This is a petition challenging the decision by Gov. Murphy’s  Education Department to revise the health and physical education standards, approved by the State Board in June 2020. (Full story here.) The petition, which cites parents’ rights under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, currently has 2,500 signatures.

We, the parents and/or legal guardians of our minor children, hereby exercise our rights under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, the U.S. Constitution and the Constitution of the State of New Jersey, to direct the upbringing and education of our minor children. According to the New Jersey State Constitution, Article 1, paragraph 18: The people have the right freely to assemble together, to consult for the common good, to make known their opinions to their representatives, and to petition for redress of grievances.

We demand that the NJ Dept of Ed. refuse to implement any new curriculum or instruction regarding sexual abuse, human sexuality, LGBTQ, social emotional learning, transgenderism or gender identity, including, but not limited to, gender as social construct; gender binary; gender spectrum; gender reassignment surgery; gender dysphoria; false gender; pronouns; gender expression; cross-sex hormones; pornography.

Researchers have cautioned that young people with “gender dysphoria” present in the context of “wider identity confusion, severe psychopathology, and considerable challenges in the adolescent development.”

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners has published the following on Child and Adolescent Pornography Exposure:  “Consequences of child and adolescent pornography viewing. The primary concern related to pornography viewing in young children under the age of 12 years is the development of problem sexualized behaviors (PSB). PSB involves sexual knowledge beyond what would be expected for the child’s age and developmental levels, such as children engaging in sophisticated sexual acts such as intercourse or oral sex (Mesman et al., 2019). Chaffin et al., 2008 states that these PSB in children less than 12 years of age are the result of several factors, including pornography viewing. PSB in young children has also been linked to trauma and violence, insufficient supervision, and impulse control problems (National Child Traumatic Stress Network 2009). Dillard et al., 2019 found children less than 12 years of age who disclosed engaging in pornography viewing were at significantly higher odds of engaging in PSB when compared with their non–pornography exposed peers. Social learning theory provides a framework for understanding this phenomenon. Exposure to pornography at a young age not only introduces children to sexual behaviors but also reinforces the behaviors.”

Consequences of child and adolescent pornography viewing: Problem sexualized behaviors (children less than 12 years of age); Early initiation of sexual activity; High-risk sexual behaviors; Sexual aggression; Gender role distortion; Objectification of women; Unrealistic expectations of sexual relationships; Brain changes; Develop Internet disorder (addiction); Develop Internet pornography disorder

Allowing individual families to “opt out” of these sessions is not a reasonable solution.  Those children who have “opted out” will then hear it second hand from their peers who have been exposed to these explicit sessions.   We, the parents and legal guardians of our children, deem that these lessons are not appropriate for prepubescent children and are not appropriate to be taught in school.  We implore you to not pollute our curriculum or our children.

This curriculum is being added to our children’s academic learning time to the exclusion of what?  Why are we putting more demands on our teachers who are working in overdrive to catch the children up who have fallen behind during the pandemic? Teachers do not want to teach these lessons and they should not have to. It is not the responsibility of the schools to introduce these subjects to our children in the way the Government thinks is appropriate.

Elementary age children should not learn about sexual abuse and role play in the classroom.  1st graders should not be told they may feel like a girl even though they have ‘boy’ parts; 2nd graders don’t need to label a clitoris on a diagram; 4th graders don’t need to watch a video telling them porn is okay and free (you can see the negative effects of this above); 5th graders shouldn’t learn that they can take puberty blocking medications if they don’t feel like a boy or girl or that they can be cisgender, nonbinary, transgender or change their assigned gender from birth; 6th graders don’t need to study a decision making model on when to engage in sexual behaviors; 8th graders don’t need entire lesson plans on identifying what their school does well with LGBTQ inclusion; 9th graders shouldn’t have role playing lessons on deciding whether to have sex with their boyfriend/girlfriend if they’ve only had oral sex with one other person; 10th graders don’t need to learn their district policy on LGBTQ people; 11th graders shouldn’t learn that they need to change their language to start using gender neutral pronouns.  Middle schoolers don’t need to learn how to use a condom or details on vaginal, anal and oral sex.

All of these examples were taken directly from the curriculum and lesson plans. These lessons are damaging at best, cause irreparable damage and simply propagate promiscuity. They’re distracting our children from the academic goals that should be our shared common goals as educators, mentors, parents and good citizens who are raising and forming our next generation.  It is sexualizing and grooming our children and we will not stand by and allow this abuse to occur.

I sign this petition as an American advocating for children and fighting against this inappropriate curriculum. We insist that our tax dollars and resources not be used to mandate controversial and politicized ideologies in the classroom.

For those unfamiliar with the new curriculum: NJ Curriculum