Most parents send their kids to school each morning with the assumption that they’re learning the three R’s. Unfortunately, while a significant percentage of students graduate from high school with the inability to read, write, or perform basic math functions, they’re all increasingly proficient in the “LGBTQ” worldview due to curriculum changes sweeping across the country.

John Murawski writes at RealClearInvestigations, “Advocates say these reforms provide compelling benefits: They present a more truthful and realistic version of history while promoting an inclusive climate in which LGBTQ kids are less likely to be harassed or bullied. Medical experts say that social rejection, hostility and violence contribute to higher rates of substance abuse, depression, and suicide among LGBTQ youth.”

On the surface, it sounds so innocent. But some parents aren’t buying into the new groupthink.

Murawski adds, “As schools adopt the curriculum, some parents have protested to their districts or tried to get their kids excused from class. They say public schools are encroaching on the sanctity of the family when they inculcate specific beliefs about gender and sexuality. They predict the new mandates will prompt a wave of parents to pull their kids out of public schools.”

What’s at issue for many parents of traditional Christian values and beliefs is not that others are living alternative lifestyles or even celebrating an alternative way of life, but that the Rainbow Mafia is so militant in forcing its agenda upon the rest of us while labeling as bigoted and homophobic all who would oppose them.

The situation today seems the reverse of what it was just a decade or two ago: young, heterosexual students now feel immense pressure to openly endorse lifestyles they don’t personally believe in. For example, a student commenting in a class discussion that he believes in traditional marriage will likely be met with condemnation by his teacher. The student may then be referred to a school counselor or equity officer, or coerced into attending sensitivity workshops.

Another concern about the LGBTQ curriculum is the obsession with sexuality. School textbooks identify athletes, historical figures, musicians, writers, scientists, and artists by their sexual preference, or their suspected sexual preference in the case of those who pre-date the movement. The accomplishments of these individuals seem secondary to their sexuality — at least when they’re viewed through an LGBTQ lens.

This is of particular concern for parents of children attending elementary schools where students read books about characters who have same-sex parents, are questioning their sexuality, or who “identify” as transgender. Heather Has Two Mommies and Jacob’s New Dress are two examples of the books now being introduced to first graders.

Parents who oppose this indoctrination have few options, but some are trying to make a statement.

Just this week, a group of Virginia parents expressed concern over the addition of LGBTQ books placed on classroom and library shelves, some of which contain sexually suggestive or even explicit material. And earlier this year, parents pulled 650 children out of the Rocklin Unified School District in California to protest the implementation of an LGBTQ curriculum designed to bring the school into compliance with the state’s FAIR Education Act of 2011.

These protests and walk-outs are typically short-lived, however, and the momentum is clearly with those who want to force the rest of us to accept their ideology. Indeed, the supposedly oppressed have now become the oppressors. And they’ve come up with a lot of creative, subversive ways to make sure the rest of us are immersed in the religion of diversity, inclusion, and equity. These include creating and implementing programs without notifying parents, and intentionally removing LGBTQ studies from a school district’s sex-ed program, thereby preventing parents from being able to opt out.

As Joy Pullman writes at The Federalist, “It’s no matter to them that the only difference between a gay person and a straight person is the kind of sex each engages in, and thus any LGBT instruction obviously falls into sex ed. The defining element of being LGBT is one’s preferred sexual behavior, and absolutely nothing else. Thus any LGBT instruction is necessarily sex ed. This is just a patent attempt to bypass state laws that obviously apply. When Christians do this, with much more legitimacy, by things like trying to have the Bible taught in world religions or world history, the left loses its everloving mind.”

Clearly, the tide has turned against those who hold traditional beliefs. And it’s no wonder that so many parents are afraid to even question the LGBTQ agenda within their schools. The Rainbow Mafia is well-funded and well-organized even at the community level, and its goal is clear: to mock and demean the very principles and values that are the bedrock of Western civilization. And their demand is clear, too: Either accept and celebrate the LGBTQ agenda, or we’ll come after you.

So much for tolerance.