Parents denied access to public school sex education materials is shocking government overreach

Listen to the 10 min audio

Read the transcript:

PUBLIC SCHOOLS DENY PARENTS RIGHTS TO APPROVE — OR EVEN VIEW –SEX EDUCATION MATERIALS

TOM LAMPRECHT: Harry, I’d like to take you to two separate stories, one out of World Magazine and the other out of The Daily Wire but both, however, have the same theme. One of the stories out of Pennsylvania is a school district, after roughly 2,800 were forced to watch an LGBT video during LGBT unity week back in April, parents and conservative activists asked the district to provide links to the video so that they could see what the children were forced to watch. The answer they got? No.

In Virginia, a Virginia school board, this month, approved drastic changes to its district’s sex education curriculum despite strong parental oppositions. Once again, the parents were told, “It’s not your concern.”

DR. REEDER: Included in that was the removal of clergy as those “trusted individuals” to call upon in case of counseling. Now, the reason why for that clearly is because, within that number of clergy are going to be those who have convictions concerning the Biblical and historical definition of marriage as a man and a woman for life and that sexuality is within marriage and that marriage is a man and a woman for life and, therefore, clergy become the casualties.

Tom, let’s see what they reveal concerning this intentional, and pervasive and highly effective movement of a neopagan world and life view that ultimately destroys the foundational institutions of a culture as it attempts to eradicate the historic influences of a Christian world and life view in the culture, particularly around the matters of marriage, and family, and sexuality and individual dignity and inalienable rights — that is, God-given rights that are to be protected by a government — as opposed to the increasing socialist notion that the government has the power to determine the rights and give the rights and they’re government-based, not God-based.

The historic position is that they’re God-given and that our government is called to protect those God-given rights and now we have a new movement that the government can invent rights and then give them and then, of course, protect them by coercion as you see here, in both of these cases.

PENNSYLVANIA CASE WAS EGREGIOUS ABUSE OF POWER

In the Pennsylvania case, you see that the students in this school district were required to go and watch these LGBTQ films. Parents naturally say, “What is it that you are exposing my children to? I want to know.” And then the school district, after a lengthy process, determines with the ruling that, “No, we’re not going to let you have those,” and their excuse is that this was a student project so their privacy is to be protected. Well, the reality is it was not a student project; it was an external organization declared to be an LGBT-straight alliance, but it was not an internal movement and was an external movement. That, with the cultural elite that control the school board, they then begin to impose that upon that particular school district and upon those children, the world and life view that normalizes sexuality outside of marriage, and sexuality outside of the natural sex of heterosexuality between a man and a woman and then the ethical dimension that it is to be within marriage.

In Fairfax now, they even went to the point of removing, even as an element of sex education, abstinence, which, of course, we know is not only consistent with a Biblical world and life view — you abstain from sex and you teach people how to and why to both ethically and practically — and, by the way, that’s 100 percent effective on sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, etc., but now you can’t even teach that in Virginia.

Not only did they make the children go and make the children watch but now they will not let the parents see what the children watched so what does that tell you? Well, first, the sexual revolution is a reality, it is incessant, it is intentional and it is going to use the powers of the government as it extends into the arena of public education because, if you can get the children and frame their mind and their world and life view in terms of this sexual revolution, then you’ve got the next generation. And, to do that, you’re going to have to sidestep what we have always affirmed and that is the supremacy of parental rights over the education of their children.

PUBLIC EDUCATION EQUALS PUBLIC CONTROL WHICH MUST BE MONITORED

When the public education movement began in the 19th century, these things were warned that, if you put public education in the hands of government and then you impose compulsory public education, it’s just a matter of time until the state and the cultural elite will seize that as their number one most effective method to make children of the state — not children who know how to live within a state, that is, we used to call it civics, but children of the state instead of children of the family.

Secondly, its primary — and not exclusive, but its primary — weapon is the public-school system and, with the capturing of the minds of those who control that system — administrators, teachers’ organizations, outside organizations that are invited in. With that influence on the children, it is now being used and it is being used with power in that the children had no choice and they had to go to it.

The fact that they would not show or give them the links to these films which should be available tells you there is something in those films they don’t want seen. It’s a shot across the bow: your children are our children, not your children. It is the cultural elite again telling the rank and file of humanity, “We are smarter than you and, by the way, you can’t stop us. They’re our children more than they are your children.”

PARENTS, YOU HAVE THE POWER TO VOTE FOR GOOD LEADERS

I have one simple response. Those people are in those positions and you still reside within a democratic process. How do you let such people rule your school district? There is a school board that is elected — you put them there and you need to put people up there who will, if you’re going to have a public-school system, will make it subservient to the parents, not a power that imposes upon the parents and the families and then the families serve the public-school system and its objectives but the public-school system serves the public. You have a means to address that and someone needs to seize this particular moment and create the movement that, if you’re going to have a public-school system, it is going to serve the public, not the public serve the system.

You cannot go to bed at night and not know that your children are the targets of this sexual revolution. As parents, you may have to make a decision that, if we cannot get control of this system so that it goes back to doing what we actually established it to do over 100 years ago — reading, writing and arithmetic — then you need to leave that system.

CHURCHES, TAKE ON THIS CULTURE WAR WITH PROPER CREATION (AND SEX) EDUCATION

Tom, let me just finish up today’s program with just a word to churches. We need to preach and teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and, when the Bible says that we make disciples, we are to teach them all that the Lord has commanded and that includes a right view of humanity made in the image of God, male and female, and the dignity that’s fastened to that. It also calls us to uphold revealed creation mandates such as marriage and sexuality within marriage.

The fact that our parents are not able to respond to this, I believe, is in some degree because of either the inability or the refusal of churches to take on these issues in the curriculum of a Christian world and life view so that people love the Lord with all their mind, heart and soul. The Gospel is at the core and the Gospel takes you high, deep and wide. It takes you into all of life to capture every thought unto the obedience of Christ and that’s also how are we made, why are we made, why are we here and why our institutions such as family, marriage and sexuality within marriage are important in the education of our children. That needs to be in the hands of parents and any instrument that supersedes it, including the public schools, must be changed or cast to the side in the trash heap of culture.

Dr. Harry L. Reeder III is the Senior Pastor of Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham.

This podcast was transcribed by Jessica Havin, editorial assistant for Yellowhammer News, who has transcribed some of the top podcasts in the country and whose work has been featured in a New York Times Bestseller.