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defrogMany of you have already heard that Michigan’s state senate has passed an anti-bullying bill that includes a loophole for people who bully students for religious reasons.
The loop (written by Republicans) goes like this:
Which you can read one of two ways. If yr Senator Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) or Kevin Epling (the father of Matt Epling, the namesake of the bill who killed himself after being bullied for being gay), it’s a fairly obvious loophole for Christians who want to tell gay students just what they think of the gayz.
If yr Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, it means Christian students can’t be bullied for exercising their First Amendment rights.
It may come as no surprise to anyone here that I’m with Whitmer and Epling on this. The AFA/GOP’s justification makes no sense whatsoever, not least because I can’t see anything in the bill that would allow Christian kids to be bullied for speaking their mind.
Mind you, I don’t think Republican legislators necessarily did this because they think gay kids deserved to get picked on. Not specifically, anyway. Remember that this is happening in the broader context of conservative Christians fighting against gay rights of any kind, and they don’t want any law passed that weakens their overall argument that they have a 1A right to denounce the gays as sinful and evil and whatever cos God said so (and thus legislate accordingly).
The current focus on bullying – which frequently involves exploiting homophobia as a shaming tactic, whether the victim is actually gay or not – essentially forces conservatives to make a choice and decide what’s more important: (a) the rights of the kid being bullied, or (b) the rights of the kids raised to believe that gays are degenerate dangerous perverts according to God’s law and should be treated accordingly?
Clearly they’re going with (b) – again, not so much because they want Christian kids to harass and beat up gay kids, but because they care a lot more about preserving their constitutional right to denounce LGBTs in the name of religion than they care about the consequences or who gets hurt.
As a self-confessed 1A junkie, I do realize the 1A angle makes this thorny. I’ve seen plenty of groups exploit the 1A to spew hatred and fear. And like it or not, they have the right to do that (although that right isn’t absolute or without limitations, either).
On the other hand, it’s hard to take the 1A argument seriously when the disputed clause clearly isn’t just about 1A protections. The first sentence covers all the 1A protections. That’s fine. You could stop right there.
But they didn’t. The second sentence specifically exempts people who express a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” that might otherwise run afoul of the law. There’s no reason to drill down beyond the general 1A protections except as a cover for right-wing Christians who have strong anti-gay opinions.
That’s what the “moral conviction” clause boils down to: it’s better to be free to denounce the gays (and the atheists and the Muslims and whoever else) than to prevent kids who fit those descriptions from being bullied for it. And the result is, in effect, a toothless anti-bullying law with a built-in loophole that solves nothing.
The good news is that the subsequent national backlash seems to have put Michigan’s (GOP-controlled) House on alert, and it’s possible the clause will be rewritten.
If it’s not, we can only hope that the people who pushed for that loophole will all be made to look like fools the day some Jewish or Muslim kid uses the “moral convictions” defense for taunting Christian kids about Jesus being just some guy.
With God on our side,
This is dF
The loop (written by Republicans) goes like this:
(8) This section does not abridge the rights under the First Amendment of the constitution of the United States or under Article I of the State Constitution of 1963 of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian. This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian.
Which you can read one of two ways. If yr Senator Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) or Kevin Epling (the father of Matt Epling, the namesake of the bill who killed himself after being bullied for being gay), it’s a fairly obvious loophole for Christians who want to tell gay students just what they think of the gayz.
If yr Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan, it means Christian students can’t be bullied for exercising their First Amendment rights.
It may come as no surprise to anyone here that I’m with Whitmer and Epling on this. The AFA/GOP’s justification makes no sense whatsoever, not least because I can’t see anything in the bill that would allow Christian kids to be bullied for speaking their mind.
Mind you, I don’t think Republican legislators necessarily did this because they think gay kids deserved to get picked on. Not specifically, anyway. Remember that this is happening in the broader context of conservative Christians fighting against gay rights of any kind, and they don’t want any law passed that weakens their overall argument that they have a 1A right to denounce the gays as sinful and evil and whatever cos God said so (and thus legislate accordingly).
The current focus on bullying – which frequently involves exploiting homophobia as a shaming tactic, whether the victim is actually gay or not – essentially forces conservatives to make a choice and decide what’s more important: (a) the rights of the kid being bullied, or (b) the rights of the kids raised to believe that gays are degenerate dangerous perverts according to God’s law and should be treated accordingly?
Clearly they’re going with (b) – again, not so much because they want Christian kids to harass and beat up gay kids, but because they care a lot more about preserving their constitutional right to denounce LGBTs in the name of religion than they care about the consequences or who gets hurt.
As a self-confessed 1A junkie, I do realize the 1A angle makes this thorny. I’ve seen plenty of groups exploit the 1A to spew hatred and fear. And like it or not, they have the right to do that (although that right isn’t absolute or without limitations, either).
On the other hand, it’s hard to take the 1A argument seriously when the disputed clause clearly isn’t just about 1A protections. The first sentence covers all the 1A protections. That’s fine. You could stop right there.
But they didn’t. The second sentence specifically exempts people who express a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” that might otherwise run afoul of the law. There’s no reason to drill down beyond the general 1A protections except as a cover for right-wing Christians who have strong anti-gay opinions.
That’s what the “moral conviction” clause boils down to: it’s better to be free to denounce the gays (and the atheists and the Muslims and whoever else) than to prevent kids who fit those descriptions from being bullied for it. And the result is, in effect, a toothless anti-bullying law with a built-in loophole that solves nothing.
The good news is that the subsequent national backlash seems to have put Michigan’s (GOP-controlled) House on alert, and it’s possible the clause will be rewritten.
If it’s not, we can only hope that the people who pushed for that loophole will all be made to look like fools the day some Jewish or Muslim kid uses the “moral convictions” defense for taunting Christian kids about Jesus being just some guy.
With God on our side,
This is dF
