Parents can fight graphic sex ed by 'linking arms with people of other faiths:' activists
WASHINGTON — Activists are urging pastors and parents upset by explicit content in sex ed curriculum used in public schools to be relentless in pushing back while building rapport with school officials.
At a breakout session hosted by Cathy Ruse of the Family Research Council during the Watchmen on the Wall conference at the Hyatt Regency hotel on Capitol Hill, Elizabeth Johnston, who is known as The Activist Mommy, urged attendees to be vigilant, noting that pornographic, gender-bending sex ed materials are being pushed in schools nationwide.
And people cannot continue with the illusion that if they live in a culturally conservative state or district that it will not affect them, she said, as many are innocently ignorant about how deeply entrenched it is.
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Johnston, who personally home schools her children but herself attended public schools and taught in them, believes public education is in crisis.
"And it not just a Common Core crisis, not just a crisis of dumbing down our children. It's much, much worse than that. It is a moral crisis, and we're paying for it," she said as she recounted several instances of sexually explicit content and events that took place at public schools.
"In Durham, North Carolina — Bible Belt, folks — in a middle school, they didn't just have drag queens reading stories, they had a drag show ... to [supposedly] fight oppression and bullying."
She added, "How much you want to bet that if a Christian student rises up and says 'We don't want this drag show' that that Christian will be bullied while they fight bullying and oppression with their drag show."
In a conservative district of Indiana, students were taught how to take a bus route to Planned Parenthood, she said. And it's well-funded left-wing groups like the abortion giant that are actively pushing perversion on young people through deceptively-worded health lessons.
"They are teaching our children how to play with blood in their sexual activities. They are teaching our children fisting, which you don't even know what that is, most of you. But it's sticking your fist in body parts as a sexual act," Johnston said.
Yet many people are still unaware this is going on, she said, noting that sex education materials are cloaked with euphemisms like "family life," and therefore, no red flags go off in the minds of parents concerning what happens at school. If parents demand to see the curriculum and nothing looks objectionable teachers are still given "resources" for their classroom the school is not obligated to disclose as they are not technically part of the curriculum, she said.
Johnston said although it's called sex ed, she sees it as pandering obscenities to minors. Compounding matters further, in 45 of the 50 states public schools are exempt from obscenity laws, she added, indicating that there are legal efforts afoot to close those loopholes.
The activist mother went on to share several success stories of how parents rose up and fought back and where the schools were forced to scrap various lessons. Last year, Johnston spearheaded a movement to withdraw students from public schools in protest of sex ed curriculum called Sex Ed Sit Out, which was replicated in California earlier this month by a group of engaged parents.
"This is definitely an issue where you can link arms with people of other faiths," Johnston said, in response to a question from The Christian Post about how parents can engage their communities and school administrators.
"We are all tax-paying citizens. Muslims and Christians, and even members of the LGBT community are outraged at much of the stuff that is taking place."
This is especially important when school administrators support the use of sex ed materials parents find objectionable, she stressed.
"You must do everything necessary to protect the innocence of the children in that school," Johnston said.
Fellow panelist Eric Buehrer, founder of Gateways to Better Education, stressed during his remarks that parents need to build relationships with school administrators with the goal of helping them do whatever they can to help academic outcomes improve and behavioral problems decrease.
Buehrer said he urges families to get to know their district school board representative and take them out to lunch and ask how they can assist them.
But if officials are obstinate and insist on pushing graphic sex ed, he said, "that's when you move from relational activism to political activism and you get poured out."
"In most communities, school board races are won by very few voters. If just the churches in that community would turn out in abundance you would have a majority of the board. But people don't see it on their radar screen," he said.
Johnston urged pastors to encourage and identify good people within their congregations to run for the school board.
The Watchmen on the Wall conference is an annual gathering put on by the Washington-based Family Research Council.
