Prairie State Wire

Newly elected state senator and Republican gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey (R-Louisville) wants the record to be clear about how he views Senate Bill 818.

“I am disgusted and appalled by the action taken on Senate Bill 818 in our legislature,” Bailey said in a statement. “The majority failed again by using their power to pass an extreme piece of legislation requiring an all-or-nothing curriculum for sex education in schools.”

SB 818, sponsored by Sen. Ram Villivalam (D-Chicago) seeks to standardize the curriculum in schools across the state, establishing each grade “has the opportunity to be safe and have access to age-and developmentally appropriate and medically accurate information.”

“Students in the 2nd grade may soon be required to identify consent, gender identity, and reproduction, while 4th and 5th graders would have to define different types of sex,” Bailey said. “The bill is obscene and fails to align with community standards outside of Chicago. I call on my colleagues in the House of Representatives to strongly look at this bill, created by outside advocacy groups, and to do justice for all students in our state.”

Bailey wasted little time making his opposition known, clashing with fellow state Sen. Mike Simmons (D-Chicago) over the bill’s makeup from the start.

With Bailey blasting the bill as “pushing perversion in our schools, Simmons, who is gay, took offense to the point of demanding that his comments be stricken from the record.   

Again, Bailey objected.

“Teachers who work hard to teach our kids about proper education have absolutely no reason in teaching this ... absolute nonsense,” he said. Bailey added his remarks about “perversion” were not related to teaching students about same-sex relationships.

SB 818 ultimately passed the Senate along partisan lines by a 37-18 vote and now advances to the House.