ issue and the CA issue? How can AZ police order every male to DNA testing if being male is optional, fluid, and subject to change on a whim? In any case, glad they got a match and arrested the guy. Had it happened in CA, they may still be trying to figure out how to go about the investigation, or simply given up since they can't reconcile this issue given their convoluted logic.
DS
Posted: Thu, 01/31/2019 01:31 pmThose who changed probably would have been under immediate suspicion.
Chelsey McNeil
Posted: Wed, 01/30/2019 05:08 pmParents, please be aware that a very similar law is currently being considered in Colorado.
HB19-1032 Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education
would do most of the things the California law would do. Please, if you live in Colorado, look up this law and call your local legislators, asking them to vote 'no' if this legislation should come to a vote. Most of all, pray that God's will would be done!
James C Williams
Posted: Fri, 02/01/2019 07:35 pm"Though parents are allowed to opt their children out of sexual health lessons entirely, they cannot pull their children from individual lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity because the law says that would violate anti-discrimination laws."
Does this mean that parents can opt out their children of all sex ed, including the SOGI material, but they cannot both take sex ed and opt out of SOGI; or does this mean that even if parents opt their children out of sex ed, they still have to participate in SOGI teaching? Thanks.