The Patriot Post® · Teaching Cultural Degradation to Children

In California, sex education must align itself with progressive dogma — or else.

The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) is conducting an investigation after what Fox News Sacramento called an “anti-abortion” video was included as part of a sex-education lecture at Sutter Middle School. What the series of videos actually depicted was animations of how abortions are carried out during various stages of pregnancy. They were presented by a pro-life organization called Live Action, and narrated by Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist turned pro-life activist.

During the presentation, Levantino urges viewers to “protect the pre-born.”

SCUSD spokesman Alex Barrios insisted the videos are “completely inappropriate for the classroom” and fail to “meet the district’s approved family life and sexuality curriculum.”

What curriculum? “California state law, the California Healthy Youth Act, requires that comprehensive sexual health education and HIV prevention education be provided to students at least once in middle school and once in high school, starting in 7th grade,” the district’s website states. “Instruction must encourage students to communicate with parents, guardians or other trusted adults about human sexuality.”

The instruction encouraging students to communicate with parents, guardians or other trusted adults about human sexuality is a bit rich when one considers that California is a state where children under the age of 18 who want an abortion are under no legal obligation to seek their parents’ permission to get it. In fact, they don’t even have to let their parents know they are having what amounts to a surgical procedure.

One is hard-pressed to think of a single other surgical procedure a minor can have without parental consent or notification.

Unfortunately, such twisted ideological priorities should surprise no one. Few things upset leftists who champion the “right to choose” — along with the right to usurp parental guidance and authority — more than the notion that one should be making an informed choice about terminating a pregnancy. Thus, any video that shows students exactly how abortions are performed is off limits.

Why? It might have something to do with a four-minute-long video released by Levantino in 2016 that went viral. “One-third of women who said they hold ‘pro-choice’ views on abortion had a more negative view of abortion after watching even part of the video, and nearly as many called for abortion to be more strictly regulated,” reported Life Site News. More compelling? “Even more pro-choice women, 46 percent, felt the videos should be shown in high school sex education classes,” it added.

“We all know that the subject of abortion is sensitive, complex and controversial, and I personally don’t think it belongs as a topic to go into in any depth in a seventh-grade class,” said a parent of one student who viewed the video. The parent further bemoaned the fact that what the children saw “cannot be unseen.”

It would be illuminating to know what this parent and others think of that same seventh-grade curriculum including a lesson entitled “Blue is for Boys, Pink is for Girls.” It is a lesson that “engages students in a discussion surrounding gender stereotypes and their origin,” and “connections around non-heterosexual orientations.” It’s followed by a lesson called “Sexual Orientation, Behavior and Gender Identity” that discusses “different types of sexual orientation and distinguishes between orientation, behavior and identity.”

In short, while the pro-life agenda is anathema, the LGBT agenda is an integral part of the curriculum.

And these are the “older” students. California is poised to launch a sex-ed program that makes an utter mockery of the indignation surrounding anti-abortion videos. As part of the state’s “Welcoming Schools” agenda, suggested reading for students at grade levels kindergarten through fifth grade will include “I AM JAZZ: READING A CHILDREN’S BOOK TO HELP UNDERSTAND TRANSGENDER TOPICS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL.” It will be accompanied by another publication entitled “Sexual Health Guide,” subtitled “An Adolescent Provider Toolkit.”

That toolkit describes topics such as “anal intercourse,” “phone sex,” and other “common sexual behaviors.”

During a May 29 meeting at San Diego Unified School District’s offices, dozens of parents chanting “too much, too soon,” and “protect our kids,” made it clear to school officials — for the third time in two years — they were less than enchanted with the district’s Sexual Health Education Program (SHEP). “It’s not about sex education, it’s not about biological science, it’s about promulgating and pushing a world view upon them,” one parent rightly told the board, adding that “gender confusion, gender dysphoria is what you’re trying to promote.”

District officials insisted the curriculum was in compliance with the new California Healthy Youth Act and state mandates. Dean Broyles, an attorney with the National Center for the Law and Policy, disagrees, asserting, “There are only recommended curriculum, there are no mandated curriculum under the California Healthy Youth Act because it’s too new and a framework has not even been developed yet.”

In stark contrast, the abortion videos are a bridge too far and spokesman Barrios promises the district “will address this matter with the seriousness it demands.” That would be the same district that gives children access to graphic cartoons featuring characters named “Julie Melons” and “Miles Long,” naked in bed together.

Seriously.

Jenny Thomas is the science teacher who presented the videos. It’s her job to teach students about family life and human sexuality. She has apologized for the presentation.

California public schools are hardly outliers in pushing the progressive sexual agenda. At UC Santa Barbara, a student-operated sex information website addresses a variety of topics, including “Childhood Sexuality,” and “Talking To Your Child About Sex.” The former focuses on prepubescent children and urges parents to “keep their reactions to children’s consensual sexual activity and play positive.” Even when children are “touching each others genitals” parents should remain sanguine because “children are just exploring.” The latter topic in part urges parents to teach their children that watching pornography “is a normal habit, and that they do not need to be ashamed of it,” provided it is viewed in moderation.

Enough. America needs congressional hearings on the state of public school education, and one of the primary topics that must be addressed is why, in the overwhelming majority of cases, promoting progressive dogma is the default agenda.

In California, it’s a sexual agenda epitomized by the website “CALIFORNIA MINOR CONSENT AND CONFIDENTIALITY LAWS,” which details just how extensive the usurpation of parental rights has become in the Golden State. By law, the “health care provider is not permitted to inform a parent or legal guardian without the minor’s consent” — with regard to pregnancy, abortion, STDs and rape services for minors 12 years of age and older.

What undergirds this usurpation is a lowest-common-denominator presumption that a parent or guardian might be the child’s impregnator, disease transmitter or rapist. That presumption alludes to the greater discussion of cultural degradation — which alludes to the anything-goes “morality” that constitutes an integral part of the progressive agenda that contributed mightily to that degradation.

The same progressive agenda promulgated in public schools where a pro-life video warrants an investigation. Go figure.