Anti-gay rights groups block N. Carolina school bullying bill

Posted on July 22, 2008
Filed Under Gay News Blog

A flood of calls and mail from social conservatives who don’t want gay students on a list of potential bullying targets helped stall votes on a proposed school safety law.

Legislators have been working on a bullying bill for more than a year, and until Tuesday morning thought they had a compromise that would pass both House and Senate.

But the bill stalled over a list that included “sexual orientation” as one of more than a dozen reasons a student might be bullied or harassed. Both the House and Senate plan to vote on a bullying bill before they finish work this week, though it is not certain what it will say.

Opponents want the whole list removed. Those who want the law to list potential targets said the descriptions are necessary because some bullying is ignored or tolerated as “kids being kids.”

“When people are being ignored, you have to be specific sometimes,” said Brian Lewis, lobbyist for the North Carolina Association of Educators.

The Christian Action League is asking people on its mailing list to tell legislators to oppose it, and the North Carolina Family Policy Council has written extensively on its view that homosexual rights groups are using the issue of school safety to promote a social agenda.

“This is a watershed issue, and if ‘sexual orientation’ is enacted into North Carolina law through HB 1366, it will serve as the basis for affirming deviant sexual behaviors throughout our state statutes,” read a brief that Bill Brooks, Family Policy Council executive director, gave to legislators.

Brooks said schools should prohibit bullying for any reason and the law would be stronger without the descriptions.

Anti-gay rights groups block N. Carolina school bullying bill
McClatchy Washington Bureau, DC -