A bill directing schools to adopt anti-bullying procedures was introduced in the Minnesota Senate on Thursday. The Safe Schools for All legislation (SF 971) will require school boards to implement policies against bullying, ensure training for school staff and collect data on bullying incidents. The legislation was crafted by LGBT groups but will prohibit bullying for every child.
The bill covers “actual or perceived race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, disability, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, physical characteristics, and association with a person or group with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics.” It also adds electronic forms of bullying.
According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, at least 30 percent of students, or 5.7 million, are involved in some form of bullying every year. About 10 percent of students report staying home from school at least once a year because of bullying.
The bill is likely to face opposition from the Minnesota Family Council because it specificiall references sexual orientation and gender identity. When Minneapolis Public Schools was considering an anti-bullying curriculum that included LGBT students and students from LGBT families, the Family Council opposed it. “Let’s stick with the basics,” said Churck Darrell, the group’s communications director. “We oppose homosexual marriage, anti-bullying and sex education curricula that affirms homosexual behavior because the medical evidence proves it is a killer.”
The bill is being introduced by DFL Sens. Scott Dibble of Minneapolis, Charles Wiger of Maplewood, Sandy Rummel of White Bear Lake and Tom Saxhaug of Grand Rapids.














11 Comments »
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 1:49 pm
This cowardly attack on kids is DOA if it gets to the Governors desk.
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 2:10 pm
“State health officials are reporting a spike in the contraction of syphilis in Minnesota, with early cases up 40 percent in 2008 compared with the previous year and a sharp increase also being linked to homosexual activity.”
http://www.startribune.com/local/40434042.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUUF
This is the information about homosexuals kids need to keep them safe.
Comment posted February 27, 2009 @ 2:17 pm
Did you even read this post? Or just offer anti-gay comments as a knee-jerk reaction?
Comment posted February 28, 2009 @ 1:38 am
Icycle,
Treponema pallidum causes syphilis and it is transmitted through sexual activity of any kind.
The CDC state that:
“The surest way to avoid transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, including syphilis, is to abstain from sexual contact or to be in a long-term mutually monogamous relationship with a partner who has been tested and is known to be uninfected.”
Abstention has nothing to do with homosexuality. Monogamy has nothing to do with homosexuality.
Are you saying that heterosexuals are not at risk for syphylis?
Does allowing bullying prevent syphylis?
What is your point?
Comment posted March 2, 2009 @ 10:31 am
These are thought crimes. All thought crimes.
Electronic forms of bullying?
Besides, isn’t the neighborhood bully a rite of passage, a challenge to face, an expression of personal growth and a lesson in how to overcome advesrity?
I ask again (I always ask) how we can teach tolerance to our children in this age of zero tolerance?
We do not need more anti-hate legislation in this format or in this place.
Comment posted March 3, 2009 @ 10:25 am
Has icecycle heard of the term “saddlebacking”? Stupid sexual behavior is not limited to one group. Ignorance kills.
Similarly, the neighborhood bully as a rite of passage is as outdated a notion as abstinence education. Barry Tudor, if you want your kids to experience personal growth in the form of a bully, you go right ahead. I’ll have mine take a trip to the Boundary Waters. Or join Girl Scouts. Or get a tongue piercing.
Comment posted March 4, 2009 @ 2:07 pm
yea, you do that, the tongue thing. Teach your kids that the government will protect them, that the police will save them.
You do that.
Comment posted March 4, 2009 @ 10:38 pm
The problem with this bill is that it addresses special interest groups. If we want equal rights for all human beings why do we keep separating them out in groups? The bullying of any child is wrong period. To oppose all bullying is not to affirm anything but a desire to protect all children.
On the other hand, it does appear to me that bullying in schools has flourished under these zero tolerance policies. Bullies don’t follow policies. That is what makes them bullies. Children, and even teachers, are no longer allowed to protect themselves. When I was a kid, the principal would occasionally have to take a bully in to his office. When the kid came out, he thought twice about bullying again. The discipline needs to match the offense. Today the principal would be charged with a crime and the bully would be considered the victim.
Comment posted March 10, 2009 @ 2:51 pm
So, icecyle, Barry, so you think bullying is acceptable? Or do you just think it is acceptable as long as the victim is “different?” Recently a little girl was repeatedly sexually assaulted (touching her private parts, exposing themselves to her) on a school bus. The parents brought this to the attention of the driver and the school repeatedly, but it was not dealt with. The boys continued on with the behavior. Now there is a lawsuit. How would you feel if the little girl was a transgendered child? Do you think that child deserves such treatment? The reason kids do these horrible things is because they are raised up to be a******s by parents with attitudes like yours. Times have changed and we are not just dealing with the “neighborhood bully” anymore. All kids need protection from attitudes like yours.
Comment posted March 23, 2009 @ 6:22 pm
Discussion over this bill has brought a handful of ignorant bigots out in the open, like Tom Prichard of the so-called “Minnesota Family Council”. To these idiots, beating up disabled kids or kids who “look different” is a family value.
What’s their point these north country hillbillies are trying to make? Well, it’s something like “if I caint get ya to give up being gay, I’ll beat it outa ya!”
How enlightened.
Comment posted May 21, 2009 @ 10:22 am
I don’t know why people would argue against this bill in the first place. Do they not want children to be protected? Abuse is now suddenly okay because, hey, we don’t want to protect a handfull of kids who are percieved as gay? I’m a junior in High School, and I hear derogatory remarks all day. And it doesn’t just effect the person to whom the remarks are directed. It effects everyone around them. “Fag” “Gay” “Retarded” and more. Why is this descrimination tolerated? Why do teachers allow it, and even encourage it? It doesn’t seem to make sense.
As to not wanting the bill to be passed because it refers to specific special interest groups, that’s just an outdated way of looking at it. It refers to those groups because the kids doing the bullying refer to those groups. If we don’t address the probelm specifically, the bill will be too open to interpretation and able to be ignored.
Kids like me need something like this to protect them. The school isn’t doing it. Teachers aren’t doing it. Parents are prevented from doing it. Why argue against saving lives? It doesn’t even make sense.
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