What is it with Leftists and their obsession with children and sexuality?

Seriously, on just about every aspect of sexuality, the Left has it wrong. Their preferred policies have already done incredible amounts of individual, familial and societal damage, and yet they keep pushing for more — and getting away with it. It’s bad enough when those negatively affected are adults. But children are increasingly the targets — and the victims — of these policies.

The “Sexual Revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s wrought havoc with divorce rates. The number of children in divorced and single parent households skyrocketed, with attendant consequences in child poverty and lower educational outcomes. The push to destigmatize promiscuity has been accompanied by dramatic increases in sexually transmitted diseases, particularly in young people. According to a 2021 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of cases of sexually transmitted diseases hit all-time highs for six consecutive years. Chlamydia and gonorrhea are two of the three diseases appearing in greatest number. (The third is syphilis.) Young people (ages 15-24) represent almost half of all STDs, and 61 percent and 42 percent of all chlamydia and gonorrhea cases, respectively. It is abundantly clear that sexual promiscuity is making our children sick. And yet we continue to tolerate educational and entertainment content that pitches casual sex to our children.

The Left’s latest cultural battle is over their ability to inject sexual content into the curricula of grade schools, including kindergarten and early elementary school. Zoom videos and other online classroom technology utilized during the COVID-19 lockdowns exposed millions of parents across the country to the indoctrination taking place in their children’s classrooms. As a result, school board meetings in state after state have seen groups of parents protesting practices like the inclusion of explicit (and arguably pornographic) books in grade school libraries and class assignments, and gender identification policies that have facilitated sexual assaults by biological males allowed into girls’ bathrooms. The clash over parents’ rights in their children’s education is even credited for the election of Republican Glenn Youngkin in reliably blue Virginia, defeating Democrat Terry McAuliffe.

In response, state legislatures have begun passing laws restricting sex education to specific grades and age-appropriate content. Most notably, last month, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed HB 1557, Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law. Smeared by the Left as the “Don’t Say ‘Gay'” law (the law has no such provision in it), the statute prohibits sexual content in the curriculum of kindergarten through third grade and requires “age-appropriate” sexual education thereafter. The law also requires that schools inform parents of any changes to services the school provides for their child’s “mental, emotional or physical health or well-being.” In other words, no school in Florida can begin helping students make “gender transitions” without informing the child’s parents.

The outrage has not been confined to education. Even formerly family-friendly corporations like Disney have jumped into the fray. In videos of internal meetings leaked to investigative writer Christopher Rufo, Disney executives proclaimed their determination to pursue a “not at all secret gay agenda” and the inclusion of plenty of “queer stories” and “gender nonconforming characters” in their children’s programming.

The obsession with inserting sexual content into grade school children’s education and entertainment is being called “grooming” by some very vocal opponents. And it may very well be that. But it also reeks of a generation of adults so immature and insecure about their own identities, lives and choices that they need validation from children, over the objection of those children’s parents, and without any thought to the impact on the children’s own lives

Level-headed Americans need to put a stop to it once and for all.

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Laura Hollis is a nationally syndicated columnist.