To think from all the photos of the embattled Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee earlier in March, one would think he was locked in a 24-hour battle for the life of his state’s 7.8 million residents. Inslee was seen everywhere as trying to abait a virus whose national epicenter — for about two weeks — was near Seattle.
But Inslee had other pots on the fire that almost no one was reporting on including a bill that mandates sex education for all public school students in Washington state.
Religious folks were very involved in opposing it, but you would have never known that fact by looking at the sparse news coverage. The devout are seething over there being a state emergency at the time with a pending ban on large groups but Inslee and his allies were hell-bent on getting this bill into law while the Legislature was still in session.
A story on MyNorthwest.com, the print version of KIRO TV Ch. 7 in Seattle tells us the basics. It’s dated March 7.
A controversial sex education bill was passed by the Washington State Legislature Saturday afternoon.
Despite a passionate fight from Republicans — who at one point added over 200 amendments in the hopes of keeping the bill requiring comprehensive sex health education from coming up for a vote — the legislation cleared its final hurdle and passed in the Senate.
Now, I am not sure why the story doesn’t mention a floor debate that went on until 2 a.m. about the bill with Republicans talking about thousands of emails flooding their inboxes (like close to 5,000) against the bill.
The bill mandates “comprehensive sexual health education” for grades K through 12. In middle school and especially in high school, the more mature topics of reproduction, STDs, and sexual assault are addressed. These lessons build on concepts taught in previous grades, such as physiology.
In elementary school, sex-ed topics will be limited to protecting the body in cases of physical assault or if somebody is inappropriately touching.
No student will be required to participate in any of these classes, with the bill providing families the ability to opt their children out.
Hmm, I thought. If that was all the bill was about, what were 3,000 protestors doing down in Olympia trying to sink this bill?
Well, as it turns out, these citizens have been hearing that the curriculum has ties to groups like Amaze.org, which has videos on porn like this one. My daughter is 14 and I wouldn’t want her watching that.
I knew that some of my Catholic friends were there. I looked up what the Christian Post had.
Around the country, particularly in politically liberal states, sex-ed curriculum and recommended resources that feature explicit descriptions of various sexual acts and cartoon images that appear pornographic have been contested by parents who do not want their children exposed to it, prompting activism, including sit-outs where children are withdrawn from school in protest of graphic sex ed. Also included in the controversial lessons is the promotion of the idea that some people might be born in the wrong body and that biological sex exists on a spectrum.
Beth Daranciang, a Seattle resident who was a Republican candidate for state senator and an activist for the protection of children and women, commented in an email to The Christian Post Monday that influential interest groups appear to be calling the shots.
"The Democrats in Washington are heavily funded by Planned Parenthood and their allies. Planned Parenthood helped develop the curriculum and is frequently mentioned in the curriculum as a resource," Daranciang said.
Really now? That’s a crucial fact to know.
I see no mention of that in an earlier piece by the Seattle Times that made everything about the bill sound like one of those boring menstruation pamphlets that girls get around 5th grade.
A survey of nearly 9,000 eighth-graders in 2018 found about two-thirds of them had been taught about abstinence and other ways to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Still, “we’ve seen an incredibly disturbing trend with a climb in (adolescent) STD rates in our state,” according to Laurie Dils, who oversees sexual health education for the state superintendent’s office.
On Thursday, she presented the recommendations of a state work group that wants the Legislature to require all public schools to provide some form of sex education to every student — from kindergarten to 12th grade — by the 2022-23 academic year.
The proposal certainly has its opponents, including politicians and parents who wonder why elementary kids need to know about reproduction and gender identity. A legislative hearing last week highlighted some questions and concerns.
What I am puzzled about is the lack of mention of religious groups opposed to the bill. Local Catholics were certainly opposed to it, but where was the Archdiocese of Seattle? Staff members there represent the state’s largest religious group on issues of this kind. Did anyone in a major newsroom think to call over there?
The bottom line, in terms of journalism: I get very suspicious when something that smells of Planned Parenthood gets zero serious press coverage.
Todd Herman, a radio talk show host with KTTH Radio, has been saying the Seattle Times and other media have purposely been hiding the curriculum’s most radical parts from the public.
Your second grade children will be taught that “some people have ‘three holes’ between their legs, some people have two.” The removal of the words “men” and “women” and “girls” and “boys” is planned and purposeful.
The curricula will teach your older children that doctors have no way of knowing if a baby is male or female. It’s an utter mystery until the child announces their sex (do you notice it’s no longer “gender”? The Sexual Left have moved the ball, so that now, your children will be taught their feelings change their biologically unchangeable).
See this link to get an R-rated look at what kids in my state are going to get served to them as tax-funded education. Are parents who are members of traditional religious faiths allowed to pull their children out of these sessions?
The reporting on this bill in the media is so non-existent or bland that I’ve had to go to religious web sites or alternate news sources to get anything.LifeSite News had this:
(Activist Katy) Faust reviewed the educational materials that comply with the bill and identified numerous alarming passages, including references to “devout Catholics” and “pretty conservative” households supposedly leaving their kids ignorant about sex, highlighting “bathing together” and “mutual masturbation” as activities with “no risk” for sexually-transmitted diseases, and references to 12-year-olds using condoms.
Other messages contained in state-approved material, she says, include instructions on bondage and “body fluid play,” how males can allegedly have babies and why they should be allowed on girls’ sports teams, and how to obtain abortions, cross-sex hormones, and HPV vaccinations without parental involvement.
If Catholics were trashed in these materials, shouldn’t reporters be telling us that? Imagine if, say, gay people had been criticized. We would have heard about that tout de suite.
Now the Spokane-based KXLY-TV says the educational material mentioned by Faust are not referenced in the actual bill. So there’s some confusion as to what does and does not go with the bill and I blame the secular media for not laying out the details in the recent months leading up to the vote. There’s been almost radio silence about the content of the sex ed curriculum so it’s no wonder parent groups are up in arms about it.
I get that coronavirus has been a big topic here but this bill has been percolating for some time.
When the state’s major media neglects to report on something important to a lot of people — even if they’re the conservatives so despised in this ultra-blue state — you have got to wonder what’s up. I can see why people suspect the media had nefarious reasons for not wanting to report on the content of this curriculum. To be honest, I don’t blame those folks at all.