Call me idealistic, but for some reason I never cease to be amazed at the depths folks will go to.  Certain Christian groups in our wonderful southern neighbour are actively lobbying AGAINST anti-bullying laws because they want to include terminology that would make it perfectly ok to bully if the kids were TAUGHT that being gay/different/whatever was wrong:  “…would have exempted bullies who acted out of “a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.”

I’m speechless, can’t really believe this crap.  So I won’t even bother writing my own thoughts on this particular topic, but instead I will use quotes from the following links to write this post:

Christians Fight for Their Children’s God-Given Right to Bully Gay Kids

The Bully Backlash: How the Christian Right Is Attacking Efforts to Help Kids

“In Michigan, lawmakers attempted to insert a provision into an anti-bullying bill that would have allowed bullying only on the grounds that it was being done based on a “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction”.  Thankfully it was tossed out after a national outcry. 

“A number of groups that claim to represent the “Christian viewpoint” have come out in vigorous opposition to anti-bullying initiatives, and their opposition has to do with a fundamental question about exactly what we think bullying is.”

“Senate minority leader David Schapira, a sponsor of his Senate Bill 1462, called her a “legislative terrorist”. “Cathi Herrod, an unelected lobbyist (from a Christian right-wing group), killed a bill that would protect all Arizona kids purely because of her intolerance of gay kids.”

“To be sure, the notion that the anti-bullying initiatives are driven by “the homosexual agenda” – a phrase that conjures the vision of gay hordes aiming to seduce children into lives of abomination – is preposterous. But the sense that anti-bullying initiatives involve teaching children “acceptance” of LGBT peers, to use the word of the Concerned Women of America, is not. If you want the school to tell students to stop harassing kids like Jacob Rogers because they are gay, you have to let them know, at some point, that the school thinks it’s OK to be gay.”

Is anyone else really tired and depressed right now?