By Tomas Hoppough
KU Statehouse Wire Service
TOPEKA – The Senate Committee on Corrections and Juvenile Justice introduced a bill Wednesday that would prevent schools from promoting sexual materials some say can be harmful to minors.
Senate Bill 56 would remove affirmative defense for promoting “harmful material” to minors. Affirmative defense allows defendants to concede the committed alleged acts if there was no illegal intention.
The bill stems from a incident in 2014 when a poster on a Kansas middle school classroom door listed how people expressed their sexual feelings.
“The poster was a big mistake,” said Phillip Cosby of American Family Association of Kansas and Missouri. “We need to protect our kids.”
Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee) said state laws should safeguard the rights of parents to protect their children from harmful material, especially in schools.
“Pornography and obscene materials are becoming more and more prevalent in our society,” Pilcher-Cook said. “It’s all too common to hear of cases where children are not being protected from the harm it inflicts.”
Last year, Pilcher-Cook pushed for a House bill that would require districts to collect signed consent forms from parents if they wanted their child to learn about sexual education. The same sexual feelings poster also instigated that bill.
In 2014, a 13-year-old girl at Hocker Grove Middle School in Shwanee saw the poster on the back of a science classroom door and was “disturbed by it.” The poster listed sexual acts ranging from kissing to vaginal intercourse.
Opponents of the bill introduced Wednesday were not present in the hearing but provided written testimonies. Elise Higgins of Planned Parenthood, in her written testimony said that teachers should not be criminalized for doing their jobs of educating students on sexual health.
Other opponents of SB 56 said the bill is a solution looking for a problem.
“The affirmative defense is not a free pass to break the law and provide harmful materials to minors,” said David Schauner, General Counsel for the Kansas National Education Association. “It is, however, a protection against baseless claims attacking legitimate education programs and curriculum.”
Pilcher-Cook said educators of K-12 children should exercise thoughtful judgment on materials that could be considered offensive. Cosby said that in Kansas, minors lose their protective potency to obscene material the moment a kindergartner enters the school building.
“Times are different now,” Cosby said in his testimony. “We need to have better protection for our kids. Adults have more protection (from obscene material) than kindergartners.”
In response, committee ranking minority member Sen. Pat Pettey (D-Kansas City) said she didn’t agree with Cosby’s statements, then asked how kindergartners have less protection to obscene material than adults. Cosby responded they aren’t doing enough to protect children but did not elaborate.
The committee will continue discussion on SB 56 in mid-February.
Tomas Hoppough is a senior at the University of Kansas from Fairbanks Alaska, and is majoring in journalism.