By Anna Miller & Dr. Scott Yenor
The public is outraged after learning that the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (IDHW) implements Planned Parenthood-endorsed sex education in schools and purchases materials and training from an interest group promoting porn literacy.
The IDHW’s sex education program is funded by federal grants. The IDHW then uses these tax dollars to purchase sex education products from the group Education, Training, and Research (ETR), whose curriculum is developed and endorsed by Planned Parenthood. ETR advocates for teaching elementary school students porn literacy, which involves instruction on “kink and power, pleasure, sexual identity, sexual acts, and sexual exploration in relation to pornography.”
We broke the news on Anna Miller’s Twitter. Her caption was paired with a video showing how public health districts promote abortion, porn, gender transition, and other degenerate topics under the IDHW’s sex education program. The video featured very disturbing footage from ETR’s endorsed “Porn Literacy” training programs.
Soon the video went viral, though no one from Idaho’s establishment media has noticed. The video had only been posted for 24 hours, and it had already received more than 115,000 views and 300 retweets. The famed Libs of TikTok followed up Miller’s post by sharing a video where ETR discusses the importance of porn literacy for young kids. That video received more than 250,000 views and 2,700 retweets.
Suddenly, people from around the country expressed outrage at the radical notion that interest groups funded by federal agencies and partnering with state departments would push porn use among students and help children learn to hide that use from parents. Delano Squires, Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, remarked, “The Overton Window has been moved right in front of your child’s bedroom. The future of conservatism will depend on parents willing to be called bad names in order to fight back against the people pushing porn, drag queens, and gender confusion on our kids.”
Conservative Review mocked Idaho’s “red state” status, and Inside the Classroom mocked Gov. Little touting “historic investments in public education.” Action Idaho called out Gov. Little, who has not commented yet on Idaho’s sex education program.
Adam Coleman, founder of Wrong Speak Publishing, added, “These perverts would call us puritans for finding it inappropriate to have elementary school aged kids watching porn.”
Some members of the public were shocked to learn that this radical gender ideology had infiltrated schools in a red state like Idaho. Jeff Charles, host of A Fresh Perspective podcast, wrote, “This is happening in Idaho, folks. Idaho. It ain’t just blue states.” Even in Idaho.
Flooding the posts, concerned Americans made it known that they rejected this radicalism in Idaho. “Wtf,” “Evil,” “Criminal,” “Grotesque and deeply disturbing,” and “sickening” were quickly posted in the comments section of Miller’s tweet.
Comments on other posts included “That's why I homeschool,” “This is unbelievable and has got to stop!” “What ever happened to just sticking with teaching the three R’s in elementary schools?” and “It's things like this that remind people why they need school choice.”
Allie Stuckey, American Conservative commentator and host of Relatable podcast, argued, “Teaching children ‘porn literacy’ in school is sexual abuse.”
Stuckey is right. Idaho’s government agencies should not be partnering with and buying sex education training and materials from an interest group promoting porn literacy and queering sex education in schools. They should not be directing students to Planned Parenthood clinics to get an abortion. The Idaho Legislature could put a stop to both Planned Parenthood and ETR’s influence in schools by rejecting federal grants funding the state’s sex education program. Additionally, the Legislature could prohibit government agencies from buying products from or partnering with interest groups pushing the sexualization of children.
No one knows how far this teaching practice has penetrated into Idaho schools, since schools do much to hide what they are teaching from concerned parents. Such lack of transparency looks like the behavior of a guilty party. Here’s hoping that the Legislature hauls officials from the IDHW in front of legislative committees and asks very tough questions about their activities.
Anna Miller is education policy director at the Idaho Freedom Foundation’s Center for American Education. Follow her on Twitter at @annakate_miller. Scott Yenor is a Washington Fellow at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. Follow him on Twitter at @scottyenor.
