Hey, Kids! Sex Ed Sit-Out Day Is Next Monday!!!

JESUSLAND—It probably hasn't escaped anyone's attention that the one subject about which religious conservatives are most rabidly insane is sex education. Basically, they're against it, though they're grudgingly willing to accept what might properly be called "non-sex education," usually referred to as "abstinence education," which basically consists of three words: Don't Do It! And as study after study after study after study has shown, abstinence ed doesn't work. But there are some public, and a smaller number of private, school officials who actually understand that A) kids, once they're reached puberty, are going to be interested in sex (even if they don't know exactly what that is yet), and B) will likely want to try things that make their pee-pee or coochy feel good—and, having been raised in the American culture, they'll probably feel guilty about that. That said, there are basically two courses of action: The conservative one, whose approach is basically "all ignorance all the time," and the sane one, called "sex education." This would consist of, among other things, using proper names for things like vulva, vagina, penis, foreskin, testes, ovaries, breasts, mammary glands, etc., and explaining how those things work—like how if you insert a penis into a vagina for a few minutes (seconds?), the result is likely to be a fetus—which in turn will lead to a whole other discussion that religio-conservatives definitely don't want to have: the possiblity of abortion. But actually, comprehensive sex ed is far more than figuring out how not to get pregnant. It includes discussing, in an age-appropriate manner, the concepts of intimate interpersonal relationships, gender identity, gender roles in society, consent, pornography, what BDSM is, what sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are and how to avoid them, sexual fetishes—it's a pretty long list, and some people like Elizabeth Johnson are against all of it. Johnson, who vlogs under the name "Activist Mommy," has lots of (incredibly uninformed) opinions about how sex ed is taught in schools—which is part of the reason she home-schools her ten (10!!!) kids—and among the things she's sure of is that sex ed in schools includes "how to question whether they really are a boy or a girl" and that "Kids are being taught how to perform anal and oral sex on one another, during class time, at taxpayer expense." So of course, Johnson is leading the charge to have as many students as she (and her "network of thousands of followers") can muster to stage a nationwide protest this coming Monday, April 23, called "Sex Ed Sit Out." According to Johnson's website, "The Sit Out strategy is our way to make your voice heard. When the parents of our nation unite to exercise their rights, those in power will hear…"We will not accept pornagraphic [sic] material in sex ed."We will not stand by and let activists skew education."We will not let our tax-dollars be spent this way."We will not let our kids be helplessly sexualized in their classrooms." But that's not all. Johnson appeared on the conservative radio show Focal Point last Wednesday to announce that she plans to sue public schools who teach sex ed for "obscenity"! "What they are teaching in the schools is obscenity, and we have good obscenity laws in this country, we just don’t have leadership enforcing those obscenity laws," she said. "And you know what? It's time that we hold leadership accountable. It's time that we make sure that obscenity laws are enforced," adding that she intends to start "taking in information from parents who are outraged about the obscenity in the classroom and suing the school systems for the obscenity that they are forcing upon our young children." Johnson also has a few choice words for organizations like Planned Parenthood and Human Rights Watch, who she believes are instrumental in perverting kids' minds when it comes to sexuality. "Would you believe that special interest groups like the Human Rights Campaign, a radical, leftist LGBT organization, and Planned Parenthood are working in concert together and sneaking into the schools, claiming to be abstinence-only education?" she asked in an audio rant posted on the Family Research Council website. "Do you know what they consider 'abstinence-only' to be? Teaching kids how to masturbate with each other and anal and oral sex—not to mention that the Human Rights Campaign, of course, is encouraging kids to question their gender through 'anti-bullying' programs." What Johnson wants parents to do is to keep their kids home from school on April 23 to protest the existence of sex education, in part because, "Parents don't know this is taking place! They are very sneaky with the language; they change the names of the programs so that parents can’t trace the programs. This is outrageous, and we aren't going to stand for it. Our kids' innocence is not for sale … We’ve got to rise up and take our kids back." Johnson's Sex Ed Sit Out has been getting plenty of play on right-wing and religious websites, everywhere from World Net Daily to the Washington Times to OneNewsNow to the Christian Post to the Christian Broadcasting Network, so there's a good chance that indeed, thousands of parents will keep their kids home from school on Monday—thereby making sure that not only will they be ignorant of sex, but also of whatever other lessons are scheduled to be taught that day. Pictured: Screen grabs from Johnson's Activist Mommy vlog.