This article is part history lesson, part time machine extravaganza. Yes, we are traveling back to a time when the idea of insisting sexual abstinence in high school sex education curriculum was a new and novel idea.

For three (going on four) decades, the conservative right has been working to undermine efforts to ensure sex ed is medically accurate, LGBTQ affirming and consent-focused. All this hand-wringing about parents rights is not a new phenomenon, despite what the headlines would make you think.

The current state of sex ed

Sex Ed for Social Change (SIECUS) this week released a report on the state of sex education laws and legislation in the US. Thirteen states remain in active legislative session, so there still could be additional action on sex education legislation before the year is up, but noting the current state of legislation is important, SIECUS officials said in the report.

It’s been a record-setting year for the war against sex ed, and SIECUS described the 2023 legislative session as the worst year ever.

“Christian ideologues and extremists oppose sex education as part of their goal to eradicate access to birth control, STI testing and treatment, abortion care, safe and affirming school environments for LGBTQIA+ individuals, and honest and truthful instruction of our country’s racial history,” SIECUS said in the report.

Many of these organizations have been working to undermine comprehensive sexuality education (CSE) since the sexuality culture wars began in the middle of the 20th century. But what even CSE? Here’s how SIECUS defines it:

“High-quality CSE programs include age, developmentally, and culturally appropriate, science-based, and medically accurate information on a broad set of topics related to sexuality, including human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behaviors, including abstinence, sexual health, and society and culture.”

This all may sound perfectly fine, but conservatives have taken issue with many aspects of CSE.

To get the bigger picture, let’s get to know these five groups leading the fight against comprehensive sex education in schools:

Focus on the Family

If you’ve been reading up on purity culture and sex education, you may have heard of Focus on the Family before. They’re a Christian organization focused on providing resources for Christian families including books, curriculum and other media about being a God-fearing family.

Founded by James Dobson as a simple radio program in 1977, Focus on the Family grew into a Christian media empire–providing books, curriculum and other self-help media about parenting and Christian family structures.

The National Coalition for Abstinence Education, a branch of Focus on the Family’s Public Policy Division, was formed in 1997 in response to the creation of the Title V abstinence education law.

Now, most of the FoF’s policy work is done through the Family Policy Alliance, another public policy nonprofit connected to the Christian media giant.

In this 1999 article in the New York Times, a spokeswoman for the National Coalition for Abstinence Education framed abstinence as

‘’Ten years ago, abstinence wasn’t even considered; it was laughed at. ‘A lot of avenues have opened up for kids to hear this message. That’s a good thing, Amy Stephens, a NCAE spokeswoman told the New York Times in 1999 for an article about the growing trend toward abstinence education in American classrooms.

Moms for Liberty

Moms for Liberty has been the darling of the parent’s rights movement that has worked to undermine efforts to provide comprehensive sexuality education.

The report drew a line between the parent’s rights movement and efforts to ban sex education, noting a nearly 50% increase in parents rights bills filed this year compared to last and a more than 400% increase in anti-inclusive education programs through these types of bills.

During the organization’s annual conference this summer, anti sex ed speaker and activist Kelly Schenkoske railed against consent education during a panel discussion called “Comprehensive Sex Education: Sex Ed or Sexualization.”

“[K]ids are often taught to be obedient. And to teach kids consent is a shift away from really strongly teaching, it’s okay to have those really strong boundaries and to say no, because not always do kids have that faculty to strongly say no,” Schenkoske said during the event, popular.info reported.

Schenkoske argued that sex ed classes are “teaching kids activities for how to consent to sexual acts [when]… the laws in that state may prevent them from consenting to some of these things.” She said the concept of consent is “confusing” and “there’s a benefit to teaching kids how to say no and to have those boundaries.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center has criticized the mom mob’s many antics, which range from the group’s origin in COVID-19 mask restrictions in schools to anti-LGBTQ and anti-CRT efforts.

The Eagle Forum

The American Civil Liberties Union has been keeping an eye on The Eagle Forum’s work to undermine comprehensive sex education since the 90s.

This 1998 report on campaigns to stop sex ed sounds very similar to the issues being discussed about sex education today.

“They argue that such education usurps parental rights and encourages “immoral” premarital sexual promiscuity in the young,” the ACLU said of the EF (and many of the other organizations listed here).

Currently, the EF is campaigning against comprehensive sex ed through promoting the false idea that CSE promotes “child sexualization and pedophilia.”

Medical Institute for Sexual Health

This is another group associated with powerful evangelical leaders. The Medical Institute for Sexual Health is affiliated with Moody Bible Institute.

Moody has made headlines in recent years for its gross mishandling of sexual abuse at it’s Bible college in Illinois. Despite that gross mishandling, they continue to be a powerful pseudo-scientific voice in the abstinence sex education circles.

The organization is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization founded by Joe S. McIlhaney, Jr., an obstetrician/gynecologist from Texas. He’s published books on sexuality through Moody Publishers, a Christian publishing company associated with Moody Bible Institute.

Through his nonprofit, which he has led full-time since 1995, McIlhaney has created resources for parents and minors about sexuality from an abstinence-only lens. One of the common half-true myths found throughout his literature is warnings that condoms do not protect against all disease and that abstinence is truly the only way to prevent disease.

He was appointed to the Presidential Advisory Council in HIV/AIDS in 2001 and continues to serve on the Advisory Committee to the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The group also plans to launch a new abstinence campaign in 2023 – according to details from the organization’s 2022 990 tax filings.

Religious groups around the world are banning sex ed

It’s not just the US – this trend toward abstinence-only sex education seems to be affecting other developed countries and especially countries where Christianity or Islam are influential.

News reports from the U.K., Africa and South America highlight the tightening grip on abstinence education in many developed countries. The groups involved globally include both religious and political organizations, like in America.

In Brazil, lawmakers are giving abstinence only sex ed a chance to slow down the teen birth rate. Data ranging multiple decades has shown abstinence only sex ed is less effective at preventing teen pregnancy than CSE.

In Kenya, Catholic Bishops are opposing all sex education in schools. In Ireland, parents are pushing back against sexuality education in effort to protect children’s “innocence.”