This report in the Michigan Messenger is a must read for people who are concerned about the problem of bullying in schools in this country, and for people who are looking for an excuse to go do a sailor dive out their window onto the pavement. The basic gist is this: Michigan's Republican-controlled state senate is pushing through a bill (yet to be agreed upon by the Republican house, although, come on...), that not only struck out any of the material pertaining to minority status bullying provisions that Democrats had tried to include, but actually added new language that would allow for faith-based bullying. The bill reads in part "God made me bash them fags up real good, so I get a free pass." Basically.
The GOP pushed through an amended bill, SB 137, which does nothing advocates have pushed for — including reporting requirements and enumeration, or listing, of protected classes. In addition, the legislation provides an exception which allows bullying based on “moral convictions.”
The full language of the insert is: “This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil and parent or guardian.”
“Research clearly shows that only states with enumerated bills see a reduction in bullying," said Emily Dievendorf, policy director of Equality Michigan. "We need a bill that mentions the most affected populations and requires statewide reporting of bullying and harassment. SB 137 simply does nothing to reduce bullying in our schools."
Reasonable people can probably argue over whether or not you need to specifically list minority groups which it's worse to bully in the language of a law, but I don't think there's anyone in the world who would argue that writing a law that says "beating up homos is bad," means anything other than what it says. Oh right, Republicans. I forgot they existed for a minute there.
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| Won't someone think of the children? The bigoted, hateful children? |
“We’re pleased that the senate has passed an anti-bullying bill that will equally protect all children from all bullying for all reasons, based on their individual worth as human beings, not on being segregated into singled-out groups for special protection,” said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan. AFA Michigan has been a leading voice opposing enumerated legislation for over a decade, often referring to the legislation as “a Trojan horse for the homosexual agenda.”
Gary Glenn is a giant pussy and I am going to give him the worst noogie of his life if I ever get my hands on him.
Glenn, to his credit, is sticking by his bullying is ok if God says so stance, as the story writes, saying in an interview “The religious free speech protections included in the bill, consistent with the First Amendment, simply ensure that students won’t be bullied or punished — as occurred last year at a high school in Howell — for daring to say they believe a certain behavior is wrong as a matter of sincerely held religious or moral conviction. The First Amendment and other free speech protections do just that, protect free speech, not bullying. And students, like all other Americans, are free to verbally express their opinions — including religious and moral views — without fear of government repression or persecution, including under anti-bullying or harrassment laws.”
Oh, so it's just about freedom of speech then. A speech like this, for example: "God says you're an abomination and you're going to burn in Hell for pointing your boner in the wrong direction." When you frame it in that context, I suppose it's hard to argue with.
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15 comments:
I feel sick.
Out of shape old white guys should probably stop fucking with a population whose primary stereotype is a jacked dude who hits the gym a lot (none taken). Maybe a big homo bully should punch Gary Glenn and all his friends in the dick until they shut up and hand over their lunchboxes.
A lot of guys like this desperately want to get their cocks gay punched..that's the problem.
And yet that it's now illegal to be a vegetarian in French schools goes completely unnoticed here.
Where? On my american dick joke blog?
Freal tho, what's the story there?
I'm inclined to think you probably wouldn't get what Bob and Gavin don't get, but I'll email you the story. You wouldn't be able to publish it because it's not funny, fun, or simple.
Yeah go ahead and send. I don't think Gavin and I have much in common as regards political stuff.
Any adult "concerned" about bullying is an idiot.
I know, right?
Fifth Gay Teen Suicide in Three Weeks Sparks Debate
http://abcnews.go.com/US/gay-teen-suicide-sparks-debate/story?id=11788128
Sad things happen, and will happen, and one of those sad things is that kids will be mean and tease and bully. That's not a problem you can fix with legislation and tv specials - you can only raise your kid to be compassionate and teach him or her judo.
But anyway five people in a country of three hundred and fifty million. That is an epidemic of relatively easily fathomable proportions. But let's say it was a hundred times that number, and all of us were very concerned. How do we fix this problem? Well all we have to do is change the very nature of childhood, which is to say the nature of humanity itself, and then bam no more bullying.
As an aside, in that article you linked, one of the kids wasn't bullied, and another was a kid who was himself an anti-gay bully before becoming an anti-bully gay. But what's notable, I think, is look how old some of these fellows are - mayhap part of the problem is that the perpetually infantile American male acts, even well into adulthood, like a child.
Like many of the things you say here I don't think they are necessarily logically wrong, just lacking in empathy.
You can, in fact, make bullying less of a problem, by making sure it is not tolerated in schools. It is not ok for gay children to be made to feel alien and less-than.
You're arguments that things are "human nature" and therefor can't be changed are too pessimistic. Murder comes to us very naturally. Do does rape. Why bother frowning upon those then?
Murder and rape come naturally to you?
I said us, meaning humanity. I have thankfully neither murdered nor raped anyone, and would like to keep it that way, however, I do think both of those things are intrinsic to human's base nature, as, oh, I dunno, our entire history suggests.
I was bullied at certain points during my school career, I bet you were too. Don't you feel like it kind of helped make you into the man you were today? Would you really want some uptight dipshit adult stepping in to try to make things better? Do you think that would have helped?
The one big difference about those days and these days though is the internet being a total thing. That adds a whole new wrinkle I'm sure, with the facebook bullying and all. Millions of kids still get through it though without killing themselves. I think if you kill yourself you are kind of fucked in the head anyway. I don't know how big a difference teh bulliez make.
Yeah, people who grew up before the internet have an entirely different set of experiences to draw from in this regard. I don't know if I was ever bullied, per say, but I was teased/made fun of pretty extensively until like 7th grade, as a chubby little dork. But then that ended pretty promptly once I matured.
If the young men had to see shit like "Luke O'Neil is a fat nerd we don't want to play with at recess and he's a fag too and he eats his boogers" on facebook or whatever, maybe it would have been different.
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