Georgia Constitution & State Law, No. 1 Reasons to Oppose S.B. 394

“Each school system shall be under the management and control of a board of education, the members of which shall be elected as provided by law.”
Constitution of the State of Georgia, Article VIII. Section V. Paragraph II
“It shall be unlawful for any person to sell or loan for monetary consideration or otherwise furnish or disseminate to a minor: Any picture, photograph, drawing, sculpture, motion picture film, or similar visual representation or image of a person or portion of the human body which depicts sexually explicit nudity, sexual conduct, or sadomasochistic abuse and which is harmful to minors.”
– O.C.G.A. 16-12-103
a. Exposing minors to sexually explicit material is a criminal offense in Georgia.
b. There is no age-appropriate time to corrupt the minds of minors – in school or elsewhere.
c. “Each public school is permitted to exclude materials that are pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable from its primary and supplementary instructional material.”

S.B. 394 requires local school boards to comply with yet-to-be-written unknown future policies and standards to be set. Subsequently, such new standards would be subject to annual adjustment by the State Board of Education.

S.B. 394, regardless of community standards, would require local boards of education to allow class-room use of material, currently, classified as restricted, harmful-to-minors and sexually explicit.
Q. Which K-12 course requires the use of such material?
S.B. 394 authorizes restricted, harmful-to-minors and sexually explicit material in grades 7-12.
Q. If it’s deemed harmful, restricted and sexually explicit for 12-year-olds in K-6, why is it authorized for 13-year-olds in grades 7-12?
FACT: There is no age-appropriate time to corrupt the minds of minors.
Q. Is using harmful and sexually explicit material meant to change community standards? Q. Who is pushing this into Georgia schools?

S.B. 394 Proposed Standards for Buying/Retaining Instructional Material
S.B. 394 does not prohibit the purchase or use of sexually explicit material. Instead, it requires vendors to identify the sexually explicit sections of the texts/materials they are selling.
S.B. 394 does not prohibit schools and school libraries from keeping and providing sexually explicit resources and books, but requires them to list online those to be retained.

BOTTOM LINE
There is no age-appropriate time to expose innocent children to sexually explicit material or that which is harmful-to-minors. There is no K-12 course requiring such to be available or used in class or the school library. This bill violates Georgia law and community standards.

ACTION – OPPOSE S.B. 394. Call Education and Youth Committee Senators Dixon, Ch., 404 656-6446; Payne, V-Ch., 463-5402; Sims, Sec., 463-5259; Brass, 656-0057, Ex-Officio; Dolezal, 656-0040, Ex-Officio; Gooch, Ex-Officio, 656-9221; Halpern, 656-9644; James, 463-1379; Parent, 656-5109; Setzler, 656-0256; Still, 656-7127; Tate, 463-8053.

Read more of about S.B. 394 and more in the latest newsletter here.