Stand with parents and concerned citizens across California. Sign our petition against the harmful sex education curricula plaguing California schools and eliminating parents’ right to determine what, when, and where to educate their children about sex.

Children are being sexualized in the classroom. They are taught to unabashedly embrace a progressive attitude toward human sexuality and to affirm and celebrate lifestyles that often conflict with their religious and moral upbringing.

For decades, California lawmakers have shamelessly enacted policies that promote provocative lifestyle choices that strip our children of their innocence. One such example is the California Healthy Youth Act (AB 329).

For nearly a century, the Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed a parent’s right to direct their child’s education and afforded that right the highest protection under our Constitution. This right is based on the understanding that the family unit is the foundation of society and that parents—not the government—are best positioned to determine what is best for their children.

Yet parental rights are facing increasing attacks, particularly in our nation’s educational institutions. Our public school system has strayed away from its original purpose of providing free education to all children in a manner that affirmed the values and authority of parents. Today, public schools have assumed the role of parents by mandating what values every child must adopt morally, socially, and philosophically. School officials assert the authority to teach sex education any way they see fit, sometimes with a complete disregard for the age-appropriateness of the materials being used. And they have expanded such instruction into other topics such as encouraging children as young as kindergarten-age to explore different sexual orientations and gender identities.

Unfortunately, federal courts have failed to properly preserve the fundamental right of parents to direct their child’s education. Courts have ruled that parents do not have the right to object to inappropriate textbooks or teaching materials used in their children’s classes, that they cannot remove their children from class when the school is teaching religiously or morally objectionable topics, and that they do not have a constitutionally protected right to know what their children are being taught. One court went so far as to hold that a parent’s right is limited to deciding whether their child will attend a public or private school, or home school. Once the decision is made to send a child to public school, parents forfeit any further control over what their child is taught. In short, we have come to a place where courts are unwilling to uphold parental rights and instead give near complete deference to the choices school officials.

With parents unable to rely upon judges to uphold their right to direct the upbringing of their children, the most promising solution to protect this right is through the legislative process. Parental rights laws provide clear guidelines that courts must follow and can even expand parental rights to ensure that they apply in the public school context.

We are adamant that our parental rights be protected in future legislation and policy decisions. Including but not limited to:

• The right to be notified by the school if the child is enrolled in a course that includes sex education, family planning, discussions of sexual orientation or gender identity, diversity issues, and extreme violence.
• The right to opt the child out of any course or school activity that is morally or religiously offensive to the parent.
• The right to review all curricula and teaching materials used in a course in which the child is enrolled.
• The right to be notified prior to any activity that includes information about contraceptive services, including confidential medical services, whether on school property or offsite during school hours. 

For more information, please visit: http://www.realimpact.us