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FREMONT, Calif., May 4, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Concerned parents have successfully fought against the implementation of a controversial new sex education program for elementary school children.

After a marathon meeting, with testimonies and discussion stretching until 2:30 AM Thursday, California’s Fremont Unified School District board voted against the controversial sex ed curriculum.

What had so many parents concerned is that the new program, known as the “Three R’s: Rights, Respect, Responsibility,” would have taught elementary school students about sexual orientation, gender identity and rape.

The school district now finds itself at odds with California state law––the Healthy Youth Act, enacted in 2016––which mandates the teaching of those topics, and more, to students in grades 4-6.

While the controversial program was voted down for elementary school students, the school board voted to adopt it for grades 7 through 9.  

“There’s a difference between educational and explicit. The way this is written, it is explicit,” said Vijay Ghanta, parent of a second-grader, according to mercurynews.com.

“It makes it seem like having a sexual relationship at that age is OK. It is not…You make it look like it is very normal. It is not normal at that age.”

“There’s been a misconception from the very beginning that this group is really just a bunch of prudes, and we’re against sex education in total, that’s not true,” according to another parent in the mercurynews.com report. “What we’re really saying is that we don’t like the 3Rs curriculum because it’s too explicit.”

The Healthy Youth Act came into existence in part because California school districts were “picking and choosing” what they wanted to teach their students about sex.

In particular, the Clovis Unified School District was judged in 2012 to be wildly out of compliance with state requirements because it was teaching an “abstinence only” curriculum.  

“In some cases, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students have been “made to feel invisible – or worse, stigmatized – in health classes,” according to a report in edsource.org.  “The new law states that curriculums “affirmatively recognize that people have different sexual orientations.”

The report continues:

Among the new areas required, the curriculum will include information about “sexual harassment, sexual assault, adolescent relationship abuse, intimate partner violence, and sex trafficking.” Schools must provide “comprehensive, accurate and unbiased” information on sexual health and HIV prevention and provide students with “the knowledge and skills they need to develop healthy attitudes concerning adolescent growth and development, body image, gender, sexual orientation, relationships, marriage, and family,” according to the text of the law.

After the vote nixing the new program for grades 4 through 6, members of the school board decided to convene a panel of parents and experts to identify another sex ed program more amenable to parents, while fulfilling the newly instituted state requirements.