Connecticut Parents Battle Bill to Mandate Comprehensive Sex Ed in Government Schools

Susan Berry, PhD

Gender ideology and activities asking students about their favorite sex acts will be considered “age appropriate” in all Connecticut government schools if a bill mandating Comprehensive Sex Education is passed by the state legislature and signed into law, pro-family activists say.

Senate Bill 1 would mandate “comprehensive sex education that is age and developmentally appropriate and includes, but is not limited to, instruction about affirmative consent,” and would require the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) to recommend the curriculum for such “education.”

Much could be included in what is considered “age and developmentally appropriate,” especially with the state education department having already developed recommended “age appropriate” sex ed standards, Leslie Wolfgang writes at the blog on the website of Family Institute of Connecticut (FIC).

FIC and the Connecticut Republican Assembly (CTRA) are hosting a webinar for parents focused on the legislation on Wednesday, March 15, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

In her blog post, Wolfgang cites previous controversies in the state, such as that reported at The Connecticut Star in February 2022, regarding an eighth-grade health class assignment in Enfield that asked students to list their sexual likes and dislikes by using pizza toppings as a metaphor.

Wolfgang writes:

Remember the Pizza & Consent controversy at an Enfield 8th grade classroom in February, 2022? Thirteen and fourteen year olds were asked to substitute sex acts for their favorite pizza toppings and lay them on an imaginary pizza. Activities like this will be “age appropriate” according to a new “Comprehensive Sex Education” mandate for EVERY Connecticut school district if SB 1 is passed in its current form. Once passed, “Pizza & Consent” will be coming to YOUR school district, just ask Al Vernacchio, creator of the pizza & consent exercise for comprehensive sex educators.

She cites excerpts from the CSDE’s 2021 curriculum framework titled the “Healthy and Balanced Living Curriculum.”

In grades 3-5 of the curriculum, for example, the “core content” teaches children to “describe basic reproductive body parts and their functions,” and “explain common human sexual development and the role of hormones (e.g., romantic and sexual feelings, masturbation, mood swings, timing of pubertal onset).”

Also included in these grades is the ability to “describe how people are similar and different (e.g., sexual identity, gender, gender identity, gender expression, etc.).”

Grade 6-8 students will learn to “explain sexual activity and their associated risks (i.e., vaginal, anal, oral),” and, while they are expected to “determine the benefits of being sexually abstinent,” they will also be instructed in the “potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender,” and “define and explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive, and gender identity.”

Among the “Resources” the Connecticut State Department of Education utilized for its “Healthy and Balanced Living Curriculum” are Advocates for Youth, a prominent champion of abortion for young people, and Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest provider of abortion.

In 2015, Planned Parenthood announced its organization was already working with youth sex ed groups Answer, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), Advocates for Youth, and LGBTQ activist giants GLSEN and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), “to call for LGBTQ-inclusive sex ed.”

Connecticut parents can sign up for the webinar regarding the legislation here.

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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected]
Photo “Students” by Max Fischer.

 

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