Democrats in Michigan’s state House are attempting to ram through “radical” sex education changes in the weeks before control of the body flips back to Republicans.
Earlier this week, nearly two dozen Michigan House Democrats introduced HB 6068, which seeks to make major changes to the Revised School Code Act of 1976. The changes range from allowing schools to distribute condoms to giving schools a green light to teach students that abortion is a “method of family planning” and “reproductive health.”
One of the biggest revisions proposed in the new bill is to remove a ban on distributing “a family planning drug or device” on public school property. The proposed amendments to the 1976 law would also add leftist gender terms and require that schools “affirmatively recognize that individuals have different sexual orientations and gender identities and, when discussing or providing examples of relationships, be inclusive of various gender relationships.”
While the changes would still allow schools to teach that abstinence is a “responsible and effective method” of preventing pregnancy and infections, the bill would remove a line referring to abstinence as “a positive lifestyle for unmarried people.” The new bill also keeps in place an option for parents to pull their children out of sex ed.
Some Republicans have raised alarms about HB 6068, with Republican state Rep. Jaime Greene calling it “a clear overreach that strips away the foundational emphasis on abstinence, undermining a responsible approach to sexual health education.”
“It introduces sensitive topics like gender identity, sexual orientation, and reproductive rights, which many parents feel are completely inappropriate for young students,” Greene added in a statement.
Greene told The Daily Wire in a phone call on Thursday that “people are tired of partisan politics” and she expects many parents to opt their children out of sex education if the bill passes. Greene stressed that teaching age-appropriate sex education is still important, but said that Democrats’ proposed changes to the 1976 law aren’t in line with the average Michigan resident.
“Sex ed is supposed to be teaching about biology and how your body works, how it makes a baby, not necessarily you’re identity,” she said.
The bill was referred to the Education Committee after it was introduced by state Reps. Rachel Hood, Emily Dievendorf, Samantha Steckloff, Kara Hope, Veronica Paiz, Natalie Price, Jenn Hill, Penolope Tsernoglou, Lauri Pohutsky, Regina Weiss, Felicia Brabec, Jennifer Conlin, Donavan McKinney, John Fitzgerald, Amos O’Neal, Cynthia Neeley, Julie Brixie, Carrie Rheingans, Phil Skaggs, Noah Arbit, Kimberly Edwards, and Helena Scott — all Democrats.
Hood, one of the bill’s strongest advocates, told Bridge Michigan, “Comprehensive sex education takes a wider lens: enabling students to make healthy choices for themselves and their relationships — and lets these conversations begin long before sex or puberty at developmentally appropriate levels.”
Pohutsky, the Speaker Pro Tempore, said the bill “is absolutely a priority” for her to get passed in the lame duck session, which continues until the end of December. Greene blasted Democrats for continuing to push a “radical agenda” in Michigan despite losing the state House in the election.
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“Clearly Michigan spoke, and we had a major overturn in a lot of school boards as well just on the transgender issue,” she said. “We’re exploiting children for political gain and for a political ideology that has just taken off in the last couple of years and is not what most people in our country or even in the world actually believe.”
The Daily Wire has reached out to Pohutsky for comment.
Republicans took back control of the state House in the 2024 election and will hold 58 of the 110 seats at the beginning of January. If the sex ed reform bill is passed before then, it would go to the Democrat-controlled Michigan Senate, and then to the desk of Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
