Prairie State Wire

When Laurie Higgins heard that a bill would be filed proposing sex education beginning in kindergarten, she became concerned.

“It's unbelievable,” said Higgins, cultural affairs writer with the Illinois Family Institute. “Of course, the Left is doing this because they're presumptuous and arrogant. They think they have the right to inculcate other people's children with their leftist beliefs using those parents' money.”

State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) filed the Responsible Education for Adolescent and Children's Health (REACH) in the General Assembly.

“The idea that girls can be born in a boys’ body is not a fact,” Higgins told the Prairie State Wire. “They're teaching children ideas, assumptions, and Leftist faith-based beliefs as if they are facts and it's not age-appropriate. Secondly, they're not teaching facts. They are teaching their own leftist values. Third, these ideas might be destructive.”

But state Rep. Kathleen Willis (D-Northlake) told Center Square that because children are being bullied at younger ages, she presented the bill to the House.

Some children are susceptible to the coercion and control associated with sexual bullying, according to the Anti-Bullying Alliance.

“It is not the job of public school teachers to try to solve every problem that exists in the world,” Higgins said. “Most children are not sexually molested at age 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 years old. So, why should we be introducing disturbing ideas to children who have never experienced it and whose parents have properly protected them from the deviant things that go on in the world?”

Center Square further reported that, if enacted, the following initiatives would likely be implemented under REACH:

Sex education in kindergarten through second grade would include lessons on personal safety and respecting others. 

“The problem is the Left uses this ambiguous language that they can fill in with whatever they want,” Higgins said. “They want it to be mandated and they want it to start in kindergarten.”

Third- through fifth-grade subject matters would include anatomy, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression.

“Illinois doesn't by law mandate sex ed, but I don't know any middle schools that don't offer sex ed and if they do, it has to be comprehensive sex ed...,” Higgins said.

Sixth- through 12th-grade subject matters would include abstinence, birth control and prevention of STDs.

“Comprehensive sex ed was mandated quite a few years ago in Illinois under a disastrous bill, which we fought tooth and nail," Higgins said. "We lost because Springfield is a disaster, but particular teachers may choose not to address some of the controversial issues."

The Illinois Family Institute is actively planning to oppose the measure.

“What we usually do is encourage people to write to lawmakers and provide a means by which it's very easy for them to do so,” Higgins added. “We’re also increasingly now encouraging churches to create affordable private schools for Christian parents so that they can pull their kids out of public school.”

If passed, the REACH Act will bring Illinois in line with 30 other states that require sex ed.