Prairie State Wire

Parents' rights advocacy group Awake Illinois is warning Illinois parents of efforts to mainstream sexualized curriculum in local schools. 

“The @SIECUS radical sex ed 2023 goals are outlined here. They drafted the national sex ed standards. They’re coming for your parental rights. You’ve been warned, Moms and Dads,” Awake Illinois said on Twitter.

The Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS) is a non-profit that supports heavy doses of mandatory sex education in public schools.

The Washington, D.C.-based non-profit was founded in 1964 with a focus on sexual education.

The group is clear in its partisan bias in the 2023 goals linked by Awake Illinois.

“Unfortunately, the midterm election also resulted in a divided government with the House flipping to an anti-sex education leadership in control of the chamber and an energized extremist caucus that is likely to disrupt governance,” SIECUS said in the guide.

SIECUS also advocated against efforts to remove unnecessary sexual content curricula from schools as well as books containing animated pornography.

“This past year, sex education, LGBTQAI+ rights, transgender rights, and racial justice advocates saw a sudden flurry of hate-based bills attacking vulnerable students, public school curricula, and libraries,” SIECUS said.

The group also clearly articulates and advocates a pro-abortion stance.

SIECUS has proposed the reintroduction of the Real Education and Access for Healthy Youth Act (REAHYA), which failed in 2021.

“REAHYA would fund teacher training on sex education and provide grants for comprehensive sex education to public or private entities that focus on adolescent health and education or have experience with training sex educators. In addition, REAHYA would require, rather than merely encourage, inclusiveness of LGBTQ+ youth in the funded sex education programs and would prohibit federal funding of programs that are insensitive and unresponsive to the needs of LGBTQ+ youth,” the. Human Rights Campaign posted on its website.

SIECUS has long been divisive.

In 1969, a pamphlet “SIECUS, corrupter of youth”, was released by Gordon V. Drake.

Time magazine wrote about the discord in local schools caused by the group.

“Sex education has become the most hotly debated topic in American elementary education,” Time wrote shortly after SIECUS’s founding.

In the lame-duck session, lawmakers pushed HB 5188 which would have mandated all schools teach strict sexual education standards including introducing children to gender dysmorphia.  

The bill is seen as a way of mandating the sexual education standards included in SB 818 was signed into law last year by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

That previous law allowed school districts to opt-out. The new law would require standards for all public schools.

SB 818 requires children as young as eight to be subjected to lessons on sexual education.  The law was billed as a way to standardize state and federal sexual education standards.