The principal arena in the battle for the nation’s soul is once again being co-opted by the American Left. Acalanes High School (AHS) in Lafayette, California, determined that ninth graders should be taught sex-ed – without parents’ prior knowledge, no less – by Planned Parenthood.

“They are very concerned,” said Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute (PJI), a non-profit legal organization assisting outraged parents to whom he referred. “Planned Parenthood is not exactly the best when it comes to putting young people first. They get more grants from the promiscuity of children. The material they have provided was material that mirrored their agenda.”

The most pernicious piece of that material is a chart depicting the so-called “Genderbred Person,” which comes from a book entitled, “The Social Justice Advocate’s Handbook: A Guide to Gender,” written by comedian and social justice advocate Sam Killerman. It is an effort to sow as much sexual confusion as possible in the minds of children by challenging the notion that one’s identity should not be reduced to male or female. Instead, students are told they can mentally identify themselves as “woman, man, two-spirit, genderqueer or genderless,” sexually express themselves as “butch, femme, androgynous, gender neutral, or hyper-masculine,” and biologically identify themselves as “male, female, intersex, female self ID, or male self ID.”

It gets worse. Students were also given a leaflet entitled “Sex Check! Are You Ready for Sex?” It asks students whether they are “ready for sex” and includes a checklist of materials such as condoms and water-based lubricants, and it also prompts them to consider whether they are capable of handling infections or pregnancy. Another worksheet prepares them for giving and getting consent for sex, posing questions such as “Do you want to go back to my place?” and “Is it OK if I take my pants off?”

According to PJI, parents began raising concerns following student reports of disturbing behavior during a sex-ed class. In a press release, the institute said, “Students reported that instructors threw a model of female reproductive organs at a student and that the instruction left them feeling pressured to have sex.”

The school defended its actions, characterizing the instruction as “age appropriate using objective and medically accurate information.” It further defended the worksheet as something that will “set the stage for age appropriate student thought, reflection and discussion regarding the complexity of the decision,” while arguing the Genderbred Person is used “to prompt student thought and engage students in discussion regarding the components of sexual identity.”

Baloney. Last year the American Life League (ALL) submitted ads to The New York Times and The Washington Post to raise public awareness about Planned Parenthood’s sex education curriculum. Those ads featured actual images from that curriculum for children as young as 10. Both papers rejected the images as “too graphic” and “shocking” for adult readers.

Too shocking for adults but OK for young teens?

Dacus spells out the implications. “What is happening in Lafayette should be a wake-up call to parents about what Planned Parenthood and some school districts want to teach our kids,” he contends. “I would challenge anyone to read some of these materials and try to defend their use with 13- and 14-year-olds.”

Parents collected 100 signatures on a petition in an effort raise community awareness about what is going on at AHS, and PJL sent AHS a letter expressing “serious concerns” about the legality of the program. “We firmly believe some of this program is illegal,” Dacus added, “and the district has a lot more explaining to do.”

What is occurring in this case is an integral part of the leftist agenda that has reached the apex of insanity in the Golden State. In 2013, Gov. Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown signed AB1266, allowing transgender students “to participate in sex-segregated programs, activities and facilities” based on their self-perception and regardless of their birth gender.

Hence, one is whoever one wants to be, regardless of biological reality.

Keep this all in mind as we consider the story of Chaplain Joseph Lawhorn, an Army chaplain punished for including religious materials and quoting from the Bible during a suicide-prevention training session with the 5th Ranger Infantry Battalion. “You provided a two-sided handout that listed Army resources on one side and a biblical approach to handling depression on the other side,” Col. David Fivecoat, the commander of the Airborne and Ranger Training Brigade at Ft. Benning, Georgia, wrote in an official Letter of Concern. Fivecoat warned Lawhorn to be “careful to avoid any perception you are advocating one system of beliefs over another.”

Now, back to the state of California and AHS, we add to the mix Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry. Writing for The Wall Street Journal, McHugh contends that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”

Some people believe McHugh is spot on. Others believe the Genderbred Person, which posits a diametrically opposed viewpoint, is accurate. Furthermore, according to the Intersex Society of North America, transgendered people are those “who are born with typical male or female anatomies [emphasis added] but feel as though they’ve been born into the ‘wrong body.’”

In other words, believing one is transgender requires an act of faith. Faith is an integral part of religion – and the endorsement of religion is prohibited in public schools.

It is time the leftist indoctrination of children that includes a highly debatable tenet of sexuality – along with a host of other propaganda passed along as irrefutable fact – be given the same scrutiny and be subject to the same limitations as leftists subject Christianity. The alternative is what we have now: a viewpoint labeled “secular humanism” completely protected from rebuttal by opposing viewpoints. That’s not education. That’s brainwashing, and it’s time Americans recognized it as such – and put a stop to it.