LAS VEGAS – The group behind the curriculum that would teach masturbation to children as young as 5 years old has identified the culprits behind the community outcry: Mormons.

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States – or SIECUS – was the brains behind the curriculum recently floated in the Las Vegas-based Clark County, Nevada school district – the 5th largest in the country.

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Numerous parents took turns hammering the controversial proposal at school board meetings.

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported at the time:

Considered changes include education of homosexuality as early as ages 5 through 8, and giving everyone “respect regardless of who they are attracted to.”

School children of that age range would also be taught that “touching and rubbing one’s genitals to feel good is called masturbation.”

“You want to teach my 5-year-old how to masturbate?” said parent Julie Butler, according to the paper.

“We certainly should not be teaching five-year-olds that masturbation and pleasuring one’s body is good and that a 12-year-old should know about the very details of anal and oral sex,” another parent said, reports KTNV.

But now, SIECUS believes it has identified why the community is upset.

The organization writes on its website:

Clark County School District, the nation’s fifth largest, includes libertine Las Vegas in addition to many communities whose local politics are influenced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS), also known as Mormons. A recent effort by school district leaders to engage community voices on the future of sexuality education in the district has prompted a backlash by opponents of more comprehensive approaches.

Abstinence-only advocates hail from many different quarters in Clark County, but the LDS Church has outsize influence.

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The group cites a news article detailing a number of Mormons in elected positions within the county as further evidence of its theory.

But of the dozens of parents that have spoken out, not a single one that we’ve seen has invoked their Mormon faith as the justification for their concern.

They’re mad simply because outrageous things were proposed to be taught to young children and just as bad, the school district aired the changes during closed-door, invitation-only meetings.

“I felt (the meeting) was quite limited in scope and who was able to attend,” parent Nicole Luth said at a school board meeting.

SIECUS, which is pursuing what it describes as a “progressive change in sexuality education,” was thrown under the bus my Superintendent Pat Skorkowski and is clearly still smarting about it.

It says after the controversy, “advocates for better sexuality education will face the challenge of overcoming the misinformation campaign led by opponents of more comprehensive approaches.”

One of those opponents – a group called Power2Parent – had 600 members when we last reported about them. Today, the group has a following of over 1,100.