Will County Gazette

Twenty-ninth House District Republican candidate Jeff Coleman is calling for community members to pay attention to sexual education being taught in schools. 

Coleman, who has been calling out some measures such as the SAFE-T Act as ill-considered also said teaching kids about adult sex education is irresponsible.

“The sex education piece – and I know educators who despise this, I’m talking about veteran teachers, retired teachers – I talked to,” Coleman told Will County Gazette. “And again, it's just irresponsible. You know, a kindergarten or third grader should be learning math or Red Light Green Light, not being taught how to self-pleasure. It's just another form of irresponsibility.”

Raising children's awareness of such things, Coleman said is iniquitous. 

 “Why is that such an important thing that our most vulnerable should have the ability to determine the path of their sexuality at such a young age?' he said. "Unlike, there are more pending important things to teach our kids for sustainability, healthy lifestyles,” Coleman said. “Sex should be taught at the proper time when a child is ready to learn about that and not be influenced by [it] at an early age. It's just too heavy for kids. It's just heavy for adults. That to me is not just a politics thing, it is an evil thing. It is just evil.”

In 2021, Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed SB 818, which will require every Illinois school that teaches sex education to conform to a set of national sex and health education standards beginning in kindergarten, Effingham Radio reported.

Coleman will be running against incumbent Rep. Thaddeus Jones (D-South Holland).

Recently, complaints from residents forced the removal of "Gender Queer" from the Harlem High School's library.  "It’s porn," Lynette Hofman said, according to WIFR, Rockford Sun reported. "We're talking incest, molestation and pedophilia."   The novel has gotten a lot of media attention because of its vivid depiction of sex scenes.

Opponents claim that the Evanston-Skokie School District 65 has implemented a "radical gender curriculum" for students in prekindergarten through third grade. The curriculum advocates educating young children about transgenderism and LGBT lifestyles, including lessons with the rainbow flag in which young children are asked to identify their sexuality by choosing a color of the flag.

Under that curriculum, four-year-olds are taught about gender indignity and sexual education, while five-year-olds are educated about transgender identity. Pronoun instruction is given to first-graders, including "she," "tree," "they," "he," "her," "him," "them," "ze," and "zir." Older pupils are informed that white Europeans imposed a "Western and Christian ideological framework" on minorities.