April 6, 2014.
Hello Rod Skoe:
Regarding anti-bullying legislation currently under consideration at the capitol, as reported by ABC News:
As a longtime gay activist, I urge you to vote against this bill.
I have read it. It is onerous (to school administrators) and promises something it cannot deliver. Moreover, it is the wrong way to approach bigotry and stupidity or harassment toward students perceived by hetero-arrogant youths. Some of its language is way too broad and could apply even to religious opinions others find annoying.
Instead of this legalistic one-size-fits-all approach to a problem that is, in any case, overblown, it would make more sense if the state provided comprehensive sex education beginning at the kindergarten level (as is done in Sweden, for example).
There is no reason a teenager should feel hostility toward another student perceived to be gay, because nobody is born with such attitudes. Early and comprehensive sex education would counter such attitudes, which students most likely absorb from bigoted or narrow-minded parents. And by the time they are feeling their hormones in post-puberty, they would have a more reasonable and less skewed view of differences when it comes to sexual behavior.
When I was in high school, I had sex and sex play frequently with my buddies, in school during lunch hour, outdoors, and at my home and theirs. Some of those guys grew up to be completely hetero, yet they were merely acting out on their own same-sex urges at the time. Why should youths today be any different?
Harassment of any student by other students, for whatever reason, should be nipped in the bud by school administrators. They do not need a law to do that. Any teacher or administrator who fails to take action to stop harassment should be fired for not doing their job.
Part of the problem is that the gay movement (and society as a whole) has come to project identity as the bee’s knee of sexuality. That is baloney. People are more flexible and their sexual expression hardly fits into identity politics, especially at a young age.
This legislation is misguided and should not pass.
