UPDATED 10/5 at 4:30 p.m. EST: The Joint Committee on Education just announced yet another change to the hearing on the Sex Ed Mandate bills HB544/SB268. The hearing will now be held on Wednesday, October 11th at 11:00 a.m. in Hearing Room B-2 at the State House in Boston.
Registration for virtual and in-person testimony will remain open until Tuesday, October 10th at 3:00 p.m.
Last week, the Joint Committee on Education announced a hearing on the Sex Ed Mandate bills HB544/SB268. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday, October 10th, at 11:00 a.m. in the Gardner Auditorium at the State House in Boston. We strongly encourage you to attend this hearing in person or virtually to provide testimony in opposition to this very harmful, top-down sex education mandate.
Please note, that the cut-off to register to provide virtual testimony has been changed to tomorrow, October 6th, by 3:00 p.m. Those who wish to testify in person may register online by the deadline or sign up in person at the State House on the day of the hearing. We recommend that those planning to testify in person use the online registration before it closes tomorrow afternoon.
As we have warned in the past, the Planned Parenthood backed leftists at the State House, led by Representative Jim O’Day, (D-West Boylston) and Senator Sal DiDomenico (D-Everett) filed this radical, pornographic Sex Education Mandate bill, HB544/SB268. They call it the Healthy Youth Act. However, this legislation is anything but healthy for the youth of Massachusetts.
If passed the legislation in HB544/SB268 would allow the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) to mandate content contained in its newly adopted controversial Comprehensive Health and Physical Education Framework. This Framework includes standards for teaching sex education in MA public schools. Under the Sex Ed Mandate school districts that choose to teach sex ed would be forced to choose a curriculum aligned with these standards.
We’ve articulated why the new Framework is dangerous here and here. Not only will curriculum in line with the new learning standards and previously approved by DESE expose children to graphic sexual content such as how to engage in “safe” anal and oral sex and teach teens how to get an abortion without parental consent but it will also promote destructive transgender ideology beginning in preschool through 12th grade.
That’s why your legislators must hear from you right away. If you can’t make it to the hearing, or even if you can, please click here to email your legislators or make a phone call to tell them to oppose HB544/SB268, the Sex Ed Mandate bill.
Rep. O’Day has been doing Planned Parenthood’s bidding for ten years in his attempt to get this legislation passed. The election of a pro-abortion governor, Governor Maura Healey has raised his hopes for passage.
Currently, local schools can decide for themselves what and when to teach the children in their community about sex, based on the unique needs of their student populations and the desires of their parents. The Sex Ed Mandate would eliminate that control for districts that choose to include sex ed lessons in its health curriculum.
During the past two legislative cycles, the State Senate has passed the legislation, but it has always stalled in the House of Representatives. This cycle there is a real concern that the House will take it up for a vote.
As Rep. O’Day explains it, “So, if I don’t have a governor that’s going to veto this, then I only need 81 votes and not 107. So that’s a little easier for me to peddle to the Speaker’s office saying, ‘Hey, we only need 81 now, because I believe that the governor will support this bill.”
With your help, we’ve been able to stop this legislation for more than 10 years. Let’s join forces and do it again! Sign up to testify by tomorrow, October 6th at 3:00 p.m. and use MFI’s Action Center to contact your legislator today!
For our families,
Bill Gillmeister, MFI Legislative and Education Consultant
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