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Indiana House lawmakers are scheduled to hold their first discussion Monday of a bill that closely resembles a Florida law banning the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in early grades.
The House Committee on Education will take up House Bill 1608 on Monday at 8 a.m., per an agenda posted online.
The two-page bill is one of several proposals from legislators this session that address how schools must handle controversial social issues involving race and sex. It prohibits school staff and contractors from teaching lessons that “study, explore, or inform students” about topics like gender roles, stereotypes, and identity, as well as sexual orientation, in kindergarten through third grade.
It’s similar to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education statute that gained national attention last year as the “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Author Rep. Michelle Davis, a Whiteland Republican, previously described her bill in a statement as common-sense legislation.
“The goal of this bill is to empower Hoosier parents by reinforcing that they’re in the driver’s seat when it comes to introducing sensitive topics to their children,” Davis’ statement said.
The education committee usually meets on Wednesdays, but lawmakers are facing a crunch to hear bills in committee before reading deadlines during the last week of February.
Rep. Bob Behning, the GOP chairman of the education committee, did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the bill, or whether his committee will meet again on Wednesday.
The ACLU of Indiana has called for a rally at the statehouse Monday morning to oppose the bill.
“This bill sends a dangerous message to these already vulnerable youth that they are a threat to public discourse,” the organization said in a Thursday post.
With deadlines to move legislation looming, Senate lawmakers this week also scheduled a discussion for this week about a bill that would ban certain topics on race and racism from the classroom.
But the bill was unexpectedly pulled from Wednesday’s committee agenda shortly after a rally by groups who oppose such legislation.
Chalkbeat is a not-for-profit news site covering educational change in public schools.
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I don’t believe the Florida bill has ANY language that says “don’t say gay” … but the liberal media sure ran with that catchphrase to try to control the public narrative
Teaching children about sexuality is something parents ought to be in charge of… which is the true intent of the FL bill
Parents ought to wake up to the woke nonsense!
There are a lot of bigoted parents out there that would never teach there kids about acceptance. There have been decades of kids being taught in most schools to accept others no matter their race or gender. It’s all part of anti-bullying efforts. Adding sexuality to that shouldn’t be a problem.
They aren’t trying to convince kids to become part of the LGBT community. They’re just teaching them that people are different and that it’s okay to be different. A lot of LGBT youth take their own lives because their parent’s are biggots and they have no support system. Having accepting teachers, guidance counselors, and peers could save their lives. It’s also important to have sexual education that addresses LGBT youth, along with their straight classmates when they’re in middle and high school. It’s time for you to wake up and realize it’s 2023.
“They aren’t trying to convince kids to become part of the LGBT community.”
Wesley, there is abundant video footage of teachers trying to do exactly that. The site LibsOfTiktok is devoted to this subject, which of course the left is trying to take down (“unfortunately still running,” says ex-Twitter censor-in-chief Yoel Roth), rather than refute the obvious evidence. Are we supposed to stop believing our lying eyes when we watch these videos and then see follow-up reports of the teachers getting fired for grooming? Is this all a bunch of actors performing in front of green screens? That’s an awfully Alex Jonesian sort of reasoning.
It is indeed 2023. And your beloved party is infiltrated by nonces. Not saying everyone in the party is a nonce, but that your party has learned to “accept others” including those who want to sexually exploit kids. I mean, Twitter sure didn’t have a problem with such material until far-right Eland Musk came along.
Donnie, you’re correct. The Florida bill is about preventing sexualizing kids under 9 year old. Chalkbeat Indiana could have been honest and referred to it as the Parental Rights in Education bill in the title and the lede, but that would imply that Chalkbeat Indiana aspires to something other than a trashy propaganda rag.
Be bold. Be bigoted.
Yawn. Blaming the media, again.
Here’s a perspective – Michelle Davis last year championed a bill to solve a problem that didn’t even exist. That would be the transgendered sports bill, something that wasn’t even a problem in Indiana as the IHSAA had handled it, as they testified to repeatedly.
So now, this year, we are supposed to believe Davis actually found a problem in need of a solution … and isn’t just a legislator trying to build her conservative brand by appealing to all those who blame the problems in their lives on the LBGTQ community, with yet another bill that appeals to the folks with a limp grasp on reality?
So, I’d argue that Davis needs to produce some evidence, in Indiana, of this happening.
Notice that the “media” is the one suppressing the reality. They don’t even have to lie; that could get them sued for libel. They merely leave out the important truthful details that hurt their ideological aims. And can claim afterward it was a detail unavailable at the time, which gets “updated”.
It’s delusional, pretending that the subversion of women’s sports in Indiana isn’t going to happen because this is relegated to places collapsing into Mad Max style degeneracy (like my favorite bogeyman Portland). It only doesn’t exist in Indianapolis because there’s an active coalition stopping it–certainly not because of do-nothings like Hogsett or the City-County Council, many of whom would like us to be MORE like Seattle and Portland because their blinders only see “progressive” and not “bedlam”. The corrupt woke teachers are just as prevalent in Clarksville TN as they are in Boston or Seattle. Hamilton Southeastern has been trying to teach microaggressions to the kids; it’s on their website. Without organized opposition and people exposing the cockroaches, this stuff would happen in Muncie or Paoli.
Fundamentally I agree that smothering the teaching of the woke religion in schools isn’t going to make the mass psychosis go away. It’s best to argue and expose its intrinsic lunacy and irrationally, to which they respond with more Marcusian repressive tolerance.
That’s what’s so great about LibsOfTiktok Twitter. It is truly serving as a “media”–not reporting, not editorializing, merely making the mind-virus obvious to a greater number of people. Letting them know that, even if DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” isn’t going to purge the psychosis from primary ed, the fact that its ideological opponents (like Chalkbeat Indiana) can’t honestly convey what’s happening is part of the repressive tolerance itself. And people slowly see that they’re being gaslit–as manifest by the continued collapse of the legacy media that the normies on here so cherish.
“Microaggressions can be defined as everyday, subtle, intentional
or unintentional interactions or behaviors that communicate some
sort of bias toward historically marginalized groups. While
Hamilton Southeastern High School understands those
individuals communicating a microaggression might not intend
to express bias, the school recognizes the responsibility to educate
students on the reality of bias perceptions. Issues regarding
microaggressions may be addressed through restorative
conversations led by school administration, teachers, and/or
guidance counselors rather than punitive measures. Habitual
occurrences could lead to consequences applicable to
inappropriate conduct as defined in Section 28.”
https://www.larryinfishers.com/hse-board-president-reads-statement-on-microaggression-policy/
There needs to be a state law because this is unacceptable? C’mon. Next you’re going to tell me the tallest point in Indiana – a trash heap near Modoc, Indiana – is an actual mountain. (Look it up.)
Still waiting on that transgendered k-12 student who got through the IHSAA’s policies.
Whatever happened to wise and caring adults protecting the innocence of children? Those who want to exploit our children are pure evil and am glad that Rep. Davis introduced this bill and hope it is passed. There are lots of bills that are not really needed like increasing the speed of semi-trucks on our interstates, but this bill is needed, and many states will likely move in this direction to take our schools back from the left leaning camp. This must be done or many parents will pull their kids from public schools and I do not want to see that happen.
The school curriculum in Indiana is controlled by the republican party….. why does every republican I know blame something they control on the other party?
next you will blame the indiana democratic state legislatures (all 17 of them) on our failing infrastructure and rampant brain drain
While I’m not familiar with the curriculum this bit of legislation is attempting to correct, I think it ill conceived. Whether teachers provide age appropriate lessons or not, or White Christian Nation parents want it, children will be exposed to issues relating to sexuality and gender. They will see “non-conforming” people in public; they’ll see daddies and daddies, and mommies and mommies, with kids, and wonder why its not a mommy and daddy; they’ll see people who have made choices of which mommy and daddy might not approve, but it won’t matter…society is real, and society is all around them. It seems it better to have age-appropriate programs to let kids learn about this, so they can deal with it. And, maybe mommy and daddy should attend, so they can learn to deal with it. These issues are out of the closet, and they’re not going back. Children should learn how to deal with it, as the option to mommy and daddy locking up the little ones so they’re not exposed. And as for the grooming part, while I’ve not done any research, the “off the top of my head” impression is that is far more frequently an issue with the supposedly moral right. Churches, private schools, foster parents who fight gay men adopting a family because they don’t want the secret out they’ve been grooming and abusing at least one of the kids…it’s not gay men and women causing the problem…it’s the Christian Right.
If any of this were true, Tim, then maybe the leftists that you clearly support would be less keen on suppressing the uncomfortable reality that there are black/Asian/Hispanic people who fully support MAGA, that not everyone wants “Tom Sawyer” or “To Kill a Mockingbird” purged from curriculum, that drag shows have always existed (including deep red America) but people only cared when they started bringing them into children’s events. What’s next, Tim–pole dancing and stripteases for kindergartners? (That’s a rhetorical question)
The last time I was in San Francisco, back in 2019, I fortunately didn’t see anyone openly defecate in public (thankfully), but I did see someone pleasuring himself in a not-to-subtle entryway to a neglected building. It was on the edge of the Tenderloin district, which has long been known for this stuff. Let’s remember this was before COVID, before you party had fully gone social contagion. I can’t imagine how much worse it is now.
Are these the sort of “non-conforming” people you think kids need to be exposed to? Should they better understand what the man in the trenchcoat who hangs out near the playground really wants, so we can appreciate that his self-expression and unique understanding of love?
Keep pretending this this stuff ONLY happens in Christian Right churches. I mean, it’s taking place right out the open in cities run by your preferred ideology. Let the kids see it all, they should learn how to deal with it. At least as urban America collapses into third-world level homicide rates, it makes the world a bit more honest little by little.
Great comment, Tim S. As a mom and grandma, I am just sickened by what the Republicans are trying to do here. Never once has any child or grandchild of mine (nor any other child I know) been “groomed” or taught that being gay was something they should aspire to become. This is such nonsense and only serves to further the culture of hate these supposed good Christians are pushing. Also, the last people who should be dictating what happens in our classrooms are legislators – let’s please let the good teachers and parents of Indiana work out what their children will be taught, as well as when and how.
You live in an echo chamber, Mary. What’s the homicide rate like in central Indianapolis these days? Is central Indy a place where “good Christians” have a pretty powerful presence? Are those old Protestant churches filled up every Sunday morning?
When parents say, “the schools should be for reading writing and arithmetic” isn’t that them working out “what they’re children will be taught”? That’s precisely what they’re doing before woke school boards.
Lauren B….stop with the accusations and try to put forth a less verbose case, omitting generalities and non-sequitur. I’d hate to be living in your world of fear. Nonces? Really?
http://observer.necc.mass.edu/blog/2022/05/06/would-the-real-pedophiles-please-stand-up-the-irony-of-republicans-calling-democrats-pro-pedophilia/
I think it’s hilarious that Lauren B keeps posting about a TikTok channel. She loves consuming Chinese propaganda apparently. I thought MAGA was tough on China LOL.
Oh for the day when schools teach reading, writing & arithmetic
I support leftists. News to me. I do support moderate Democrats, and moderate Republicans. Though there are few of either of those left…for years I voted for Richard Lugar, Bill Hudnut, Steve Goldsmith. Even voted for John McCain for President, worried though something would happen and his VP could become President.
But I am the uncle of nephews born to my Caucasian sister and her African American husband. And I watched those kids grow up with abuse from classmates, KKK symbols being drawn on their driveway, people yelling unacceptable things at them. And so I think its important that kids, from early grades, learn about this country’s (and probably most country’s) history and that people deserve respect even if their different from you.
Lauren, you were surprised to see someone near the Tenderloin behaving inappropriately? Gee, one wonders what you were doing so near the Tenderloin? Because yes, that is ground zero for a lot of unacceptable behavior.
I don’t want Mockingbird taken from libraries, nor Tom Sawyer. But I want people to learn from an early age there was a time in this country when this was part of life, and we got past it. And, the point of Mockingbird is that the town’s top lawyer stepped up in an effort to avoid the injustice everyone knew was coming. That’s what needs to be taught.
Lauren, I don’t know that you know me, and I don’t know if I know you. but given your comments in response to my posting, I doubt it. I’m a big believer in human dignity, and fair treatment of people. I’m not a wild liberal, nor am I a rabid Republican. I think schools, and especially public schools, need to be the great social leavening, where kids learn to respect people of all sorts. And that should begin with age appropriate guidance. Not with parents deciding what their kids will need to succeed in a world the parents can’t imagine, and when they’re old enough to learn to respect others and to understand the history of how we as a country and a people got here.
“Woke.” It’s used as a slur, and I find that surprising. Because the opposite of “woke” would be “asleep” or “sleeping” or maybe “comatose,” and I don’t see a successful effort to improve the situation of this country being led by people asleep at the controls…
Schools can’t just teach readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic, because survival and success in this world requires so much more. If you can’t work in a multi-cultural society, you’ll not succeed. You need to not only learn those basics, but how to think and analyze and how to apply what you can to be in that larger world.
And as for the COVID quarantine comment, well, be glad…perhaps you, Lauren, might have been the victim of the disease and not survived to further advocate for your isolated little world…