Petition: Let New Jersey Parents Opt Students Out Of LGBT Curriculum

NEW JERSEY — A pro-family, Christian advocacy group is urging the governor to allow parents to opt-out of a curriculum requiring New Jersey public school to teach LGBT history.

The Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey, formerly the New Jersey Family Policy Council, is encouraging parents to sign the New Jersey LGBT Curriculum Opt-Out Petition, which states that the law should give parents the option to opt their kids out of the curriculum based on “moral and religious objections.”

“The mandated curriculum requirements will now require textbook authors to speculate about the sexual preferences and gender-identity of noteworthy historical figures and then impose this false narrative on our children in public schools,” the petition states. “A person’s significant historical contributions should not be predicated on their sex life or personal feelings about their sexual identity. The endless obsession with sexuality should not be forced upon our children.”

Sexuality is a “private matter” and “only parents” have the right to decide when and how their children learn about it, the alliance said.

The new law requires schools to use instructional materials that accurately portray the political, economic, and social contributions of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people. The law will be implemented beginning in the 2020-21 school year. Murphy signed the bill into law in February.

Related: NJ Public Schools Now Required To Teach LGBT History

“Our youth deserve to see how diverse American history truly is — and how they can be a part of it one day too,” Murphy said in a statement.

Barnegat, NJ Mayor Alfonso Circulli made comments earlier this year against the law and vowed to fight it, calling the LGBT movement, “an affront to almighty God,” according to a report on Barnegat Patch.

According to the report, Cirulli said the law would interfere with parents’ First-Amendment rights and how they “morally raise their children.”

The alliance agrees.

The petition blasts Murphy, and states that the law “forces sexual ideology and it’s indoctrination onto the minds and hearts of our children… without parental recourse.”

The curriculum change is just a part of the state’s changing stance on transgender students and LGBT issues.

The New Jersey Transgender Student Guidelines allows boys who identify as girls to use girls’ locker rooms without notifying parents.

The statute is, “the green light that allows males (who say they’re women) to disrobe in front of females — against their will. The New Jersey Legislature and Governor [Phil Murphy] have gone too far,” said Shawn Hyland, advocacy director for the Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey.

Hyland, and Len Deo, director of Family Policy Alliances in the Northeast region of the United States, have found students who objected to sharing a locker room with the opposite sex have been intimidated by school officials and peers.

“It is social engineering on a mass scale to warp the minds of the emerging generation,” Hyland said.

By Daniel Hubbard, staff writer