Minnesotans have long cherished the right to raise their children according to their deeply held beliefs—a freedom protected by the First Amendment. But a serious threat to that right is emerging, centered in Minnesota’s public schools.
The state’s Department of Education has proposed new K-12 health education standards, including a suite of benchmarks on sexual health that, if adopted, would not only flout Minnesota law but also trample on the First Amendment right of parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children. These proposals aren’t just misguided policy—they represent a profound invasion by the state into the sphere of faith and family.
Let’s start with the basics. Minnesota law demands that academic standards be clear, objective, measurable, and appropriate for each grade level. Benchmarks, which spell out what students have to master, must follow suit. But the draft sexual-health benchmarks fail this test spectacularly. Take kindergarteners—five- and six-year-olds—who would be required to use “medically accurate terms for body parts, including genitals.” Children will be compelled to discuss these sensitive matters in a classroom setting under the instruction of an authority figure who might be a member of the opposite sex. That’s not education; it’s an age-inappropriate intrusion that overrides parents’ careful choices about when and how to broach these topics.
The problems compound in third grade, where eight- and nine-year-olds must “describe internal and external reproductive body parts using medically accurate terms in a gender-neutral way.” But human biology obviously isn’t gender-neutral—male and female reproductive systems are fundamentally different. How can a benchmark demand something that’s biologically impossible while claiming to be objective?
Another third-grade requirement: explain the “difference between sex assigned at birth and gender identity and expression.” These terms don’t describe neutral facts; they’re loaded with ideology, pushing a fiercely contested view that sex is not innately male or female—a view that contradicts biological truth as well as the deeply held religious views of many Minnesotans. Similar flaws plague other benchmarks, like defining “gender identity and expression” in third grade or “sexual orientation” in fifth, including distinctions between orientation, identity, and behaviors. These aren’t measurable skills—they’re indoctrination dressed as learning, violating the law’s requirement of objectivity.
These troubling legal shortcomings also constitute a deeper threat to religious freedom. For generations, the Supreme Court has safeguarded parents’ rights to guide their children’s moral and spiritual development. Several decades ago, in Wisconsin v. Yoder, the Court affirmed that states cannot impose compulsory education on children when it conflicts with parents’ religious convictions, warning against pressures that influence students to conform to views that contradict their families’ religious values.
Much more recently, just last month, in Mahmoud v. Taylor, the Court doubled-down on Yoder and held that a Maryland school board’s inclusion of LGBT-themed storybooks in curriculum without opt-outs violated the First Amendment religious rights of parents, calling out the board’s policy for creating an environment hostile to the values of religious families. Minnesota’s proposed sexual-health benchmarks go even further, imposing a burden that is clearly unacceptable under Yoder and Mahmoud.
Multitudes of Minnesotans, like tens of millions of Americans, hold religious beliefs that sex reflects divine creation—male and female as specifically intended and gifted by God for each human person. But these benchmarks teach the opposite. They instruct third-graders that sex is “assigned at birth,” implying it’s a human construct detached from one’s “gender identity and expression.” Fifth-graders will be taught to “describe the differences between sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression”—concepts directly at odds with the precepts of traditional faiths.
This is more than just listening to storybooks, as in Mahmoud. These benchmarks are mandatory, and the learning they require will be woven into the curriculum across multiple grades. Minnesota law requires students to master all benchmarks to advance through grade levels, turning ideological conformity into a prerequisite for academic success. A child who resists, echoing their families’ biblical beliefs, risks academic setback. The pressure to conform is thus immense: presented by authority figures in classrooms, these ideas could erode a child’s faith, fostering doubt about the religious truths taught by parents in favor of hotly contested (and recently invented) gender ideology.
The Court in Mahmoud highlighted the objective danger when schools expose young children to views clashing with their parents’ religion, especially without opt-outs. Here, the danger is amplified. Minnesota’s opt-out law for specific curricula offers scant relief—these benchmarks are comprehensive and mandatory, spanning kindergarten through high school, making withdrawal practically impossible. It’s as if the state is saying: accept our worldview or face the consequences. Christians, Jews, and Muslim are being targeted by the state, compelled to surrender their children to teachings that mock their convictions unless they can pay the high cost of a private education. If Minnesota adopts these standards, it sets a precedent for state indoctrination, where the state dictates values and parents become bystanders.
But there is good news: the proposed health standards and benchmarks have yet to be adopted. I urge you to flood the Department of Education with opposition. Tell them these proposed benchmarks violate the law and burden your religious freedom. Share stories of how the ideology taught by the benchmarks clashes with your faith. Rally your neighbors and faith communities to do the same.
Minnesota’s children deserve education that respects religion and rejects indoctrination, and Minnesota parents should be free to instill timeless truths without state interference. Now is the time to stand together in defense of the First Amendment and parental rights. The future of family and faith depends on it.
Doug Wardlow is Director of Litigation for True North Legal, a Minnesota-based public-interest law firm and initiative of the Minnesota Family Council dedicated to defending life, faith, and freedom.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not represent an official position of Alpha News.
Doug Wardlow
Doug Wardlow is Director of Litigation for True North Legal, a Minnesota-based public-interest law firm and initiative of the Minnesota Family Council dedicated to defending life, faith, and freedom.
