License to Bully law

[Revolution starts with U]

Thank you very much Pomandres (Man-shepard ;)) for posting this in the Discrimination forum. I feel this needs to be posted here as well, for our restricted users to see and engage with as well.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2011/11/03/360387/michigan-senator-condemns-republican-license-to-bully-as-worse-than-doing-nothing/

http://michiganmessenger.com/53702/senate-passes-license-to-bully-legislation

http://www.change.org/petitions/the-governor-of-mi-stop-the-license-to-bully-legislation




Yesterday, the Michigan Republican-controlled Senate passed a “license to bully” bill (http://michiganmessenger.com/53702/senate-passes-license-to-bully-legislation), which not only neglects to protect students based on sexual orientation or gender identity, but creates a special exception for bullies who have a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”

[DeBon]

Seeing things like this make me want to convert from agnosticism to straight up militant atheism...

[Bud Struggle]

This is what comes from trying to regulate freedom of speech. It is sad that people don't respect each other for who they are--but when you tamper with what and how people want to express themselves all you get is law and law protecting one side against another.

Schools and parents should teach children to respect on another but laws should never be made on what one person can say to another person.

[#FF0000]

This is what comes from trying to regulate freedom of speech. It is sad that people don't respect each other for who they are--but when you tamper with what and how people want to express themselves all you get is law and law protecting one side against another.

Schools and parents should teach children to respect on another but laws should never be made on what one person can say to another person.

This post comes off to me as a complete non-sequitur because bullying and harrassment are not protected free speech anyway.

[Zostrianos]

The Right goes as far as claiming that it's the gays who are the real bullies:
gpgtcrAeqUQ

[Bud Struggle]

This post comes off to me as a complete non-sequitur because bullying and harrassment are not protected free speech anyway.

If you read the article you'd see that what the legislature was tying to do origionally was to set up certain thing that couldn't be said to certain people. Origionally it set the bar too low, calling someone a name--would put the name caller in the system and get all sorts of reprocussions.

What this law tries to do is adjust that .

Both in my opinion are wrong. There certainly should be a line that constitutes harrassment--but on the other hand you can't regulate every and anything one kid says to another kid.

[#FF0000]

If you read the article

I have skimmed it and just felt that there was something intrinsically wrong with everything about this. The law itself, the mindset of the people who made up that "moral" clause, everything.

It really bothers me that they have to specify "protected classes" so it's like when someone says something hurtful to a kid they have to go check their charts and tables to see if it counts or not.

I mean obviously that isn't how it works but what I'm saying is how are people so dumb that they need a law telling them that you shouldn't let one kid call another kid a "fag". Just, goddamn.

[#FF0000]

If this gets passed I want to see what happens if a Muslim kid tries to use the "religious" defense.

[Zostrianos]

If this gets passed I want to see what happens if a Muslim kid tries to use the "religious" defense.

That's not gonna work. When Conservative Christians ***** and moan about the importance of rights and freedoms, they mean for themselves.

On the Atheist experience show (I don't remember which episode), they talked about this high school in the South, where a group of Christian parents were pressuring the school to allow them to distribute pamphlets to the students, claiming that freedom of religion was at stake, and they did it in the name of all religions. The school finally gave in, and a group of Neopagans took advantage to distribute their own literature....
The Christians didn't like that...at all. First they had called for freedom of religion, but as soon as another religion came in, they started *****ing and moaning, like "how dare the school allow non-Christians to corrupt our kids' minds?"....

[Zostrianos]

This sums it up:
http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lf3azgGhjI1qdbblao1_500.jpg

[Revolution starts with U]

they meant all christian religions

[Sasha]

License To Bully of the Day (http://thedailywh.at/2011/11/04/license-to-bully-of-the-day/)

Nov. 4, 2011

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License To Bully of the Day: A controversial bill ostensibly aimed at providing schools with additional tools to fight bullying passed this week in the Michigan Senate (http://www.freep.com/article/20111103/NEWS05/111030420/Anti-bullying-legislation-passes-state-Senate), despite being opposed by all 11 Democrats and the father of the boy who inspired the legislation.
A last-minute addition to “Matt’s Safe School Law” protects “sincerely held” religious beliefs or moral convictions from being considered bullying. Critics feel the language will give anti-gay bullies a “license to bully” by providing an exception. ”This is just unconscionable,” said Matt’s father, Kevin Epling of East Lansing. “This is government-sanctioned bigotry.”
Matt Epling committed suicide in 2002 as a result of unbearable torment he received at the hands of bullies.
In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer chastised her colleague for approving the legislation. “There are at least 10 Michigan children in the past decade whose deaths are directly attributable to bullying,” she told Senate Republicans. “But had this bill that you’re gonna pass today been law in effect while they were alive, how many of their deaths would have been prevented? Zero.”
“This bill may not be perfect, but it certainly gets us on the road to making sure that local communities pay attention to this problem and put a policy in place,” said Republican state Sen. Rick Jones, the bill’s sponsor. Jones told the Lansing State Journal “he could have done without that language (http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20111104/COLUMNISTS09/111040318/Schneider-Democrat-sounds-off-state-Senate-s-anti-bullying-bill?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE),” but said it was necessary ” to make sure First Amendment rights weren’t being violated.”
Equality Michigan has launched a petition (http://www.change.org/petitions/tell-the-michigan-house-to-pass-an-anti-bullying-law-that-matters) aimed at convincing the Michigan House of Representatives to reject the Senate’s version of the bill.
[freep (http://www.freep.com/article/20111103/NEWS05/111030420/Anti-bullying-legislation-passes-state-Senate) / lsj (http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20111104/COLUMNISTS09/111040318/Schneider-Democrat-sounds-off-state-Senate-s-anti-bullying-bill?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE) / messenger (http://michiganmessenger.com/53739/fall-out-continues-from-license-to-bully-legislation-passage).]

166 Comments and 4 Reactions (http://thedailywh.at/2011/11/04/license-to-bully-of-the-day/#disqus_thread)



source: http://thedailywh.at/2011/11/04/license-to-bully-of-the-day/

[Bud Struggle]

^^^Yea it's sad and it's bad--but there just can't be a law againsts everything a person might do wrong. People just can't be hauled off to jail for saying things other people don't like.

Aren't you the guys saying--no more police in our lives? Well that cuts both ways doesn't it?

[manic expression]

People just can't be hauled off to jail for saying things other people don't like.
Bullying is way, way, way more than "saying things".

[Bud Struggle]

Bullying is way, way, way more than "saying things".

You're gay. I call you "fag." Is that bullying? You're Black I call you the n-word--is that bullying?

[manic expression]

You're gay. I call you "fag." Is that bullying? You're Black I call you the n-word--is that bullying?
First, if we assume you are neither gay nor Black, those are both unacceptable terms to level at someone in a school environment. Second, and more importantly, those are inapplicable hypotheticals because you're imagining a word said in a vacuum. You and I wouldn't have our interactions limited to a single word in any school environment, which is why it's ridiculous to ask if it's bullying or not.

You wear glasses, I call you "four eyes". Is that bullying? Well, in and of itself, we can't say, but if I repeat that to you over and over and over again...in the classroom, during recess, during lunch...and then I get all my friends (me being more popular than you) to repeat it to you as well...then yeah, it's bullying.

So as you can readily see, your line of reasoning is entirely irrelevant and seems willfully ignorant of the reality of bullying itself.

[Bud Struggle]

First, if we assume you are neither gay nor Black, those are both unacceptable terms to level at someone in a school environment. True and both those therms are unaccecptable.



Second, and more importantly, those are inapplicable hypotheticals because you're imagining a word said in a vacuum. You and I wouldn't have our interactions limited to a single word in any school environment, which is why it's ridiculous to ask if it's bullying or not. No that's how it works. People walk up to other people and say: "fag."


You wear glasses, I call you "four eyes". Is that bullying? Well, in and of itself, we can't say, but if I repeat that to you over and over and over again...in the classroom, during recess, during lunch...and then I get all my friends (me being more popular than you) to repeat it to you as well...then yeah, it's bullying.

So as you can readily see, your line of reasoning is entirely irrelevant and seems willfully ignorant of the reality of bullying itself.

Yes it's WRONG. But what is your point?

You going to call the cops?

Yes or no?

[manic expression]

No that's how it works. People walk up to other people and say: "fag."
No, that's not how it works. This isn't someone walking up to complete strangers they've never seen before and saying "fag". This is someone who's in the same school as someone else (for all intents and purposes the equivalent of a co-worker), who probably goes to the same classes, who might take the same bus home, who throws dodgeballs at them in gym. It doesn't happen in isolation, it takes place in an intricately-connected community from which the victim cannot remove themselves from.

That's why bullying is so terrible. It's torturous, and every weekday the victim has to get on the bus and face the same torment from the same people in the same environment. Suffice to say, it isn't "people walking up to other people and saying" mean words. It's much more than that. If you don't understand, I doubt you've ever seen it with your own eyes.


Yes it's WRONG. But what is your point?

You going to call the cops?

Yes or no?No, but why call the cops when there are just about 5,000 other forms of action that can be taken to stop bullying?

I'm not sure how "students shouldn't be able to harass gay kids at will because they profess to be religious" translates to "quick, call Frank Bullitt!"

[Sasha]

Aren't you the guys saying--no more police in our lives? Well that cuts both ways doesn't it?

seriously? you want to pull that one? the age old cop out by those included in the status quo, those that profit from it?

are you guys not against marriage? why then do you want gay marriage?
don't you people want to do away with parliamentary democracy? so why are you for female/black/etc voting rights?



Yes it's WRONG. But what is your point?

You going to call the cops?

Yes or no?


yes, but not because we like it, not because we want cops on schools policing kids language but because current laws give status aparte, protection, to straight, white, male, rich kids doing shit that will get you prosecuted in post (high)school live and that gives no protection to or even endangers non-white, non-male, non-straight, non-rich kids.
and the schoolboards, be it out cowardice or malice, exploit that.
if you cant bash someone's face in while screaming fag in a alley near a gay bar you cant do it in a highschool gym locker room, if you cant rape a colleague you cant rape a classmate because you are the team quarterback, if you cant entice a co-worker to commit suicide you cant do it to the queer kid in a different class, if you cant burn crosses in a black church yard you cant dab nigger again and again on a lockerbox, etc etc

and while we are at it; if you cant beltwhip your employees you cant beltwhip your 16 year old daughter.

if the schools refuse to protect these kids, until the revolution comes the state/law/cops will need to do it..

anti-bully laws should not, and are in fact not, something that creates new rules especially to stuff that only happens in schools/among kids, they just make sure that discrimination/rape/stalking/assault/etc etc laws that are (i hope) accepted standard in adult society also apply for and among juveniles.

[ComradeMan]

I don't know enough about the situation to comment however I would point out that there is nothing either Torah righteous or kosher or Christian or whatever other combination in bullying and hate speech. Freedom of speech is not freedom to mock, hurt and traumatise people.

I'd like to ask the US members here about bullying in the US. It seems that bullying is very much part of school culture in the US, judging by the endless stream of "highschool" films and so on that constantly portray bullying by the "in-groups" and so on on. I have been told there are issues with college fraternity/sorority houses and bullying too. Now, you can't base an opinion from TV and films but it seems like the stereotypical "jock" bullies are stock characters in the American mythos- how accurate is that?

[Bud Struggle]

I'd like to ask the US members here about bullying in the US. It seems that bullying is very much part of school culture in the US, judging by the endless stream of "highschool" films and so on that constantly portray bullying by the "in-groups" and so on on. I have been told there are issues with college fraternity/sorority houses and bullying too. Now, you can't base an opinion from TV and films but it seems like the stereotypical "jock" bullies are stock characters in the American mythos- how accurate is that?


Maybe. I don't ever remember being bullied in school--maybe a disagreement now and again where some people got on my case--but a little fighting back made it all go away. Nothing serious--just kids stuff. My kids never seemed to have that problem either..

Our situations, of course may be atypical, but we really never noticed it.

[Revolution starts with U]

Yes, being willing to fight the bully generally gets them to back off (class struggle 101, eh?). But not always. And is that really the route we need take? Violence for violence; grab your ticket for the Murder-Go-Round.