The Coalition for Marriage (C4M) has called for an end to the sexualisation of children in schools and has denounced plans for a “summer of sex” at Westminster.
C4M pointed to official guidelines on sex education as well as some concerning cases that suggest many children are being exposed to inappropriate material and are being indoctrinated into a certain view of sex and sexuality.
According to government guidelines children as young as three can be taught about where babies come from, while from age five they can be taught that same gender parents are the equivalent of opposite gender parents. At age 12 they can be taught that it is their right to have sex, despite it being illegal to do so until age 16.
Richard Lucas, leader of the Scottish Family Party, told C4M that such material “corrupts young minds”, adding that such education rarely, if ever, mentions marriage as the proper and most stable framework within which sexual relations can take place.
C4M reports that sex education has sometimes gone so far that even secular authorities have felt the need to intervene. It pointed to a school on the Isle of Man, which in 2023 suspended sex education after 11-year-old children were allegedly traumatised by lessons that covered oral and anal sex, how an artificial penis can be created for a sex change operation, and the number of genders there supposedly are.
In one incident, a drag queen allegedly sent an upset child out of class after the child insisted there are two genders, rather than the 73 being claimed by the drag queen. The school later said that the pupil had been temporarily removed from the room by a teacher, not the drag queen, and not because of the guest speaker's conversation about inclusion but to remind the pupil that they did "not have to agree with the guest speaker" but "must show respect".
C4M has also taken issue with plans this summer by Labour MP Samantha Niblett to launch a “summer of sex” in collaboration with Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, which, despite the name, is in fact a pornography website.
MakeLoveNotPorn claims to differ from “traditional” pornography by featuring ordinary people having sex as opposed to professional “performers”. Gallop also runs a sex education site which is aimed at ages “0 to 18 and beyond”.
Dr Tony Rucinski, Director of Supporter Strategy at C4M, suggested that the “summer of sex” was yet more evidence of the mainstreaming of inappropriate sexual material in public.
The Christian Institute has also hit out at the plans, with spokesperson Angus Saul saying: “Explaining to children and other young people that pornography presents a distorted view of relationships is a laudable objective, but this campaign is only going to give a very mixed message by suggesting that some porn is good and some is bad.
“This will only confuse people further, and will surely detract from the work going on elsewhere to limit children’s access to pornography and reverse the damage this material has wreaked on society.”
Dr Rucinski is backing calls by former Home Secretary Suella Braverman to enforce sections 406 and 407 of the Education Act 1996, which ban “indoctrination”, and has urged supporters to contact their MPs to “insist they stop sexualising our children”.
