It has been almost 20 years since it has been documented that children in our schools are in grave danger of being sexually abused by teachers.  In 2004, Charol Shakeshaft completed a U.S. Department of Education sponsored study on Educator Sexual Misconduct.  The seminal findings showed that 9.6 percent of children in our schools, public and private, are victims of educator sexual misconduct sometime between kindergarten and 12^th grade.

Almost nothing has been done about this.

The Chicago Public Schools (CPS), at least, has begun to make some steps toward addressing the imminent threat to children by expanding the CPS Office of Inspector General (OIG) and greatly increasing the capability to investigate abuse allegations. They have had some success.

According to their recently released report, from late 2018 until the end of 2022 the OIG opened a little over 1,700 cases and closed almost 1, 400, leaving 300 plus cases still open. With 30 investigators on their staff, that’s not bad.

What is not so good is only 16 criminal charges wound up being filed against the accused and not all of them were convicted. It is not clear how many were convicted or what sentences they received. Moreover, we don’t even know who they were. In the CPS OIG report they are not named. Incredible.

We also don’t know how many of the accused were fired, lost their license, or merely received some kind of internal discipline. One teacher shared “images from a pornographic website while sharing his screen with students,” supposedly inadvertently. The Board gave him a “Level Three Performance Improvement Plan,” whatever that is. It’s essentially nothing. Why?

It appears that most of the accused are still working for CPS, but who knows?

Reading between the lines of the OIG report, it appears that the CPS administration and the Board have to dance delicately through the contractual minefield set up by the teachers unions to protect all teachers regardless of what they might have done. Why would there be any question about firing a teacher who shows pornography to children, whether it was on purpose or accidentally? That teacher should be gone and any union that stands behind him or her discredits itself.

Historically and even to this day, very little attention has been focused on the predators in our schools.  In 2021, Illinois State Representative Michelle Mussman (D-Schaumburg) introduced House Bill 1975, supposedly to address sexual abuse in the schools.  That bill requires educating teachers about educator sexual abuse and how to recognize the signs of “grooming.”  It is a common practice of child sexual predators to “groom,” or seduce, children over a long period of time.  Essentially, the predator will develop an increasingly intimate relationship with the child, introduce secrecy at some point, and eventually sexualize the relationship.

Mussman named the act “Faith’s Law,” after Faith Colson, a former Schaumburg High School Student who had been groomed and sexually exploited by one of her teachers starting in 2001. Based on Dr. Shakeshaft’s study we know that Faith was only one of an estimated 16,000 students in Illinois who were abused by an educator that year.

But what does this bill do to prevent what happened to Faith and 16,000 other Illinois children in 2001? Not much, if anything. The bill requires that teachers be trained to recognize grooming behavior, schools to set up policies to establish better boundaries between teachers and students, and to create a list of sexual abuse response and prevention resources to be made available to the public. The bill also expands grooming beyond electronic activity to include in person and third-party conduct.

This proposal proves that our legislators, including Mussman, simply do not take the protection of childhood innocence seriously, or are too uninformed themselves to fashion a solution.

How could anyone graduate with a childhood education degree and not know what grooming is?  There are mountains of published papers on grooming.  Everyone even remotely connected to issues of child protection knows that grooming behaviors should be viewed as a giant red flag.  Expanding the grooming law does little since you must prove intent to abuse to prosecute.  That’s almost impossible until after the abuse occurs.

Libraries already are filled with sexual abuse prevention resources, most of which nobody reads.  Just ask your librarian.  As for creating policies that establish appropriate boundaries between teacher and student?  If this hasn’t already been done in every school the people in charge should be prosecuted for malfeasance.

This law is little more than virtue signaling.

One reason the problem is so large is due the teachers’ unions.  They actively protect teachers who are predators.  Examples are everywhere of the unions shielding teachers who regularly engage in grooming behaviors.  The unions will not let them be fired.  Teachers have been known to assign obscene materials to children to read as part of a class assignment and nothing happens to the teacher. Even when caught sexually abusing children the unions often go to bat for them.

Another problem is the obscenity exemption for teachers in Illinois.  This allows librarians to provide, and teachers to recommend, highly sexualized and often deranged and perverted books for children to read or study.  Providing this kind of material to children is a typical grooming behavior of predators.  Such materials are used to begin to sexualize the relationship and to arouse the child.  It’s completely legal in Illinois schools.

Senate Bill 818, which was voted for by Mussman and 59 fellow Illinois House Democrats (all Republicans voted against it), makes the grooming problem even worse.  It mandates that all schools implement sex education programs – Kindergarten to 12^th Grade – which are to be based on the “National Sex Education Standards,” although there is a provision that allows each district to opt out of the standards if they want.

Such a farce.  These “standards” were developed by an ad hoc group of sexual progressives.  In addition to Planned Parenthood, SIECUS, Answer, and Advocates for Youth, a host of other left leaning sexual activists developed the document.

Those who created the standards believe that every person has a right to experience sexual pleasure from birth to death, that children have a right to experience sexual pleasure whenever and with whomever they want, that purity is a false value, and that children should be encouraged to experiment sexually with same and opposite sex relationships.  The standards teach that all sexual activity is good as long as there is mutual consent, disregarding that children cannot legally give consent.

Only a handful of school districts in Illinois opted into the standards. In Chicago they were using the perverse standards even before the law was passed.

The National Sex Education Standards do not call for a class in comprehensive sex ed. No. The standards require that sex ed be infused in every class, that it be part of every subject wherever possible.

These are not standards. This law destroys every remaining sexual standard established over the last two millennia. And it turns every teacher into an accomplice for every predator in our schools. It is institutionalized grooming on a mass scale and neutralizes any possible good, however little, Faith’s Law might have achieved.

Despicable.

In late May of 2021, the Illinois General Assembly rammed through SB 818, a bill to require so-called “comprehensive sex-education” to be taught in public schools in kindergarten through 12th grade. It was signed by Governor J.B. Pritzker and became law on August 20, 2021, despite the hue and cry of parents and grandparents throughout the state. Now, any public school that offers health and safety classes now must teach left-wing sexuality classes to impressionable young students.

The only small bit of good news in the law was that schools had the choice to opt out. Because 70 percent of school districts have chosen to opt out of these new destructive standards, State Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago)–the  sponsor of last year’s bill–has just filed new legislation to mandate public schools teach this leftist material next school year with no opt-out permitted for any school!

If passed, this bill will mandate the teaching of material that many families in Illinois consider deviant or inappropriate for their children. The bill’s sponsors falsely claim that the mandated content would be “age and developmentally appropriate,” “medically accurate,” “complete,” “culturally appropriate,” and “inclusive.”

Starting in kindergarten, all schools must teach about “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression,” and that means teaching leftists views of “sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression.”

What the bill’s sponsors don’t discuss is what criteria will be used to determine, for example, age-appropriateness, medical accuracy, completeness or who will establish those criteria.

Of course, there is no mention of abstinence-only education in this bill.

This bill is anything but “culturally appropriate” for orthodox Jews, Christians, and Muslims, which makes it anything but “inclusive.”

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state lawmakers about the immoral and tyrannical nature of this bill (HB 5188). Let them know that this bill ignores the values and beliefs of millions of Illinois households. Teaching children about sexual health is the responsibility of PARENTS. It is parents who should decide what their children will be taught about sexuality and when. It is neither the right nor the responsibility of the government or public schools to do so. Many thousands of parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens voiced opposition to Villivalum’s prior bill, and yet Springfield “progressives” blatantly disregarded their voices. They’re attempting to do the same with his new parental rights-denying bill.

Please join IFI to raise your voice again in opposition to this bill and help us be the voice for our children.

More information:

The War on Children

“Comprehensive” Sex Education

The Sordid History and Deadly Consequences of ‘Sex Ed’ at School 

Illinois Lawmakers’ Insatiable Appetite for Sexualizing Other People’s Children

A Plea to Exit Public Schools ASAP

Business leaders are tasked with developing and executing strategies that lead to desired results, namely, to maximize shareholder value in a manner that is honest, moral, and upright. Successful businesses measure their performance in myriad ways and use these results to implement changes, if needed, to achieve desired results. The ethos of the business world is defined by accurate measurement of results, high performance and achievement, continuous improvement, and maintaining a competitive edge. This high-performance orientation in American businesses has resulted in the U.S. being the largest, most successful economy in the world. Why is this not the case for the Illinois public school system?

The facts available to measure the performance of Illinois public schools reveal alarming and ongoing under-performance.  The 2021 academic proficiency results are in, and Illinois public schools have gone from bad to worse. More important, the Illinois public school system knows the proficiency scores across the state but does nothing to address the root causes of poor performance. This failure constitutes performance-arrogance–not performance-orientation–which defies logic. Only in the public school system can one find such poor results on the key metrics of performance without ever seeing meaningful efforts to improve.

Statewide average proficiency scores at the 11th grade level for 2021 are shown below. Proficiency, in this case, means that a student scored at either “proficient” or “above proficient” based on standardized test scores.

On a statewide average basis, Illinois public school students are not even at the 50th percentile of proficiency in the three subject areas tested. It seems statistically impossible to be this bad.

In the business world, if only 1 percent of a workforce were proficient at their job, that business would be wiped out by competitors who operated more effectively. Competition in business leads to high performance. Illinois’ public school system has few competitors and, therefore, little pressure to perform. As a result, it continues to underperform, producing students who are not academically ready to compete in the real world.

Unbelievably, the graduation rate for Illinois public schools in 2021 was 87 percent. A system that cannot come close to even average proficiency levels in three core subjects, graduates almost all those same students! In business we say that “facts are friendly and made-up facts are friendlier.”

Made-up facts give the appearance of performance when in fact they are misleading and should be ignored if improvement is desired. The graduation rate in Illinois public schools is a doozy of a made-up fact. The proficiency scores prove students are not performing at grade-level, so it is clear that the graduation rate is a result of “social-promotion,” where schools push students to the next level regardless of their mastery of material.

The days of admitting and addressing failure are gone in our public school system.

In addition to very poor academic performance, curricula are woke, Marxist, sexualized, and anti-American. The dumbing down of curricula continues as Common Core, the 1619 Project, inappropriate sexual education, and critical race theory (CRT) rule the day.

Grammar, classic literature, true American history, and civics are just some of the important topics removed from public schools today. Our schools have become leftist indoctrination centers where children are inculcated with a worldview antithetical to their parents’ worldview and a biblical worldview.

The Illinois public school system is broken and beyond repair. Any business that consistently demonstrated results as poor as Illinois public schools do would see a purging of leadership, management, and employees. Expecting improved results from a broken system is a fool’s game, but in Illinois it’s the only game in town. The status quo is maintained by entrenched left-wing politicians and unions scratching each other’s backs; bloated education bureaucracies taking huge amounts of money away from actual education; and shocking educator compensation/benefits schemes no one in business can afford or would tolerate for such poor performance.

Businesses seek people with the ability to collaborate, think critically, communicate effectively, and demonstrate creative problem-solving. Exceptional performers in business not only have a well-trained mind, but they also possess strong moral character, an ability to self-govern, and compassion. People like this more often emerge from home education programs and authentic biblically based private schools.

The public school system also produces some highly capable people who are able to overcome some of the huge systemic problems endemic to public schools–people who are able to thrive in a highly competitive global economy. But American businesses no longer count on the public education system to do its job. Instead, we now see businesses in the U.S. hiring people from other countries with excellent education systems to do jobs requiring high skill.

The future of America and the businesses so vital to our country are not going to be able to depend on an army of woke, Marxist-leaning, poorly educated people to achieve great ends. We need godly, well-educated, wise people who love liberty and this country. This is not what Illinois public schools are producing. Tragically, government schools don’t even strive to produce these kinds of students. It is time to exit Illinois public schools and pursue a growing number of vastly better options.

Don’t let the word “debate” in the term “floor debate” fool you. Floor debates in Springfield are no more debates than transwomen are women. There is no cross-examination or rebuttal, for which most of our lawmakers must be deeply thankful in that they couldn’t argue their way out of an imaginary paper bag—at least not using logic and evidence.

Floor debates in Springfield are occasions for bill sponsors and supporters—almost always Democrats—to pontificate and for opponents to try to point out flaws that are promptly ignored by Democrats no matter how reasonable and justified. A floor debate in Springfield for Democrat-sponsored bills is a tale told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing but more government restriction of liberty, more government spending, and more moral chaos.

For an example, let’s look briefly at last Friday’s floor debate preceding the vote in the Illinois House on the pernicious sex ed bill that now awaits Governor J.B. Pritzker’s signature. According to the bill’s chief sponsor, State Representative Camille Lilly (D-Chicago), the bill was socially constructed by three far left organizations—”Advocates for Youth, SIECUS and the Answer”—all of which are dedicated to normalizing abortion, early sexual experimentation, and sexual deviance. It is noteworthy that this bill is so perverse and troubling that even Illinois Democrats were barely able to scrape together the 60 votes needed to pass it.

Before looking at the “debate,” here’s a reminder of what lawmakers in Springfield think government employees should be exposing other people’s children to.

If signed into law, this bill will require all personal health and safety lessons in Illinois public schools—including charter schools—to teach children in grades K-2 about unmarried moms and dads and families led by homosexual couples. These very young children will also be expected to define “gender identity’’—a euphemism for the disordered desire to be the opposite sex.

Government employees will demand that children ages 8-11 explain, describe, and define masturbation, homosexuality, bisexuality, cross-sex impersonation, the use of hormone blockers for children who pretend to be the sex they aren’t, and “gender expansiveness”—a socially constructed leftist term.

Then in grades 6-8, government employees will instruct other people’s children in the ways of oral and anal sex; the “methods of contraception that are available without a prescription”; the “many methods of short- and long-term contraception that are safe and effective and … how to access them”; and the meaning of intersex, queer, twospirit, asexual, and pansexual. And, of course, leftists have snuck in some critical race theory, so 11–14-year-olds will be taught as objective and true the socially constructed theory of “intersectionality.”

To ensure that religious Illinois school children graduate from high school ashamed of and detesting the faith of their mothers and fathers, government employees will teach them about the evils of what leftists call “homophobia” and “transphobia.” In the Upside Down where leftists live and move and have their being, the true belief that homosexual acts and cross-dressing undermine the image of God imprinted on all humans constitutes irrational hatred.

State Representative Avery Bourne (R-Raymond) was able to get Lilly to admit that this law—like the ever-shifting moral beliefs of leftists—is fluid. If the bill becomes law, it will forever be tied to the National Sex Education Standards which change as progressivism affirms additional forms of sexual perversion. Bourne’s question elicited this shocking confession from the hapless Lilly:

As the National Sex Education Standards are updated, the State Board of Education shall update these learning standards.

All the ideas related to sexuality just mentioned are socially constructed leftist terms embedded with leftist assumptions. All the terms tossed about with absolutist certainty by Democrats to justify the indoctrination of other people’s children, including “age-appropriate,” “developmentally appropriate,” and “culturally appropriate,” are defined by leftists using criteria established by leftists.

Virtually no theologically orthodox Christian believes it is “culturally appropriate” for their 5-8- year-olds to be taught anything about homosexuality or “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices. SB 818’s supporters like to emphasize the sop they’re tossing to conservatives: Any parent may opt their child out of perversion-positive training.

Doesn’t sound very inclusive to me. In addition, conservatives still have to pay for perversion-positive “personal health and safety” training.

Curiously, in the floor “debate,” the issue of moral development never arose. It’s clear that moral assumptions/conclusions are embedded in the National Sex Education Standards with which this law requires all health and safety curricula selected by schools to align. How do I know that moral conclusions are embedded in these standards?

I know because these “standards” do not require schools to teach about, for example, polyamory, zoophilia, or infantilism—all forms of “identity” for some people. Even though these are forms of identity, Springfield Democrats don’t—yet –require that Illinois schools affirm them. The reason is that not enough Democrats—yet—believe these forms of identity are moral. Currently, Democrats believe homosexual and cross-sex identities should be normalized via taxpayer-funded schools because Democrats have concluded they are morally acceptable.

Remember what this bill requires as I quote some of the dumb things Democrats said about it in their fatuous floor speechifying, starting with the foolish sponsor of the bill, Camille Lilly:

Under SB818 … the materials and instruction must be age and developmentally appropriate, medically accurate, correct, complete, culturally appropriate, inclusive. … SB818 is not a mandate. Under SB818 parents, guardians and others will still be able to review the materials used by schools. Parents are still able to opt out, and local control applies to the selection of courses and materials and the curriculum. In addition to reducing stigma, SB818 would result in creating and the creation of learning standards that reflect the diversity of all students here in the state of Illinois.

Some brief thoughts about Lilly’s claims:

• SB 818 is not age-, developmentally, or culturally appropriate. The claims by leftist sexperts do not change reality.

• If by “correct” Lilly means “conforming to truth” or “proper,” she is incorrect.

• Clearly, materials and instruction will not be “complete” because the NSES do not include any information about polyamory, zoophilia, infantilism, sadomasochism, or any other paraphilias. I wonder if Camille Lilly et al. hate polyamorists, zoophiles, infantilists, and sadomasochists.

• SB 818 is a mandate in that no school may teach anything on personal health and safety in grades K-5 unless the materials they choose align with the age-, developmentally, culturally, and morally inappropriate leftist National Sex Education Standards.

• Lilly should explain which stigmas she seeks to reduce because this bill stigmatizes the moral views of many Illinoisans.

State Representative Delia Ramirez (D-Chicago) asked Lilly if it were true that the Illinois State Board of Education and the Illinois Association of School Boards are “neutral on the bill,” to which Lilly responded “Yes.” Then in an amusing and obvious manipulation of rhetoric, Ramirez changed the word “neutral,” saying, “So, educators don’t oppose the bill.” Well, it’s equally correct to say, “So, educators don’t support the bill.”

It would be interesting to poll anonymously all K-5 teachers in the state, asking if they are in favor of being required to teach about homosexuality, bisexuality, co-habitation, masturbation, cross-sex impersonation, hormone-blockers, and gender expansiveness in personal health and safety lessons.

And we should ask if they think there should be a law prohibiting all teaching on personal health and safety unless it includes those topics. No discussions of healthy eating permitted unless they’re accompanied by affirming discussions of cross-dressing, hormone-blocking, and self-pleasuring.

State Representative Maurice West (D-Rockford) apparently derives his hearty support for requiring public school teachers to instruct 5-year-olds in the intricacies of masturbation and 11-year-olds about anal sex from TLC’s programs about hoarders and obese people:

We view television shows on TLC like Hoarders, My 600-Pound Life, just for example, where they often recall their childhood experience with shame, emptiness, guilt, confusion from their dealings with that word: sex. This legislation’s primary focus is not about the birds and the bees. It’s about equipping our children with age-appropriate conversations about how they can be empowered within themselves.

Well, West is right on one thing: This bill is definitely not about the birds and the bees.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not the job of education majors to sexually “empower” other people’s children with the pagan sexual beliefs of regressives.

Two questions for West and all leftists:

1.) Since when did it become the task, pedagogical obligation, or right of public school teachers to solve all societal ills?

2.) Are there any pedagogical, ethical, moral, emotional, or psychological problems potentially created by introducing sexual imagery, ideas, and beliefs to other people’s children who have never been abused or shamed and whose parents have successfully protected them from ideas they—the parents—believe are age-, developmentally, culturally, and morally inappropriate?

In case parents don’t yet realize it, this newest bill is centrally about normalizing homosexuality and “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices. In yet another statement made with a voice quivering with faux-emotion, lesbian activist with a burnt soul, State Representative Kelly Cassidy, made that clear:

For far too long, LGBTQ youth were either invisible or expressly stigmatized. And I remember that. It burned into my soul. …  I remember that. … And as a kid who didn’t understand why I didn’t fit in, who couldn’t define why I felt different, and whose parents were not an option to go to, I wish I had had a teacher I could turn to. I wish I had had a curriculum that didn’t call me unnatural.

The presumptuous Cassidy demands that public schools affirm her arguable belief that homosexuality is natural, and if parents disagree, Cassidy wants the state to come in between them and their children.

State Representative Ann Williams (D-Chicago) made this boneheaded statement:

[I]t’s hard to imagine why anyone would think our children should not learn about sex education in school, but rather should refer to the internet or Google to determine what sex is or what their questions are and get them answered there. Right now, if you Google any of these terms related to sex education, you’re going to get a lot more explicit information than anything would be provided in a curriculum.

Phew. I guess Illinois parents should thank Democrats. At least curricula aligned with leftist standards won’t be as bad as what kids can find on the Internet.

It’s unfortunate that Williams suffers from such a dearth of imagination. It’s true, many people don’t think children should learn about sex in public schools. Here’s something else that may surprise the unimaginative Williams. Many people don’t think children should be learning about sex in co-ed classes in public schools. They believe that talking about menstruation and nocturnal emissions in co-ed classes can be embarrassing, inhibit discussions, and undermine the virtue of modesty.

Poor Williams suffers too from an inability to reason logically. Suggesting that there exists only the choice between public schools and the Internet is a classic example of the fallacy of the false dilemma. In addition to leftist-controlled public schools and the Internet, there are parents, grandparents, churches, libraries, and bookstores that can and do educate children on sex. It is not the business of the government to step in and expose all children to assumption-riddled claims about sexuality because some parents are derelict in their responsibilities.

Here’s a modest proposal: Rather than devouring the hearts and minds of other people’s little ones, how about schools offer two classes in personal health and safety—a perversion-positive class and a truly age-appropriate class. The class descriptions should include all materials used, the name of all organizations that constructed the materials, all the standards employed by those organizations, and all the criteria used to determine what constitutes age-, developmental, and cultural appropriateness. Let parents opt-in to whichever class they want or none at all. And allow teachers to choose which class they want to teach. With their deep commitments to diversity, inclusivity, cultural sensitivity, and choice, leftists should love this modest proposal.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Pritzker’s administrative staff to urge him to VETO SB 818 as a terrible overreach of government. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Dumb-Things-Dems-Said-in-Sex-Ed-Floor-Debate.mp3

Lea este artículo en español

The newest manifestation of the creepy desire of Springfield leftists to normalize deviance in children is the laughably named, “Keeping Youth Safe and Healthy Act” (SB 818)—a bill composed entirely of socially constructed leftist beliefs from leftist lawmakers aided and abetted by leftist pro-abortion and “LGBTQ” organizations.

SB 818 would require all public schools—including charter schools—to align teaching in grades K-5 on “personal health and safety” with “National Sex Education Standards,”  which too are leftist social constructions. And it would require all upper grade sex education to align with those same “standards.” Therefore, in order to understand what exactly Illinois children would be taught, Illinoisans must read—not just the bill—but also the National Sex Education Standards, which I did to save our readers time.

The bill also requires that all materials presented to K-5 students in health and safety units be “age and developmentally appropriate” and “culturally appropriate.” More on that shortly.

When the bill’s sponsor State Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) was asked by State Senator Sue Rezin (R-Morris) for “the breakdown of what’s to be taught for second grade, fifth grade and eighth grade,” he responded,

In younger grades like kindergarten through second, the focus is on personal safety, what it means to be a good friend, and being able to talk to parents and trusted adults when someone wants you to do something that makes you feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

He forgot to mention that since his bill would require all public schools that provide “personal health and safety” units in grades K-2 to align content with the “National Sex Education Standards,” by the end of second grade, students will be expected to “Define gender, gender identity, and gender-role stereotypes” and how those sex-based conventions “may limit behavior.”

They will also be expected to “Identify different kinds of families (e.g., … cohabitating … [and] same-gender …).”

This is the “breakdown” Villivalam provided for grades 3-5:

In grades 3 to 5, instruction continues to cover healthy relationships and safety, but also delves into what children at those ages are experiencing like the physical, social and emotional changes related to puberty.

Sounds innocent enough, except he conveniently omitted the following information, which comes straight from the National Sex Education Standards for “comprehensive personal health and safety.”

In grades 3-5, the National Sex Education Standards–and therefore Villivalam’s bill–would require boys and girls in co-ed settings to,

• “Explain common human sexual development including … masturbation.”

• “Describe the … potential role of hormone blockers on young people who identify as transgender.”

• “Distinguish between sex assigned at birth and gender identity and explain how they may or may not differ.”

• “Define and explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender nonbinary, gender expansive, and gender identity.”

• “Explain that gender expression and gender identity exist along a spectrum.”

• “Define sexual orientation.”

• “Differentiate between sexual orientation and gender identity.”

Many parents would argue that it is not the role of government-employed “educators” to teach other people’s 8-11-year-old children about masturbation, hormone blockers for cross-sex identifying children, or gender expansiveness.

Remember, if this law passes, no school would be able to provide any teaching in grades k-5 on personal health and safety unless it included the information just outlined.

In 2020, Villivalam tried to pass the REACH Act, which would have required all public schools, including charter schools, to teach “comprehensive sex ed” in grades K-12. The bill failed, so that tricksy little devil rejiggered it in such a way as to get disordered, age-inappropriate material before innocent little eyes. He did that by requiring in SB 818 all “personal health and safety” teaching to align with the deviant National Sex Education Standards. Very cunning, indeed.

Villivalam then offered this skeletal outline of grade 6-12 teaching in response to Rezin’s question:

Then in 6th through 12th grade, sexual health education builds on previous lessons to continue discussions on personal safety, healthy relationships, identity, and begins to incorporate information related to sexual health.

Weeelll, that’s kinda, sorta what the National Sex Education Standards with which schools will have to align would require. I’ll try to slap some meat on those skeletal bones.

In grades 6-8,

• Students must be taught about intersex conditions.

• They must “Analyze how peers, family, and a person’s intersecting identities can influence attitudes, beliefs, and expectations about gender, gender identity, gender roles, and gender expression.

• Middle schoolers must “Recall the definition of sexual orientation and explain that most people have a sexual orientation.”

• They must “Define … bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, twospirit, asexual, pansexual.”

• They must “Define vaginal, oral, and anal sex.”

• They must “Explain there are many methods of short- and long-term contraception that are safe and effective and describe how to access them.”

• They must “List at least four methods of contraception that are available without a prescription (e.g., … condoms, emergency contraception, withdrawal)”

• They must “Describe … pregnancy options, including … abortion.”

In grades 9-10,

Students must “Define reproductive justice and explain its history and how it relates to sexual health.”

In grades 11-12, students must

• “Explain how support from peers, families, schools, and communities can improve a person’s health and wellbeing as it relates to gender identity and gender expression” and “sexual orientation.”

• Students must “Analyze” how “homophobia, transphobia, racism, ableism, classism” can “influence decisions regarding sexual behaviors.”

Supporter of this pernicious bill, State Senator Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) pontificated foolishly in debate on the Illinois Senate floor:

I think what we are doing when we are teaching—again, age-appropriate, medically accurate sex education—to our children, we are arming them with knowledge. And I don’t know when that has ever been a bad thing.  (Watch the video recording of the Illinois Senate debate.)

When seeking to indoctrinate children with leftist sexuality dogma, leftists blather on about “age-appropriateness” and “cultural-appropriateness” as if those terms describe some objective, transcendent, universal criteria rather than socially constructed and imposed leftist “standards.” Both terms are used to include ideas leftists love and exclude (i.e., censor) all ideas leftists hate.

Some steely-spined lawmakers should demand from leftists specific definitions for those terms. They should demand to know who exactly constructed the criteria that define “age-appropriate,” “developmentally appropriate,” and “culturally appropriate.” They should ask if the age-appropriate criteria are objective and inarguably true or subjective and arguable.

Holmes claims she doesn’t know when knowledge has ever been a bad thing. Has she not read Frankenstein? Has she not heard of “gain-of-function” research?

If knowledge is never a bad thing, why not teach children about polyamory, zoophilia, or kink?

Oh, wait, I know. Those particular forms of sexual deviance are not age, developmentally, and culturally appropriate—according to mysterious leftist criteria.

While conservatives busy themselves dismissing the incrementalism of leftists in Springfield, leftists in Springfield busy themselves with incrementally imposing their screwball ethics, disordered beliefs, and deviant sexuality with the determination of arrogant authoritarians everywhere.

**UPDATE: The Illinois House passed this highly controversial proposal by a partisan vote of 60 to 48 on Friday afternoon (May 28, 2021). It will be sent Governor JB Pritzker for his consideration. (Watch the video recording of the Illinois House debate.)

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to Gov. Pritzker’s administrative staff to urge him to VETO SB 818 as a terrible overreach of government. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

You can also call the Office of the Governor in Springfield at (217) 782-06830 or in Chicago at (312)814-2121.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/SB818_House.mp3

Please consider supporting the good work of Illinois Family Institute.

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

Our Springfield snollygosters are working tenaciously to provide Christian parents with a plethora of reasons to abandon government schools in Illinois. On Thursday afternoon (May 20th), the Illinois Senate took up and debated another “comprehensive” sex education bill (SB 818) that so-called “progressives” and their evil allies–Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, and Equality Illinois–are using to indoctrinate children starting in kindergarten.

This bill to corrupt children with leftist humanistic values is sponsored by Illinois State Senator Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) and passed by a partisan vote of 37 to 18 with four members not voting. It is now up for consideration in the Illinois House, where State Representative Camille Lilly (D-Chicago) is the chief sponsor.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send a message to your state representative to ask him/her to vote against SB 818. Impressionable students in public schools should not be exposed to body- and soul-destroying messages that promote leftist beliefs about sexuality.

Background

The Illinois Senate debated this controversial legislation for almost an hour on Thursday afternoon. You can watch/listen to the entire debate on the IFI YouTube channel or on our newer Rumble channel. You can also watch the embedded version at the end of this article.

It was encouraging to see five conservative senators rise to question the sponsor and/or criticize the bill. Kudos to Illinois State Senators Sue Rezin (R-Morris), Terri Bryant (R-Murphysboro), Darren Bailey (R-Louisville), Neil Anderson (R-Moline), and Jason Plummer (R-Vandalia) for boldly speaking against this terrible bill.

Regarding the hour-long debate, there are just too many fallacies, outright lies and corrupt intentions to address in one article. Here are just a few of the glaring problems.

State Senator Celina Villanueva (D-Summit), a former sex education teacher, rose to ask the sponsor, “What’s the main goal of this bill?” Senator Villivalam responded:

The main goal is to insure that our youth have the opportunity to be safe and healthy by obtaining and having access to age and developmentally appropriate, medically accurate information and making sure that no one, no one, feels excluded in their classroom. No one feels excluded in their community.

Well, the bill also demands that comprehensive sex education classes be “culturally” appropriate, which the bill defines as follows:

“Culturally appropriate” means affirming culturally diverse individuals, families, and communities in an inclusive, respectful, and effective manner, including materials and instruction that are inclusive of race, ethnicity, language, cultural background, immigration status, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, gender expression, sexual orientation, and sexual behavior.

Culturally diverse and culturally appropriate? This Planned Parenthood legislation is neither inclusive nor respectful of orthodox Jewish, Christian or Muslim families. What families from these faith traditions deem to be “developmentally appropriate” is wildly different from what Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and Equality Illinois celebrate and promote. This point is further illuminated by the floor statement made by State Senator Patricia Van Pelt (D-Chicago):

In my history, before I came here, I was a preacher, and I preached on a regular basis. When I looked at bills like this it was really, really hard for me to get my hands around it, because it was so contrary to what we teach in church. But this is a law this is not a church. And we are representatives of the people in our district. We are not their preachers. We are not their pastors. We are not the ones that’s gonna make them keep the values right or their morals right. 

I learned by being here that many of the things that we held true in the church was actually hurting our community. And I think not having that knowledge not letting those children have the knowledge about what this is [is not good]

…

I’m standing in support of this bill as a new Patricia, not the Patricia that came in here. Because the Patricia that came in here would have had a hard time even voting for it, more less standing up and saying ‘yes, these children need to know what’s happening to them.’

State Senator Van Pelt has been in Springfield since 2013, and by her own testimony, it appears she has been thoroughly corrupted by the Springfield swamp. The “new Patricia,” must have a heart of stone because she has repeatedly ignored the Holy Spirit’s promptings to do what is right. The “new Patricia” no longer has a problem upholding sexually corrupt material being taught to children.

It was also disappointing  to hear State Senator Doris Turner (D-Carlinville) assert that “families come in very different sizes and boxes and no one has the right to define what a family is and what a family should consist of.” As with “marriage,” the God of creation ordained family. It is He who has the right to define what a family is and what it is not.

Senators Van Pelt, Turner and many of their colleagues think that “knowledge” will solve the problems caused by a sexualized culture. State Senator Linda Holmes (D-Aurora) even stated on the floor during debate:

I just don’t understand it, I think what we are doing when we are teaching–again, age-appropriate, medically accurate–sex education to our children, we are arming them with knowledge, and I don’t know when that has ever been a bad thing. 

Maybe Senator Holmes doesn’t remember, or maybe she was never taught the creation story. Genesis 2:15-17 tells us:

Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Knowledge of evil is not a good thing. It leads to death. Comprehensive sex education as proposed by Planned Parenthood, et al. is evil. Exposing young, innocent and impressionable students to Planned Parenthood’s  view of “age appropriate” material normalizes early and high-risk sexual experimentation.

Perhaps the clearest denunciation of this atrocious bill came from State Senator Darren Bailey who rightly said it will put “perversion into our schools.”

I sat here and I listen to this, and I participate in what I expect to be a prestigious body. And here we are dealing with absolute nonsense of putting perversion into our schools. Yeah, that’s what it is, it’s perversion.

Thank God we still have some state lawmakers in Springfield with the moral clarity and backbone to boldly tell the truth about this insidious agenda to undermine and subvert Judeo-Christian values.

You can watch/listen to the entire 57 minutes here:

More info:

The War on Children [VIDEO]

Stop CSE Tools & Resources

Sign the Online Petition

A Plea to Exit Public Schools ASAP

Please consider supporting the good work of Illinois Family Institute.

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.