While the latest government studies show that abstinence education is effective with children, controlling liberals in Illinois plan to scrap the state's long-standing abstinence-until-marriage education, in favor of explicit sex training/instruction.
UPDATE 3/22/11: Sex education curriculum details
-- From "Bill Status of SB1619" 97th Illinois General Assembly, 3/15/11
The "Personal Responsibility Education Program Act" (SB 1619) passed out of the Senate Public Health Committee by a 6-4 party-line vote. The bill has been "placed on Calendar Order of 2nd Reading March 16, 2011" (on the Senate floor).
From "Sex-Ed Bill in Springfield Would Outlaw Abstinence Programs" by Ralph Rivera, Lobbyst, Illinois Family Institute 3/5/11
SB 1619 mandates that all elementary and secondary public schools that offer sex education or sexual health education programs must choose only programs from a list of curricula approved by the Illinois Department of Human Services. The [effect] of this would be to shut out all abstinence education programs that focus on abstaining from sex until marriage . . .
The only approved curricula would be so-called "comprehensive sex education" programs which include condom-training, teaching "tolerance"(i.e. approval) of homosexual lifestyles; various ways of sexual self-gratification; condom usage; information on how to be close to a person without having intercourse, including "body massage, bathing together, masturbation, sensuous feeding, fantasizing, watching erotic movies, and reading erotic books and magazines [from Focus on Kids - ages 9-15]." Another program for adolescents, "Be Proud Be Responsible," states, "Go to the store together. Buy lots of different brands and colors [of condoms]. Plan a special day when you can experiment. Just talking about how you'll use all of those condoms can be a turn on."
SB 1619 states that approved curricula must be "medically accurate and developmentally and age appropriate." It also states that "medically accurate" means "verified or supported by the weight of research conducted in compliance with accepted scientific methods and published in peer-reviewed journals...or comprising information that leading professional organizations [like Planned Parenthood's Alan Guttmacher Institute]...." Despite the fact that abstinence education programs are both medically accurate and supported by sound research, the pro-comprehensive sex ed proponents reject them for ideological reasons, and it is their voices that the Department of Human Services will hear.
SB 1619 also states that program "instruction must be free from bias in accordance with the Illinois Human Rights Act." Thus, the approved programs will be those that focus on "tolerance," that is, approval, of homosexuality -- one of the bases for a protected class in the Illinois Human Rights Act.
The bill also removes "until marriage" in the requirement that all sex education courses teach "abstinence until marriage" . . . since homosexuals in Illinois cannot marry marriages, some argue that teaching abstinence until marriage is "discriminatory" and in violation of the Illinois Human Rights Act.
To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.
Also read Abstinence Education Effective, Fed Study Shows as well as Illinois Schools Consider Children's Recommendation for Sex Instruction
