Parents are concerned about the new Comprehensive Sexual Health Education law passed in Olympia this March, and they should be.  The standards are heavily influenced by SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US) which was founded in 1964 by Dr. Mary Calderone, the Medical Director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The many contradictions embodied in the bill reflect the contradictory thinking of the proponents of the bill and the developers of the curricula.

• The law requires teaching students starting in the fourth grade–when students are around 9 years old– about giving affirmative consent before sexual activity even though the age of consent in Washington state is 16 years old. Even for a 16-year old, this teaching is an undesirable go-ahead signal since the guidelines strongly imply that sexual activity is fine if you give consent.
• The curriculum the school chooses must be medically and scientifically accurate and at the same time must incorporate the concept of gender fluidity. How can it be medically and scientifically accurate and yet teach that a person can change genders?
• Sex refusal skills in the curriculum are sometimes taught through role playing where one student plays the aggressor and the other is the passive partner. Directing students to play these roles is contrary to the way other refusal skills are taught. For example, when teaching tobacco and alcohol avoidance, students are discouraged from “smoking” candy cigarettes or from handing an adult a beer for fear they may be conditioned to engage in those activities. Yet students are instructed to role-play sexual situations.
• The law states that it is not the intent of the legislature to embed Comprehensive Sexual Health Education into other subjects. This gives legislators plausible deniability. However, nothing prohibits districts and teachers from imbedding sexual information into the other subjects. The curricula on the recommended list advise teachers to do so. The Sexual Health resources on the website of the Superintendent of Public Instruction also recommend that sexual information be incorporated into “other appropriate curricula.”
• The recommended Sexual Health Education is said to be “comprehensive”, yet it is actually selective. It skips over information on the medical and emotional consequences of abortions and “sex reassignment” surgery and the serious long-term side effects such as cancer and cardiovascular disease from the hormones used for “sex reassignment.” It does not explain the legal consequences of underage sex. It does not focus on the many pro-life and adoption organizations that help pregnant teens. In addition, the research studies underlying the curriculum are cherry-picked to produce the conclusions the proponents desire.
• The bill claims only social emotional learning and not sex education is taught in grades K-3. However, the social emotional learning in the curriculum includes gender roles and gender identity and learning the names of body parts. At this age, this should be a private conversation between the parent and child. The child should not be influenced to adopt values that are different from the parents’.
• The proponents of the bill claim districts have a free choice. However, the law states the districts must teach comprehensive sexual health education whether they want to or not, and they must choose a curriculum that matches the state

The state’s new comprehensive sexual health education law is filled with inconsistencies, but then the legislators’ goal is not to be scientific or consistent. It is to increase state control over districts and grow the nanny state while disregarding the parents’ right to raise their own children. It is to push the SIECUS sexuality agenda despite what parents want. Parents must finally say, “Enough!”