Bullying is Abuse
Photo: Robert A Pears / Photodisc / Getty
Bullying is a problem that is getting more and more national attention, especially when it involves the bullying of gay youth -- the bullying they experience is designed to oppress the entire class of gay people and frequently leads to violence, including suicide. Conservative Christians, though, do not want gay youth to receive protection from bullying and harassment.
In Michigan, conservative Christians are backing a law that pretends to be anti-bullying but which in reality eliminates any ability to enforce anti-bullying measures and specifically exempts faith-based bullying. Which is to say, they are seeking to exempt themselves from measures designed to protect others from them.
This year, Republicans only agreed to consider an anti-bullying measure that did not require school districts to report bullying incidents, did not include any provisions for enforcement or teacher training, and did not hold administrators accountable if they fail to act. And they fought back Democratic attempts to enumerate particular types of students who are prone to being bullied, such as religious and racial minorities, and gay students. But it was the addition of special protections for religiously-motivated bullying that led all 11 Democratic senators to vote against the legislation they had long championed.
On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled state senate passed an anti-bullying bill that manages to protect school bullies instead of those they victimize. It accomplishes this impressive feat by allowing students, teachers, and other school employees to claim that "a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" justifies their harassment.
The bill is called "Matt's Safe School Law," after Matt Epling, a Michigan student who committed suicide in 2002 after enduring prolonged bullying. Matt's father, Kevin Epling, expressed his dismay in a Facebook post after the state senate vote on Wednesday. "I am ashamed that this could be Michigan's bill on anti-bullying," wrote Epling. "For years the line [from Republicans] has been 'no protected classes,' and the first thing they throw in...was a very protected class, and limited them from repercussions of their own actions."
Source: Time
Gay youth are the target of the exemption for faith-based bullying, but it's worth noting that there is nothing about homosexuality written directly into that exemption. This means that the exemption applies to any sort of bullying, regardless of who is being targeted.
So if a person has a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" that blacks or Latinos are inferior, they would be free to bully and harass racial minorities. If someone has a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" that women are inferior, then they would be free to bully and harass female students. If someone has a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" that Jews are Christ-killers, then they would be free to bully Jewish students.
The only "bullying" that will be banned is bullying that's done on a whim or casually. Organized, directed, and goal-oriented bullying that proceeds from any ideology is effectively permitted. Indeed, one can argue that such bullying, including especially faith-based bullying, would be given official state sanction because it is considered valuable enough for the government to exempt it from general restrictions.
That's barely a step away from openly encouraging and endorsing faith-based bullying, and I don't think that's accidental. The bullying and harassment of gay youth isn't something that occurs solely because some students are bored -- it's a product of a culture where kids are taught that being gay is being immoral, inferior, etc. Kids are learning at home and at church that harassing gays is not only acceptable, but even righteous.
So of course conservative Christians want to replicate those conditions at the government level as well. This is why the bill has only Republican support -- not a single Democrat in Michigan agrees with government endorsement of faith-based bullying.
What do you suppose would happen if the tables are turned, however? Christians are not themselves given any protection from the faith-based bullying of others. Thus Muslim students -- and there are large Muslim communities in Michigan -- could conceivably start harassing and bullying Christians freely. After all, if Muslims kids have a "sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction" that Christians are infidels and idolators, why not?
I'm tempted to encourage them to do it because I'm not sure that Christians will learn any other way. It would be wrong, and the backlash against the Muslim community would be horrible -- not to mention the fact that it would be a public relations nightmare. But honestly, is there a better way for these Christians to learn that what they are doing to others is evil than that they experience that evil themselves first hand?
It has happened before that conservative Christians finally gain an appreciation for church/state separation and neutral rules only when other groups take advantage of things that Christians had once thought existed solely for them. It's just that those situations have usually been a bit less nasty.
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