Advocacy group takes aim at ‘rogue’ LGBT sex ed indoctrination in schools

A educational nonprofit in Michigan is supplying school opt-out forms for parents to remove their kids from ideological sexual education instruction and related activities.

The Great Schools Initiative (GSI) has created a downloadable form for use under Michigan’s sex education opt-out provision that the group said reflects the “strong laws regarding schools and sex education” in the state.

“According to Michigan Law, the school must comply with the parent’s Opt-Out demand,” said GSI on its website. “If a violation occurs, the state law has a defined grievance process, that can include legal action.”

The form is intended, in part, to prevent what the group calls “rogue sex ed,” which is the growing practice introducing LGBT ideology to kids outside of official sex education, such as recruiting children to join school pride clubs without parents’ knowledge.

Critics of the opt-out form complain it’s simply a legal strategy aimed at overwhelming Michigan schools with litigation. But supporters say it targets a real problem. 

GSI’s website includes a video of a school counselor caught advising teachers how to hide such clubs from parents by using a generalized name that doesn’t include the word “gay.”

But the form also opts out students from a wide variety of similar indoctrination activities that are now in public schools.

“This opt out includes, but is not limited to: gender identity, gender expression, gender assignment, sexual identities, sexual expression, sexual attraction, sexual orientation, gender fluidity, transitioning, and explicit sexual activity or behavior,” reads the form.

It also opts students out of the use of gender-neutral bathrooms and locker rooms, polls and surveys used to indoctrinate kids on sexual identity and questions prying into the family lives of students.

But in guidance issued earlier this month, Michigan’s Department of Education (DOE) appeared to take aim at the forms, instructing local schools that they are likely not required by law to accept them:

Sometimes a parent or legal guardian requests to excuse their child from district programs, practices, and resources outside of the instructional program (e.g., those that pertain to facilities, communications, library holdings, surveys, after-school programs, and student-led non-curricular clubs). These programs, practices, and resources are also not part of formal instruction detailed in [Michigan opt-out laws] and would not be subject to the sex education excusal provisions specified in statute.

In these cases, The DOE says it’s up to the local schools and districts how to respond.

“How districts handle these parent requests would also be determined locally, within the context of those statutes,” the DOE memo reads. “For district-specific situations, you may wish to confer with district legal counsel.”

The forms were created for GSI in partnership with the Thomas More Society, a national nonprofit public interest law firm in Chicago.