Parental concern about sexualised content in school curriculums has reached the highest levels of the United Kingdom's government.

Responding to distress expressed by Christian parents and teachers, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak voiced his own concern over the content of compulsory sex education in public sector schools, and ordered a review.

This was after more than 50 Conservative MPs said that children were being indoctrinated with radical sex and gender ideology.

However, this issue is not exclusive to the United Kingdom and similar concerns are emerging in Australia.

In 2020, parental concern in New South Wales led to One Nation’s Mark Latham’s Inquiry into the NSW curriculum.

While Latham’s inquiry recommended the curriculum be focused on the “primacy of parents in educating their children” and that schools should no longer be attempting to engineer the social development of students, the NSW Government only “noted” the inquiry’s recommendations.

None of the recommendations of the inquiry have been implemented.

In this context, Australians must be vigilant. It’s vital that Australian parents retain the right to choose Christian and other faith-based schools for their children to resist the constant sexualisation of children.

For as long as governments uphold policies that encourage schools to adhere to a radical brand of sexual and gender diversity that many Christian parents find objectionable, especially in school, this right must be protected.

Challenges on this front are on the horizon with the Australian Law Review Commission’s report on Religious Educational Institutions and Anti-Discrimination Laws due next month. There is a real risk the exemptions in the Sex Discrimination Act 1984, which allow Christian schools to operate based on a traditional ethos, will be removed. Christian schools provide an environment free of radical ideologies about sex and gender.

Moira Deeming, a former teacher with over a decade of experience, who currently holds a seat in the Victorian Legislative Council, is giving parents and other concerned Australians a chance to be heard at https://www.indefenceofchildren.org/.

As the debate surrounding sex education continues to gain traction worldwide, it is essential to consider the perspectives of parents, teachers, and policymakers who are concerned about the impacts of such ideologies in Australian schools.

That the UK Prime Minister is looking into this issue is a promising sign, but the importance of standing up for the rights of parents is no less urgent here in Australia.