The Sex Ed Wars Will Never End
politico.comfounded the previous year by fundamentalist minister Jerry Falwell to infuse Christian values into public policy.Converging on a hearing of the state board of education, members of the group denounced sex education for placing “godless ethics” over Biblical absolutes.
They especially bridled at the curriculum’s “normalization” of homosexuality, which they called a sin before God, and even claimed sex education would encourage “public acceptance of pedophilia.”Fast-forward to Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, signed into law in March, and similar bills in several other states, all restricting instruction about LGBTQ-related themes.
The Florida measure prohibits instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity from kindergarten through third grade and also bars any discussion of these topics “that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate.”Like their forbears in the Moral Majority, proponents of these laws warn that schools are “grooming” children for sexual abuse.But as the larger politics of our culture wars have shifted, so has the focus of opposition to sex education.
The most obvious new target is gender identity, which has surpassed sexual orientation as the core concern. Advocates of the measures mostly avoid religious rhetoric, invoking parental rights rather than Scripture.
