“In a society where adults are sharply divided on how to address these issues, it makes no sense whatsoever for groups like the NEA to tell our children how they should think,” said Bob Stith, the Southern Baptist national strategist for gender issues

Four leading education organizations have released national sex-ed standards that encourage fifth-graders to be taught about sexual orientation and eighth-graders to learn about gender identity and the morning-after pill, but many say the recommendations infringe on parental rights.

The non-binding standards by the National Education Association and three other groups are billed as the “first-ever national standards” for sex-ed in schools, and they provide detailed suggestions for what students should learn by the second, fifth, eighth and 12th grades. From a social conservative’s standpoint, nearly every page of the recommendations has something controversial.

By the second grade, students are to learn the “proper names for body parts, including male and female anatomy.” By the fifth grade, they should learn that sexual orientation is the “romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or a different gender.” By the end of the eighth grade, students should be able to “differentiate between gender identity, gender expression and sexual orientation” and learn about the morning-after pill, which can cause abortions. They also should know how to use a condom, the standards say. Gender identity is a term that refers to men and women who, in essence, believe they were born the wrong sex. Both gender identity and gender expression encompass cross-dressers and transgendereds.

Although the recommendations are non-binding, the NEA and the other groups hope they catch on with schools. Others, though, are hoping schools simply ignore them.

[Editor’s note: This article is incomplete. The source for this document was originally published on bpnews.net—however, the original URL is no longer available.]