ABSTRACT
This chapter examines campaigns around school-based sex education during the sexual revolutions. Amongst Australian states, Queensland was unique in its approach to debates on the topic during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. Queensland had significantly higher rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) than other states at this time, as this chapter will show. The elevated rates of teenage pregnancy and STD notifications in young people signalled a knowledge deficit, where sex education was not provided by schools, Church groups, or parents. Attempts to introduce classroom-based sex education courses in these decades were met with hostility by moral campaigners, who encouraged an abstinence-only method of contraception and an emphasis on confining sex to heterosexual, monogamous marriage. These moral campaigners influenced the state in their decision to keep sex education removed from schools, as the Bjelke-Petersen government also advocated for traditional values.
