A battle for the mind.

That is what children in today’s public schools seem to be facing. Five days a week, six hours a day, students are exposed to a variety of subjects that challenge their thinking.

I doubt many parents would protest an educator’s attempt to expand academic excellence by training children how to think, but when that educator begins to indoctrinate children by teaching them what to think, it’s time to blow the whistle; especially when that indoctrination includes the oxymoron of &uot;safe sex&uot; education, alternate lifestyle practices or religion.

As a teenager, my history professor surveyed our class to determine the origin of greatest influence on our decision-making process. Not surprisingly, an overwhelming majority of the students named their parents as being the people who most shaped their views.

Sadly, due to increased financial pressures, a greater number of parents are working more, leaving less time for involvement in the affairs of their children and inevitably subjecting them to the manipulation of others who do not have their best interest at heart.

In 2003, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) passed out pamphlets to high school students asking, &uot;If you’ve never had sex with a person of the same sex, how do you know that you wouldn’t prefer that?&uot;

As a step-parent, the very thought of someone else teaching our children about sex boils my blood, so I can’t imagine how parents of kids in that school felt when they learned (after the fact) that the project was supported by a grant from the Massachusetts Department of Education and hence their own tax dollars.

Ironically, the only real &uot;safe-sex&uot; education is abstinence, a subject that has long been neglected and now being referred to as a &uot;scare tactic&uot; by liberal leftists.

By contrast, an article on World Net Daily described how fifth grade teacher Stephen Williams of California was prevented from distributing supplemental handouts about the role Christianity played in shaping documents such as the Declaration of Independence because of its reference to God.

How can the same Constitution that affords the right to free speech for all, muzzle the mouths of others under the same jurisdiction? There is a fine line between teaching history and proselytizing a generation, just as there is a sacred boundary of parental rights and responsibilities that should never be overstepped by any educator.

Contrary to what society has programmed us to believe, &uot;safe sex&uot; is not in our children’s best interest.

It is a mindset that lowers the standard of healthy moral expectations and sets our children up for failure, broken hearts and lives, relationships of impermanence, emotional scars and baggage, and the very real possibility of permanent damage or death by disease.

To send a message other than that is doing an injustice to generations of young people who will one day reflect the rotting fruit of our depraved philosophies and judge us guilty.

Children were given to parents to raise, not the public schools. The sooner we reclaim what’s ours, the better our chances of securing a future of success and productivity for our kids.

After all, the investment of time spent with our children will yield greater dividends for their future than any amount of education.