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Seattle's KIRO TV 7 says, "Democrats in Washington state thought they had just passed a routine sex education requirement for public schools earlier this year"..."but there has been a historic backlash."
The resulting referendum on the November ballot marks the first time in the country that such a decision on sex ed will be decided by voters.
Be informed and encouraged, not misled.
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KIRO says: "Democrats in the famously liberal state say they want to protect young people from sexual abuse, diseases, and infections. But increasingly outnumbered and aggrieved Republicans have taken issue with the content of the standards as they rally for local control."
And, they say: "The resulting referendum on the November ballot marks the first time in the country that such a decision on sex ed will be decided by voters."
Citizen directed legislation sounds like a good idea. There should be more of that. In fact, America's Founding Fathers thought it was a great idea and created a country on that premise---they called the idea "We the people..."
This is about more than "aggrieved" Republicans.
Parents across the country are more and more having to compete with public schools in deciding what their children will be taught and not be taught.
Public education has become little more than "indoctrination" by the far-Left so-called "progressives" who want to dismantle America's institutions and, as Barack Obama loved to say, "create a more perfect union."
There are hundreds of occasions where parents have discovered, after the fact, that their local public schools have been teaching their children materials that stand in stark contradiction to the deeply held beliefs of the family.
Republicans are much more than "aggrieved"---and it's much more than "Republicans" who are fed up with the Left trying to steal our children---using the public schools as their staging area.
Courtney Normand, director of a Planned Parenthood affiliated political group in the state, is leading the campaign in support of the sex ed bill.
She says she thinks this is "a political, partisan turn-out goal rather than an intention about student safety."
With her "virtue signaling" on full display, she says her coalition didn't "mobilize during the campaign because of Gov. Inslee's 'stay at home order'." And she is "dismayed" that these people gathered signatures against the governor's orders.
She's right, these "aggrieved" politically "partisan" people did indeed gather signatures because it's about much more than politics and partisanship.
They submitted 264,000 signatures, the most gathered for a referendum to overturn an existing bill or law in the last 40 years.
It was double the amount needed to make the Nov. 3 ballot---with about 66% of them coming from churches---mostly Catholic.
The Planned Parenthood people repeatedly refer to the referendum effort as being "Republican-led," but a closer look at the leadership and their motives tells a different story.
The leadership of Referendum 90
The effort has been led by Mindie Wirth, a tech company manager, and mom who lives in a Seattle suburb, who decided enough was enough. She believes parents should be involved in what their children are taught about sex and other issues as well.
Wirth says:
"We focused very heavily on getting petitions out in the mail. We started with that, and then Washington Catholic Conference made an announcement...basically supporting signature gathering for Referendum 90 at churches in the parking lot."
She says:
"Following this announcement, tents were set up at Catholic churches, and people would just show up, drive through, get a petition, sign it, and our signature gatherers would wear masks and sanitize pens, although they often advertised to 'bring your own pen'."
Why the bill must be overturned.
Washington State does not mandate core curricula such as math, English, or science, but the state requires---demands, this comprehensive sex ed for all students K-12.
Wirth says the "curriculum has been essentially written by some unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats within our central office of the superintendent of public instruction in Olympia."
This law was very, very important to the Superintendent of Instruction Chris Reykdal. So much so that Gov. Inslee, in the midst of the pandemic, while students were idled at home, took time to sign it into law because it was a "top priority for the state's school chief."
Earlier, several thousand people stood on the steps outside the Capitol, urging Gov. Inslee to veto the bill. That was not to be. Planned Parenthood would never have allowed that.
Among those standing on the steps was Maia Espinoza, a teacher and leader in the Hispanic community who has since announced she will run for Superintendent of Public Instruction against the bill's author.
The bill is anti-parent and anti-Christian faith.
There are topics in the material that are covered that are very problematic to any conservative person of faith---especially parents.
Many Christian activist groups have outlined at length the issues in this one-size-fits-all government-created sex ed for kids---the material is always the same because, at the core, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the LGBTQ groups own the so-called "progressives" in government who put this stuff on the captive kids in public schools.
This link gives more detail regarding the content of the mandated material.
An opportunity for Washington voters to right a wrong.
This is a chance to kill a bill that will harm children, while driving a wedge between the parent and the child, in many cases, and to indoctrinate children toward a secular world view.
The takeaway
The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy is a book that speaks to many issues that God's people must face. It's a book of renewal and redemption. And a book of instruction.
The generation Moses was speaking to was facing many of the same problems their parents had faced before them. And they were about to enter and conquer the Promised Land.
One reoccurring theme concerns the children: 6:5-9:
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gate."
And should we fail to be obedient and vigilant in these things, we read in chapter 28 this warning:
(v 32) "Your sons and your daughters shall be given to another people, and your eyes shall look and fail with longing for them all day long; and there shall be no strength in your hand."
(v41) "You shall beget sons and daughters but they shall not be yours; for they shall go into captivity."
Teaching children is the responsibility of the parents, not the state.
Be Informed. Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Faithful. Be Prayerful.