Innocence Report - February 2010

1. Executive Summary

The third Innocence Report examines the history of sex education in the United States, revealing
a past founded in racist impulses and an objective of superseding the influence of the parent.
While the content has changed over the years, the belief that families and parents cannot be
trusted lingers in the sex education field. This is critical to understanding the persisting problems
with sex education and to developing solutions to protect children and families.

At the turn of the twentieth century, society elites were on edge with trends in society. They
feared that the new immigrants of "inferior" races posed a danger to society. The migration of
people from the countryside to the cities intensified their fears of societal disintegration. These
concerns sparked a series of campaigns for social change, including a sexual education
campaign.

The sex education pioneers focused on affirming that sex belongs within marriage and to
otherwise upholding community standards. However, they mistrusted the abilities of the family,
the church, and the community to propagate moral standards, and instead turned to the public
school systems to advance their agenda. Slowly, the notion that teaching encompassed moral
education took hold despite objections from parents and churches that schools were thereby
usurping parental rights.

The 1930s saw the introduction of the philosophy that sexual matters should not be taught as a
separate course, but integrated into the entire curriculum. By the 1950s, the elite view was that
the American family required strong prophylactic support in order to raise children. This
ushered in the "Family Life Education" movement that relied on academic training and research
to propagate the view that its practitioners had special insight into familial stability and personal
fulfillment.

In 1964, the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) was
founded, embracing both the whole curriculum and family life approaches while declining to
propound a specific set of moral beliefs regarding sex. Following the sexual revolution, this
changed to an affirmation of sexual rights –including sexual rights for children.

In 1978, the Adolescent Health Services and Prevention and Care Act provided federal funds to
private entities offering sex education and family planning services (including even those entities
offering counseling on abortion or contraception without parental involvement or consent). That
funding continues today through grants to organizations such as Planned Parenthood and
SIECUS.

A new approach is needed in sex education that respects the sovereignty of the family and the
primacy of the parent. Natural law and common law affirm the fundamental right of parents to

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guide their children's world view, spirituality, values, and beliefs. Sex and sexual morality are
deeply entwined with a family's spirituality and moral values. Thus, the state must tread lightly
in areas that touch on this fundamental right. This includes refraining from direct outreach to the
child that seeks to supplant or undermine parental authority. Instead, the state needs to repudiate
the racist and anti-parent history of sex education and embrace a philosophy that respects family
sovereignty and favors involving parents as the principal and primary guides for their children in
issues related to sex education.

2. Introduction

With respect to the education of children on sexual matters, federal policy and practice has
cycled through several changes over the last 100 years. Many of those changes --and many
proposed changes—have sparked heated debate. Such an examination is certainly worth
undertaking given the weighty matters that confront our youth. Our children face, new and
devastating sexually transmitted diseases, high incidents of teen-age pregnancy and abortion, and
sexual trafficking in persons (including children victimized through pornography and
prostitution). They face this in a societal infrastructure stressed by financial demands on
families, single-parenthood, drug-use, mass media and corporate products that sexualize our
youth.

3. A Brief History of
Sex Education in the United States
American elites set the foundation of sex education in the early 1900s. Sociological and
educational elites at that time were fascinated with the application of Darwinism to society.
Most notably, they used Darwinian theories to mark the progress and superiority of their own
socio-economic group. As one researcher noted:

This sense of race consciousness and racial superiority grew sharper in the United
States toward the end of the nineteenth century as hundreds of thousands of
―new‖ immigrants arrived yearly from eastern and southern Europe, threatening
the ―old stock‖ Americans with their sheer numbers and their unfamiliar habits.
Many ―old stock‖ Americans commented with disdain on the distance between
what they saw as the newcomers’ degraded sexual habits and the native Anglo-
Saxon’s sexual purity.1

G. Stanley Hall --psychologist, progenitor of the term ―Adolescent,‖ and author of the influential
work Adolescence-- further developed the thinking on this subject with his theory of
recapitulation. That theory postulates that, as he grows, the human fetus repeats the stages of
1
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, p. 16, Harvard University Press (2000).

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evolutionary theory --from single-celled origins through a primate ancestor to the Homo sapien
that emerges at birth.2 Once born, the human child then repeats the stages of social development
up to adolescence. At that point, the theory is that an individuals’ development differed
according to the social advancement achieved by the child’s race. Thus:

a ―savage‖ youth was considered fully mature, sexually active, at an age when the
―civilized‖ adolescent was just beginning his most strenuous period of mental and
spiritual growth.3

In the view of these elites, the social elevation of their group heavily depended on the prevalence
of chastity among their rising generation. As William James, a noted philosopher and
educational psychologist at Harvard University, declared ―[h]ardly any factor measures more
than this difference between civilization and barbarism.‖4

Through the lens of these Darwinian thoughts, America at the advent of the twentieth century
posed dramatic threats to social advancement. Many young people, especially males, were
leaving the countryside and the nurturing homes of their parents and migrating to the cities. 5 The
cities were also swelling with immigrants of inferior --as the elites deemed them-- races.6
Furthermore, cities provided camouflage for deviance from moral codes. A man could visit a
prostitute in another neighborhood with his family, church and community none-the-wiser. A
single man or woman could freely pursue sexual encounters without having to negotiate
communal or familial approbation.7

In the eyes of these elites, such changes presented a grave danger to society. The task of the
young adult, as they saw it, was to suppress sexual urges until marriage and to thereby confirm
the race’s social advances. Those who failed to do that could not pass on the benefits of
advanced racial development to their children. 8 Society’s changes imperiled that process so that,
rather than being societal leaders, the races the elites designated as ―advanced‖ were in danger of
devolving to the level of the more savage and primitive races.9

2
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, p. 16, Harvard University Press (2000),
pp.-16-17.
3
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, p. 16, Harvard University Press (2000),
p.17 (summarizing the work of Stanley Hall’s colleague Sanford Bell).
4
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, p. 16, Harvard University Press (2000),
(citing Nathan G. Hale, Jr., Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876-
1917 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p 10).
5
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, p. 13, Harvard University Press (2000);
Cornblatt, J., “The Sin of Yielding to Impure Desire: A brief history of Sex Ed in America (Newsweek Online Oct. 28,
2009).
6
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20th Century, pp. 16, Harvard University Press
(2000).
7 th
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex: The Shaping of Adolescence in the 20 Century, p. 33, Harvard University Press (2000).
8
Ibid at p. 30.
9
See ibid at pp. 18-19, 30.

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The elites sought to save Americans from sexually transmitted diseases and the breakdown of
marriage, and they sought to save American society from devolution into a primitive state.
These concerns helped fuel the temperance movement, the 1910 Mann Act outlawing the
transportation of women across state lines for immoral purposes, and many state and local laws
aimed at prostitution, obscenity and lewd entertainment.10 But such measures just reacted to the
problems. The elites wanted to proactively attack the problem.11

Spearheaded by the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA), reformers embarked on a

mixed elitist and populist approach. From a populist standpoint, they implemented a publicity
campaign aimed at the American people and based on the idea that the people could evaluate the
facts and then make responsible decisions. 12 But the reformers did not trust parents to make
good decisions about their children, and so they embarked on a hygiene and sex education effort
to by-pass parents and take their message directly to public school children.

In general, the elites viewed the church, the family and the community as no longer being
capable of propagating moral standards.13 Some argued that increased urbanization --with its
anonymity, increased divorce rates and prevalent vices-- had diminished the efficacy of those
institutions.14 Others argued that parents --suffering from ignorance and antiquated attitudes--
simply lacked the abilities necessary for responsible formation of their children’s values.15
Furthermore, having characterized the waves of immigrants arriving onto America’s shores as
being of more primitive and savage races, it would be incongruent for the elites to expect such
peoples to themselves generate a solution.

Dealing with sexual issues through the public schools fit in with the changes occurring in those
schools. Enrollment grew tremendously during this time --from 80,000 students in 1871 to in
excess of one million students in 1913.16 Along with such growth, teachers were receiving
increased professional training including training in psychology. The teaching profession began
to view its mission as encompassing moral education.17

With regard to sex education, both the schools and the sex education advocates tried to reinforce
the moral precept that sex belongs within marriage. 18 As one sex education leader of that era
stated, the purpose was to foster ―strict adherents to the established code of sexual morality.‖ 19

10
Ibid at 34.
11
See ibid.
12
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 13.
13
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 32-33.
14
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 33.
15
See ibid.
16
See ibid.
17
See ibid.
18
See ibid at p. 67.
19
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 67 (quoting Maurice A. Bigelow, Sex Education: A Series of Lectures Concerning
Knowledge of Sex in Its Relation to Human Life (1916; New York: MacMillan, 1918), p. 192).

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At the time, parents and churches did object to the transformation of the public schools into
purveyors of morality. They argued that such an expansion of the schools’ mission intruded on
the right of parents. As related in Teaching Sex:

Traditionalists were disturbed in general by what a Minnesota educator called

―the downward tendency of the home for throwing off its duties and the equally
downward tendency of outside agencies to take from the home its privileges.‖ 20
Traditionalists contended that sex could not be taught without a full discussion of
its deepest moral implications.21

Churches, and in particular the Catholic Church, decried the Darwinians’ mechanistic theories as
degrading ―man to the level of an irresponsible piece of cosmic machinery.‖22 Such theories
undermined the belief that all people are created equal and that such equality arises because all
people are made in the image and likeness of the Creator and through their freedom can have a
direct relationship with the Creator.

With the outbreak of World War I, sex education policy emphasized the prevention of sexually
transmitted diseases especially as related to the military. 23 In 1918, Congress passed the
Chamberlain-Kahn Act that, among other things, established the Venereal Disease Division in
the U.S. Public Health Service and the U.S. Interdepartmental Social Hygiene Board.24 Notably,
the Venereal Disease Division had sub-divisions for educational policy. 25 The Act also fostered
the propagation of sex education in the nation’s colleges and universities.

In the 1920s, prominent sex educators [and no doubt commentators of many other backgrounds]
decried that young people were turning away from religion and focusing their attention on the
attainment of pleasure.26 In response to that trend, sex educators emphasized that true sexual
fulfillment can only be achieved in marriage and that premarital or extramarital sex threatens
participants with, among other things, disintegrating personalities and the loss of the deepest
values of the love relationship.27

In 1922, Benjamin Gruenberg proposed, in a work published by the U.S. Public Health Service
and the U.S. Bureau of Education, that sex matters should not be taught in a separate course but
rather should be integrated in the overall curriculum. He recommended that various aspects
should be taught in a range of courses such as physical education, science, literature, social

20
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 64 (citing Charles H. Keene and Mabel M. Wright, “Shall Sex Hygiene Be Taught in
the Public Schools,” NEA Journal of Addresses and Proceedings 52 (1914): 697.
21
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 65.
22
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 65.
23
Cornblatt, J., “The Sin of Yielding to Impure Desire.”
24
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 73. See also Cornblatt, J., “The Sin of Yielding to Impure Desire.”
25
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 76.
26
See Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, p. 92.
27
Ibid.

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studies, etc.28 In 1932, the National Education Association’s department of superintendence
endorsed the integrated sex education view.29

With the Great Depression of the 1930s, funding for sex education dwindled. Congress declined
to appropriate money for the Public Health Service’s sex education projects. By 1936, ASHA
was one of the few national organizations advocating the new approach to sex education, but its
overall funding had dropped to pre-World War I levels.30 With the outbreak of World War II,
the United States government and sex education professionals focused on inhibiting the threat of
sexually transmitted diseases to military personnel.

In the 1950s, America was in the throes of its Cold War confrontation with the Soviet Union --a
confrontation that was commonly expected to last for decades. At the same time, family experts
and social commentators were concerned that American society was producing increased
juvenile delinquency caused by a breakdown of the family. 31 They propounded the view that the
American family was incapable of effectively raising children unless it had external,
prophylactic support.32 Accordingly, in 1955, ASHA began transforming its sex education
curriculum into a broader ―family life education.‖

The Family Life Education movement rested on the work pioneered by psychologist Edward L.
Thorndike. The theory arising from that work was that education could not train the human
mind generally, but could only pass on specific skills for specific situations. Its adherents
claimed that, as a result of their academic training and research, they had special wisdom about
familial stability and personal fulfillment.33

In 1964, Mary Calderone --Planned Parenthood’s medical director from 1953 to 1965, formed
the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). Its mission differed
from the older sex education groups in that it did not propound a specific set of moral beliefs. 34
However, it did include preservation of the American family in its mission. 35 It also
incorporated the Family Life Education topics into its curriculum --an expansive approach that
encouraged discussion of attitudes, values and family relationships.36

SIECUS flourished with the advent of the sexual revolution in the 1960s and the concomitant
demand for sex education. In 1974, it published a broader set of position statements that

28
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, pp. 101-02.
29
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, pp. 104 (citing NEA Department of Superintendence, Character Education
(Washington, DC:, 1932), p. 194.
30
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, pp. 114-15.
31
Moran, J.P., Teaching Sex, pp. 136-37.
32
Ibid at 137-40.
33
Ibid at 151 and 195.
34
Ibid at 162.
35
Ibid at 163.
36
Ibid at 189.

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endorsed the right of all humans to experience personal sexual choice, including freedom in
areas of orientation, pornography, and minors’ access to contraception.

In 1978, Congress passed the Adolescent Health Services and Prevention and Care Act. Through
it, the federal government offers grants to state and local governments and to private entities to
provide ―pregnancy testing, family planning services, health services, family life services and
sex education services.‖ It treated teenagers as legally autonomous individuals capable of
making their own sexual decisions. It required grantees to counsel pregnant adolescents about
the availability of abortion. And it did not require parental consent for adolescents to obtain
contraception or abortions.37

The federal government continues to fund such activities through grants to such organizations as
Planned Parenthood and SIECUS.

4. Notes on the History of Sex Education

A. With respect to government-sponsored sex education, an uncontested common ground is

the relationship between the government and the people. Our founding rests on the ―self-
evident‖ truths that sovereignty flows from the Creator to all individuals equally --that is
all people are created equal and ―endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
rights.‖ It further rests on the principle that government, in turn, derives its sovereignty
from ―the consent of the governed‖ in order ―to secure these rights.‖38

B. Among the most sacred and fundamental of rights is that of parents to associate with their
children and to be principally and primarily responsible for the formation of their world
view, their spirituality, their values and their beliefs. The Supreme Court has repeatedly

37
Ibid at 201.
38
Quotes are from the Declaration of Independence.

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 recognized that right.39 That family sovereignty clearly goes to the essence of the
Declaration. And is well recognized by other natural law sources.40

C. The child’s sex education is at the very core of parents’ right to preside over the
intellectual and spiritual formation of their children. That education invokes the parents’
act in bringing their children into the world 41 and is profoundly connected to the
expression of religion within the home.42 Parents view children as a blessing, and
children are one of the greatest gifts parents can hope for their children. For these
reasons, the family home has been called ―’the domestic church,’ a community of grace
and prayer, a school of human virtues and of Christian Charity.‖ 43

39
See, e.g., Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923) (the 14th Amendment denotes the right to, inter alia,
“establish a home and bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of his own
conscience, and generally to enjoy the privileges long recognized at common law as essential to the
orderly pursuit of happiness”); (“the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their
children--is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interests recognized by this Court”); Pierce v.
Society of Sisters, 268 U. S. 510, 534-535 (1925) ( the "liberty of parents and guardians" includes the
right "to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control"); Prince v. Massachusetts,
321 U. S. 158, 166 (1944) ("It is cardinal with us that the custody, care and nurture of the child reside
first in the parents, whose primary function and freedom include preparation for obligations the state
can neither supply nor hinder.").
40
For example, in Familiaris Consortio John Paul II states “that the parents have been appointed by God
Himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely
inalienable.”
41
Sex is a central to the practice of many religions. For example, the Southern Baptist convention notes that
sexuality is “a divine gift to be exercised for the enjoyment and procreation of human beings, but wholly within the
command and law of the Lord.” Southern Baptist Convention’s Resolution on Human Sexuality (June 1991). The
Catholic Church states that the “fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of the moral, spiritual, and
supernatural life that parents hand to their children by education.” Catechism of the Catholic Church at 1653. The
General Council of the Assemblies of God (USA), through its Commission on Doctrinal Purity and the Executive
Presbytery, states that “purity is God’s infinitely wise foundation for true happiness and long-lasting family
relationships” and that “*s+exual purity before and throughout marriage is God’s plan for mankind.” The
Commission further states, with respect to the family, that “*b+oth husband and wife are to lovingly fulfill each
other’s sexual needs (1 Corinthians 7:3-5)….The God-given gift of intercourse in marriage is much more than a
physical act. It brings a deep intimacy and oneness that unites a couple and enriches the marriage. This intimate
union in the marriage has a positive and profound impact on the family and is to be shared only with one’s lifelong
marriage partner.”
42
For example, John Paul II writes that “*s+ex education, which is a basic right and duty of parents, must always be
carried out under their attentive guidance, whether at home or in educational centers chosen and controlled by
them.” Familiaris Consortio, par. 37. Similarly, the Southern Baptist Convention affirmed “the urgency for families
to educate children about spiritual insights and Christian understanding of sexuality as essential . . . for the
development of Christian character.” SBC Resolution on Sex Education and Adolescent Pregnancy, June 1996.
43
Catechism of the Catholic Church, at 1666.

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 D. The state must tread very lightly when it ventures into areas that implicate family
sovereignty, especially in deeply personal matters such as instruction in spirituality and
sex. Specifically, the state should respect the primacy of the parent and --except where
parents have been adjudged as incompetent--should provide full prior disclosure to
parents of all outreach and educational materials directed at their children.

E. The state should refrain from outreach directly to the child and must not provide indicia
of approval to third parties that engage in such outreach, including outreach on the
Internet that targets children. See, e.g., Appendix.

F. With respect to sex education, the state should favor information dissemination directly
to the parents.

G. The federal and state governments should repudiate the sex education profession’s
history of denigrating the abilities of parents to teach their children about sex.

H. Teaching children about sex is an important facet of parenthood. Sex education programs
should recognize the primacy of the parent. To do otherwise, degrades parents and
parenthood.

I. Sexual relations are profound inter-personal interactions, and thus implicate fundamental
ethical issues and values. This point seems largely uncontested. The inherent problem,
though, is that governmental entities --such as schools-- are incapable of discussing the
deepest implications of ethical issues and values because it would immediately implicate
an individual’s spiritual thoughts.44 Ironically, government’s limited ability to act in this
regard means that it --rather than the parent-- is incapable of fully teaching about sex.

J. Government should always be wary of unintended consequences of the exercise of its

authority. To the extent that government does engage in outreach directly to children on
sexual matters, it should carefully study and consider whether discussion of such deeply
personal matters in group settings (e.g., the classroom) and in mixed gender settings
degrades the topic or the audience.

44
For example, a profound civics discussion of the responsibility of one party in a sexual relationship might include
consideration of each party’s dignity and include discussion of inherent rights as stated in the Declaration. Such a
discussion would immediately invite discussion of spiritual viewpoints (including, or even especially, if one party
were an atheist or agnostic).

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 5. Conclusion

The government’s sex education efforts are built on the elitist view that parents are unable or
unwilling to educate their children. Its direct-to-child outreach efforts intrude on basic parental
prerogatives, on the parent-child relationship and on the sovereignty of the family. Government
outreach efforts should center on the parent. It should favor dissemination of materials and
messages directly to parents. Any outreach efforts to children should first provide full disclosure
of all materials and teaching aids to parents.

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Appendix

Figure 1:
The homepage of Talk About Sex, the youth outreach effort of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS).
Note sections on "Sexual Rights,""Gender Identity," and "Sexual Orientation." Available at http://www.seriouslysexuality.com/

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Figure 2:
Planned Parenthood's youth outreach section, called "Teen Talk." This is the introductory page to the section on "Sex & Masturbation." Available at
http://www.plannedparenthood.org/teen-talk/sex-masturbation-25033.htm.

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Figure 3
Home page of Stay Teen, the teen outreach website for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. The featured video
campaign consists of submissions from teenagers about avoiding teen pregnancy. Available at http://www.stayteen.org/default.aspx.

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