I recently read a column by Jennifer Vogt-Erickson supporting the Minnesota House Democrat bill that would require comprehensive sex education be taught in our public schools from kindergarten through 12th grade. The bill also mandates specific components of sex education that must be taught to our children, as well as directs the state to develop a “model” curriculum for schools to use.

What Jennifer wrote makes the whole mandate sound very benign. Well, parents and grandparents, it’s not. The “devil is in the details,” as the saying goes.

The book “It’s Perfectly Normal,” which Rep. Bennett discussed and spoke against on the House floor, is not specifically mentioned in this Democrat bill. However, this book is an example of what is held in high esteem by those who helped write the bill. It’s not a stretch to figure that those same groups will help the state develop its “model” curriculum, and most school districts will likely choose to use the state-recommended curriculum instead of going through all the work to write their own lessons that must line up with the state-mandated components.

I am so shocked that Jennifer Vogt-Erickson thinks the material in this book is appropriate for children of any age. I have seen it. The book presents children as young as 10 years old, not just anatomically correct diagrams, but instead cartoon-like characters having sex together, masturbating and in all kinds of other revealing positions. Anywhere else, this book would be classified as pornography.

This book and the “progressive” people who promote it and comprehensive sex education support discussing anal, oral and vaginal sex as equals and all “perfectly normal”; teaching masturbation, along with a how-to for boys and girls (and, by the way, also tells children that if their parents or church think masturbation is inappropriate, they are wrong); presenting pornography as acceptable unless it “makes you uncomfortable”; and more.

I don’t know about you, but I think that the what, when and how of teaching sex education in our schools belong in the hands of parents and local school board members — not directed at the state level where parents will have little say on the subject and where extreme groups will be pushing their own agendas onto our children and grandchildren.

FYI, printed pictures from this book were too inappropriate for the Tribune to print, so why would we show them to our children?

Thank you to our state Rep. Peggy Bennett for fighting for local control on this matter and fighting to allow parents to direct the sex education of their  children.

Julie Hendrickson

Albert Lea