Who decides what's 'sexually explicit' for your children?

One of my fantasies is to see millions of Christian parents pull their children out of government schools—en masse. (Weird fantasy?) And take their tax dollars with them. (Definitely not weird.) Shock the system. Stun the unbelievers. Neither is likely to happen, of course, especially the money part. The Great Christian Retreat, the emptying of government schools, is a fantasy in the truest sense of the word: extravagant and unrestrained, wondrous and strange.

Some Christian parents in Virginia might be considering such a move now that their Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe vetoed a bill that would have required schools to notify parents if teachers were about to expose their children to material labeled as containing sexually explicit content. The Republican-controlled state legislature that passed the bill doesn’t have the votes to override McAuliffe’s veto. The book in question was Beloved, a novel by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. But the specific book isn’t the point. Some parents don’t want their children exposed to sexually explicit material in schools.

McAuliffe said he rejected the parental notification bill because the state’s school board is already looking into the matter, and he doesn’t think the legislature should interfere with local school board policy. The liberal governor last month rejected bills that would have blocked taxpayer funds from going to facilities that perform abortions and barred the government from punishing individuals and organizations that believe marriage is a union between only a man and a woman.

Universal public education isn’t bad per se, but an increasingly anti-Christian government sets the agenda. It doesn’t matter what the book is if a parent doesn’t think the subject matter is appropriate for his or her child, or if the parent wants to be the one to guide the child through it, not the state. It can be maddening to parents who oppose it, especially since they have to pay for it. What can Christian parents do when faced with situations like this? They do have educational options—if they can afford private school or feel capable of homeschooling. But those tax dollars: Even if parents remove their children, they’re still paying for a system they believe corrupt and anti-Christian. No Jesus Christ in school, but sexually explicit books?

Parents are the first and should be the primary teachers of their children, and they should decide whether their child is mentally and spiritually mature enough to handle certain subjects. In any case, it shouldn’t be up to a government bureaucrat to determine whether a child is ready for exposure to sexually explicit material.

“Parents make decisions every day about what video games kids play, what movies they watch, and what material they consume online,” Republican member of the Virginia House of Delegates Steve Landes said in a statement. “They should have the same opportunity within the classroom.”