Illinois Valley Times

Illinois State Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris) recently spoke out on social media against House Bill 5188, which would require all districts to teach the same sex education materials across the country.

"Even though nearly 70% of schools chose not to teach the controversial sex education standards, legislators in Springfield are attempting to pass a last minute, lame duck amendment to a bill that would require ALL school districts in Illinois to teach those inappropriate standards," she said in a Facebook post. "You spoke out then, we need you to speak out again! Call your legislators and tell them to vote no on this mandate."

In a recent tweet, Rezin gave more background on how the Senate found out about the bill. 

"There had been little to no warning that this bill would be coming, but it was assigned to the Senate Executive Committee shortly after it was officially made public," she said. "It appears that they didn’t like the fact that nearly 70 percent of school districts opted out."

Rezin also spoke on WCSJ’s People are Talking about the bill. 

"The bill was passed along party lines with no Republican votes," she said. "I mean this is just a perfect example, look at the details of the bill, of a very progressive agenda by very progressive majority in Springfield that's being passed. I mean this sex education bill completely rewrite standards for sex education being taught in our school. If you just look at the groups behind this piece of legislation that actually wrote the legislation, Planned Parenthood was the primary person who testified and helped to write this legislation so I mean it's completely out of line. Kindergarten and first-graders are supposed to be able to know the difference between consent and not, they should be able to understand gender identity, all different types of gender identity. In 5th grade you're supposed to understand what hormone blockers are. I mean it is just very progressive piece of legislation, and more importantly leaves out [that] the groups that put this together are not reflective of many of the groups and beliefs that people in our district have, especially for the family unit in terms of allowing families to teach their children at the appropriate time and having the conversation with their children at the appropriate time."

House Bill 5188 was sponsored by Rep. William Davis (D-Hazel Crest) and Rep. Terra Costa Howard (D-Lombard). The last action taken was that there was a suggestion to adopt with a Senate amendment.