The new Health Education Standards has been a hot button issue in Nebraska for the last couple of months, particularly as parents learn more how the State Board of Education is pushing to make the LGBTQ agenda front and center for children as young as Kindergarten. Spearheading this effort to educate parents about the new standards is Matt Innis, who has been giving presentations throughout the state of the topic — and posting memes online to get the word out. Innis tried unsuccessfully to unseat Senator Ben Sasse in 2020, and since then has been focused on getting the word out about these new “Health Education” standards.
On Monday, August 2, gave a presentation to the River City Republicans at the Garden Café in Omaha. His presentation included many slides covering the radical groups behind the new standards and some of the details of the standards themselves.
Among the new gudelines are the following:
- In 1st Grade, students “define gender, gender identity, and gender-role stereotypes.”
- In 4th Grade, students “distinguish between sex assigned at birth and gender identity
and explain how they may or may not differ.” - In 5th Grade, students “explain that gender expression and gender identity exist
along a spectrum.” - In 6th Grade, students “define and explain differences between cisgender, transgender, gender non-binary, gender expansive, and gender identity. Define sexual identity and explain a range of identities related to sexual orientation (e.g. heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian, gay, queer, two- spirit, asexual, pansexual).”
The backlash has been so intense that the State Board of Education has been forced to tone them down the language in the standards a bit just this week, but this seemed to be mostly for show.
A little over 50 people came to hear the presentation, among them former State Senator Merv Riepe, two school board members, and a couple currently suing Westside Community Schools because a teacher there slandered their daughter by telling students that she was a racist and tried to the “N-word.” It was a very friendly crowd overall, and it seems like I’m seeing the same people more frequently as they get involved and organized in events like this one.
I had the chance to ask Matt Innis if he had any plans for running for office again, and he said, “No — the minute I run for office, I won’t be able to have events like this one, because then it’d be considered a campaign event.”
