On Wednesday, May 1st, Mrs. Tammy Schulz traveled with 2 of her children from Oak Park to Springfield to testify in opposition to a terrible sex education bill being pushed by Planned Parenthood of Illinois. It was scheduled to be heard in the Senate Executive Committee on Wednesday. However, the committee began late, recessed early, immediately went into closed session and then adjourned for the yearly House vs. Senate baseball game. The bill was called the following day and passed along party lines, 9-5. It now advances to the full Senate for consideration. It has already passed in the House.
Mrs. Schulz was prepared to quote from two “complete” and “comprehensive” sex ed curricula. One was obtained from the Illinois Senate Education Committee in 2011 as an example of a compliant curriculum. The other was taught at the Stratford Middle School in Bloomingdale, Illinois. (WARNING – GRAPHIC & SEXUALLY EXPLICIT LANGUAGE: compliant curriculum and It’s Perfectly Normal. You can watch Mrs. Schulz in a video taken outside the Capitol giving a shortened version of her testimony HERE. WARNING: THIS ALSO CONTAINS SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONTENT.)
The bill, HB 2675 is sponsored by State Senator Heather Steans (D-Chicago). It requires that any public schools that currently teach sex ed would have to teach Planned Parenthood’s idea of “complete,” “comprehensive,” age-appropriate,” and “medically accurate” sex education.
No one would disagree that age-appropriate and medically accurate information should be taught until you read how SEICUS (Sexuality Education Information Council of the United States) defines “age-appropriate” and “medically accurate.” Furthermore, as Laurie Higgins has pointed out numerous times, the terms “complete” and “comprehensive” are ambiguous. (Read more HERE.)
Mrs. Schulz considered spending the night with her 2 children if she would be allowed to give her testimony the next day when the bill would likely be called. Being a neighbor of Senator Don Harmon (who chairs the committee that heard the bill and whose children won’t be exposed to this graphic information because they attend a Catholic school), she appealed to him to allow her to testify. His answer was that the bill had been heard in the senate before (that was in 2011) and that he couldn’t promise anything. Apparently minds are made up before a bill is called and it’s only a formality to hear testimony from witnesses who travel hours or even fly in from out of state to shed light on a bill’s negative and/or positive effects.
Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or a fax to your state senator today to ask him/her to vote NO to HB 2675.
Click HERE to make a donation to the Illinois Family Institute.
