West Virginia high school senior Katelyn Campbell was shocked by the flyer one of her teachers show­ed her in early April.

The pink one-page sheet announced that a special speaker named Pam Stenzel would appear the next day at Charleston’s George Wash­ington High School and noted that she would discuss “God’s plan for sexual purity.”

Campbell, who serves as student body vice president, was taken aback.

“I go to a public school so that immediately stuck out as really inappropriate,” Campbell said.

Sure enough, Stenzel’s presentation the next day turned out to be highly controversial. Stenzel, a graduate of Jerry Falwell Jr.’s Liberty University and an anti-abortion activist, blasted the use of birth control and told students that condoms don’t work.

“If you take birth control, your mother probably hates you,” she reportedly said to the girls present

Stenzel is also said to have added, “I could look at any one of you in the eyes right now and tell if you’re going to be promiscuous.”

Campbell reported that some of her friends were unsure what to make of Stenzel’s histrionic talk, but others were distraught or angry.

“A lot of people could not believe she was at school,” Campbell told Church & State. “Some thought it was satire. But some girls were crying. They were really offended by it.”

Campbell said that during Stenzel’s remarks, she criticized single mothers. Campbell reported that one of her friends, who was raised by a single mom, was so offended that he almost walked out.

The event in Charleston hit the national media after Campbell decided to blow the whistle. She held a press conference to demand that the school’s principal, George Aulenbacher, apologize to the students for hosting Stenzel. The matter came up a few days later at a stormy meeting of the Kanawha County School Board, during which many residents expressed support for Aulenbacher.

Overlooked in the tempest was a salient question: How did a speaker like Stenzel, who has no special qualifications to address issues of human sexuality, get into a public school in the first place?

As the controversy raged, local media reported that Stenzel’s visit was funded by a group called Believe in West Virginia, an organization that describes itself as “a Christ-centered catalyst helping transform the economic, political, social and spiritual environment of West Virginia, there­by communicating hope and a bright­er future for all.”

Furthermore, the husband of school board member Becky Jordan donated the money to bring Stenzel to the school. While in the area, she also spoke at a local fundamentalist church.

On her website, Stenzel promotes herself as expert on “issues of sexuality and the importance of abstinence,” even though her sole academic qualification is a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The information she dispenses is highly dubious: One video on YouTube shows her telling teens that women who use birth control are “10 times more likely to contract a disease… or end up sterile or dead.”

Stenzel is only one of several fundamentalist evangelists who roam the land, seeking to promote the Religious Right’s view on sexuality to young people.

Despite their lack of qualifications and the blatant errors and distortions in their messages, these speakers are often embraced by public school officials and other government leaders.

Thanks to pressure from the Religious Right and the Roman Catholic hierarchy, sex education in U.S. public schools has often become another causality of the culture wars. When asked about the matter by pollsters, most people say they favor comprehensive sex education that includes discussion about contraceptives. Despite this show of public support, until recently that isn’t what most schools offered – and some still don’t.

For years, far-right legislators in Congress kept the sex ed issue mired in a protracted discussion over abstinence. In 1981, a federal law called the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) was passed that limited tax support to programs anchored in abstinence. (The legislation was popularly known as the “chastity act.”)

This policy continued throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s under AFLA and other programs. Federal funding of the abstinence approach received another big boost in 1996 as part of the welfare reform package, which devoted $50 million a year to these programs.

Once that spigot was opened, tax money for abstinence continued pouring out. By the end of George W. Bush’s presidency, funding for abstinence programs had reached $204 million per year. But there was one problem: The approach clearly was not working. Several studies showed that abstinence-only programs didn’t affect teens’ sexual behavior – and may have led to more risky practices.

One study conducted by a Johns Hopkins researcher looked at two groups of teenagers – those who took a pledge of abstinence and those who did not. Although the teens were of similar backgrounds for control purposes, the researcher found no difference in their sexual behavior, except in one key area: Members of the group who had taken an abstinence vow were much less likely to use birth control, especially condoms, during sex.

A 2007 study mandated by Con­gress of four abstinence-only programs reached the same conclusion: The programs had no effect on young people’s sexual behavior. Those who took part in abstinence-only education were no more likely than those who did not to delay sexual activity. Each group had a similar number of sexual partners.

University of Washington in Seattle researchers in 2008 found that teens who received comprehensive sex education were 60 percent less likely to get pregnant or to get someone pregnant than those who received no sex education. Students who had comprehensive sex education were also slightly less likely to engage in intercourse than those who had abstinence-only classes.

Critics have charged that the abstinence approach is unrealistic. Surveys and studies show that by age 17, 43 percent of teenagers have had sexual intercourse. The number rises to 70 percent by age 19.

In addition, pre-marital sex has become nearly universal in American culture. The Guttmacher Institute, a New York-based group that studies issues related to sexuality, found that 95 percent of American men and women engage in sexual relations prior to marriage.

In the face of figures like this, critics said, programs aimed at high schoolers that assume abstinence until marriage are unrealistic and out of touch with how most people live their lives.

Church-state issues were implicated because some of the programs being funded with tax dollars contained overtly sectarian content. In the mid-1980s, AFLA was challenged in court in a case called Bowen v. Kendrick. During the research for that legal effort, opponents uncovered several instances of religious materials being used in sex ed classes. This isn’t really surprising since many of the classes were being sponsored by churches.

One group vowed to offer “Christian, pro-life education in sexuality” that reflected the teachings of Pope John Paul II. Another grantee called on youngsters to adopt “sexual behavior consistent with our values as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

The Supreme Court upheld AFLA in 1988, ruling that religious groups are capable of offering classes in areas like human sexuality and pregnancy prevention in a secular manner. But the high court also conceded that some of the funded entities may have committed church-state violations. Those specific instances were sent back to lower courts for adjudication.

Public policy finally began to change during the Obama presidency. Guttmacher reports that in 2012, Congress allocated $180 million for comprehensive sex education. But religious conservatives weren’t about to give up. That same year, pressure from U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and others led Congress to set aside $55 million for abstinence programs.

Although funding for comprehensive sex education now outpaces abstinence programs at the federal level, the raw figures don’t tell the whole story. Federal funding for states in this area is voluntary. States that don’t like the feds’ approach are free to turn down the cash and design their own programs. And, as Campbell’s experience indicates, many schools are “supplementing” sex education with other types of lectures and materials.

A survey of state laws by Gutt­mach­er found that just 17 states mandate that information about contraceptives be provided in sex-education prog­rams. Twenty-six states require that abstinence be stressed, and an addi­tional 11 mandate that it be covered. Nineteen states require that students be taught that sexual activity is appropriate only within the context of marriage.

Some Religious Right legislators would go much further. Earlier this year, Ohio state Rep. Lynn Wachtman (R-Napoleon), a zealous opponent of abortion, attempted to add a provision to the state budget that would have slapped steep fines on any teacher who strayed from an abstinence-only curriculum.

The language was removed after it came to light, but Wachtman’s supporters vowed to raise the issue again.

Increasingly, sex education classes are being targeted as part of the Religious Right’s long-running war against Planned Parenthood. Several states have seen efforts to defund Planned Parenthood, a move that could have drastic effects on high school sex ed programs.

In Arkansas, the state Senate voted in April to eliminate all funding for Planned Parenthood. Although the move was motivated by anti-abortion sentiment, the bill will, if signed into law, also eliminate funding for sex edu­cation and HIV prevention in many of the state’s high schools since those programs are sponsored by Planned Parenthood.

A similar law is under consideration in North Dakota. That proposal is in some ways worse because the program it targets, which is paid for by a federal grant, is aimed at youths deemed “at risk” because they are homeless or in foster care. Conservatives in the state legislature are gunning for the program because it is administered in part by Planned Parenthood.

In Texas, Ken Paxton, a GOP state senator, has proposed legislation barring Planned Parenthood from providing sex education materials in the state, a move critics say would have the effect of gutting the classes.

Not only are sex education programs under fire by the Religious Right in the states, some local districts seek to undermine them as well. The Stenzel incident in Charleston was hardly isolated. Last year, a high school in Dunkerton, Iowa, hosted Bradlee Dean, a fundamentalist Christian musician whose band, Junkyard Prophet, had promised to bring an anti-bullying, anti-drug message to teens.

Instead, Dean divided the boys and girls into separate groups and proceeded to harangue the girls about their sexual behavior. The mother of one girl told the La Crosse Tribune that band members told them “that they were going to have mud on their wedding dresses if they weren’t virgins” and “that anyone who was gay was going to die at the age of 42.”

The girls were also told to be submissive in the household and were shown photographs of aborted fetuses, the Tribune reported.

Stories like this surface frequently in the Bible Belt and in schools in socially conservative areas, where sex education can be a touchy subject.

In Charleston, Katelyn Campbell said she considers herself fortunate to have parents who have been upfront with her about these issues. But she was quick to add that not all of her peers come from homes like that.

“For a lot of students, they don’t hear about sex at all until they hear other kids talk about it at school,” Campbell said.

Campbell’s decision to speak out on the issue left her on the outs with Aulenbacher, who has stated that he saw no problems with Stenzel’s presentation. She told reporters that the principal rebuked her for going to the media. He even reportedly threatened to call Wellesley College, where Campbell plans to study chemistry this fall, and urge officials there to revoke her admission. (Aulenbacher claims he was speaking theoretically and never intended to call the school.)

Aulenbacher allegedly called her a “backstabber” with “bad character.”

If derailing Campbell’s higher education goals was Aulenbacher’s plan, it failed miserably. Wellesley officials immediately issued a tweet welcoming Campbell, and an alumni group started an online support group for her. Friends at Washington High also launched a Facebook support page.

As for Stenzel, Campbell doesn’t hesitate to speak her mind about what that Liberty grad had to say that day and her efforts to shame students.

“Her information was inaccurate,” Campbell remarked. “She’s both factually and ethically wrong.”