Oppose SB 1619 (Hearing in Committee on March 8th)
SENATE BILL 1619, sponsored by State Senator Heather A. Steans (D-Chicago), is a legislative proposal that would create a so-called "Personal Responsibility Education Program Act." This bill is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Public Health Committee at the State Capitol, 212, in Springfield on Tuesday, March 8th at 1:00pm.
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 affect of this would be to shut out all abstinence education programs that focus on abstaining from sex until marriage and that stress character-building. Abstinence education programs aimed at older age-groups have research-based and well-documented information on what sexually transmitted diseases are and how they are contracted as well as teen STD statistics.
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" (80). [Emphasis added.]
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.
Additionally, the so-called "peer-reviewed journals" refuse to publish articles that provide evidence that abstinence education is more effective than "comprehensive sex ed," so there will be no peer-review reviewed journal articles to support abstinence programs. The system is rigged to keep abstinence programs off the list of possible choices even though they are more effective in stopping and/or preventing sexual activity in young people than comprehensive sex ed programs.
Take ACTION: Send an email or a fax to your state senator and to the members of the Senate Public Health Committee asking them to oppose SB 1619 in order to protect school children from graphic, inappropriate, and value-laden sex education programs, and urge him/her to stand with character-building abstinence education programs.
Role Senator Party E-Mail Fax
Chairperson : William Delgado D wdelgado@senatedem.ilga.gov (773) 292-1903
Vice-Chair : Mattie Hunter D hunter@senatedem.state.il.us (217) 782-1631
Member: Susan Garrett D ilsenate29@sbcglobal.net (217) 782-2331
Member: Michael Noland D noland@senatedem.state.il.us (217) 782-2115
Member: Jeffrey M. Schoenberg D enator@jschoenberg.org (847) 492-1202
Member: Heather A. Steans D hsteans@senatedem.ilga.gov (217) 782-2115
Min. Spksprsn : Dave Syverson R info@senatordavesyverson.com (217) 782-9586
Member: Shane Cultra R ShaneCultra53@yahoo.com (217) 782-3213
Member: Christine J. Johnson R call (217) 782-8022 for email (217) 782-4885
Member: Carole Pankau R carole@pankau.org (217) 557-3908
