State Sen. Jeff Holy (6th District, R-Cheney) is asking Gov. Jay Inslee to veto a controversial K-12 sex education bill passed by the Legislature along party lines.
OLYMPIA – Sixth District Sen. Jeff Holy is hoping Gov. Jay Inslee will use his veto pen and strike down a controversial K-12 comprehensive sex education bill that passed both the House and Senate recently along party lines.
After a six-hour debate that ended at 2 a.m., the Senate adopted ESSB 5395 by a 27-21 vote early last Saturday, March 7, with all Democrats voting in favor and all Republicans voting no. In a March 10 news release, Holy called for Inslee to veto the legislation.
"In the past week or so, my office received over 500 emails and about 100 phone calls from people who were angry about the sex-education bill and didn't want the Legislature to pass it," Holy said. "Despite strong opposition from every part of the state, our Democratic colleagues still passed a bill that goes much too far and removes local control of our schools."
On the floor prior to his no vote on March 7, Holy said the bill appeared to be a matter of indoctrination rather than education.
"It appears that the parents' values are completely ignored, not just as the beginning but all the way through the process," Holy said. "Over the years, we've heard about the distaste over the objectification of women as sex objects. And yet what we're attempting to do through this type of education is to cause an objectification of sex itself, or desensitization at a minimum."
Democrats in arguing for the bill disagreed. The goal of ESSB 5395, as stated in a March 7 news release, is to provide Washington students tools needed to engage in safe, consensual relationships as adults as well as teaching skills to identify and prevent sexual abuse.
"The hard work that we put into this bill – in both House and Senate – is well worth it because it will improve safety for our children statewide," bill sponsor Sen. Claire Wilson (D-Auburn) said in the release. "We must ensure that our kids have the tools and knowledge they need to recognize and resist inappropriate behavior."
Wilson added the legislation will also help younger children from being targeted by pedophiles by recognizing wrong behavior and help teens feeling pressure to have sex.
According to the bill's final report, every public school must provide comprehensive sex education to each student by the 2022-2023 school year beginning with students in grades 6-12 in the 2021-2022 school year. This education includes teaching the concept of affirmative consent to have sex among older students, information on the physiological, psychological and sociological development processes experienced by an individual along with health care prevention resources.
The text of the bill, available online through the Access Washington website, retains a previous provision in the law allowing any parent or legal guardian of a child the option to have their child excluded from any planned instruction of comprehensive sex education through a written request to do so. The new bill adds the language that any request to do so "must" be granted.
Holy pointed out that televised coverage of the House floor debate on the bill carried the onscreen disclaimer "Mature subject matter – viewer discretion advised."
"This type of warning is a clear sign of how inappropriate this bill is and why the Legislature should not have passed it," Holy said.
The bill heads to Inslee's desk for approval or veto.
John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].
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