''Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?'' is a pamphlet written in 1968 by Gordon V. Drake and published by

Billy James Hargis Billy James Hargis (August 3, 1925 – November 27, 2004) was an American Christian evangelist. At the height of his popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, his ''Christian Crusade'' ministry was broadcast on more than 500 radio stations and 250 tel ...

's Christian Crusade. It was a key document in the conservative fight against

sex education Sex education, also known as sexual education, sexuality education or sex ed, is the instruction of issues relating to human sexuality, including emotional relations and responsibilities, human sexual anatomy, sexual activity, sexual reproduc ...

in public schools, a cultural issue that contributed to the development of the

New Right New Right is a term for various right-wing political groups or policies in different countries during different periods. One prominent usage was to describe the emergence of certain Eastern European parties after the collapse of the Soviet Uni ...

. The 40-page document, described by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine as, "an angry little pamphlet," was originally distributed as part of a

direct-mail Advertising mail, also known as direct mail (by its senders), junk mail (by its recipients), mailshot or admail (North America), letterbox drop or letterboxing (Australia) is the delivery of advertising material to recipients of postal mail. The d ...

fundraising campaign for the Christian Crusade, so that the organization could lobby against sex education in schools. It became a source of unfounded anecdotes about the supposed horrors of sex education for groups such as

Mothers Organized for Moral Stability Mothers Organized for Moral Stability, also known as MOMS, was a socially conservative American organization that arose in Orange County, California in the 1960s and whose primary goal was to counter the cultural trend at the time towards allowing s ...

. ''School House'' targeted the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS), and in particular its director Dr. Mary Calderone. It described her as the "SIECUS Sexpot", and said that the group sought to "toss ..God aside" and "to teach American youth a new sexual morality independent of church and state." Besides arguing that sex education undermined Christian morality and promoted promiscuity, the document said it is part of a "giant Communist conspiracy." It said, " fthe new morality is affirmed, our children will become easy targets for Marxism and other amoral, nihilistic philosophies—as well as V.D.!" The pamphlet also identified the

National Education Association The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States. It represents public school teachers and other support personnel, faculty and staffers at colleges and universities, retired educators, and college stud ...

as an enemy. The pamphlet was the most widely circulated attack on sex education in the 1960s. Drake estimated that it sold over 90,000 copies in the three months after it was published, while Hargis claimed one million overall. A more conservative estimate is 250,000 copies.

References

{{Authority control Pamphlets 1968 non-fiction books Opposition to sex education