Have You Contacted Your Representative in the NC House?
By Tami Fitzgerald
Christian Action League
The Anti-Bullying bill-Senate Bill 526, School Violence Prevention Act-remains an urgent threat to our children and to the institution of marriage. If you have not already contacted your State House member and asked him or her to vote against Senate Bill 526, please do so immediately and continue to contacting your Representative until the bill is defeated.
As we reported last week, the bill has already passed the Senate and has been given a favorable report by the House Education Committee. The House Judiciary I Committee, where the bill must go next, did not take up the bill this week, but it can be scheduled at any time and with little notice.
The author and main advocate for passage of Senate Bill 526 is Equality North Carolina, the State’s largest and most vocal advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Its constituents have been deluging legislators with calls, emails, and letters of support for the bill. We must counter the efforts of Equality North Carolina by politely and continually voicing to our House members our objections to this radical homosexual rights bill.
This bill is really not about protecting children as much as it is about advancing gay rights in North Carolina for the following reasons:
- Senate Bill 526 poses as a policy that would protect school children from being bullied, but in fact is a means by which “sexual orientation” (which includes homosexuals, bisexuals, and 28 other “sexual orientations” ranging from pedophilia to bestiality) and “gender identity” (transsexuals) will become protected classes under North Carolina law.
- Although the State Board of Education already adopted a state-wide anti-bullying policy in 2004, the new law would direct local school boards to adopt a new policy aimed at preventing bullying motivated by the “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” of the victim among other characteristics, whether it is actual or perceived.
- While the bill could have been passed last session without the clause that enumerates specially protected victims, the bill sponsors allowed the bill to die, entirely for the reason that the enumerated categories had been stripped from the bill.
- Much of the language of the bill is copied word for word from a model anti-bullying policy posted on the website of GSLEN (the Gay, Straight, Lesbian Education Network). See GLSEN Model State Anti-Bullying & Anti-Harrasment Legislation. Numerous other states have already adopted similar anti-bullying policies including the enumeration of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as specially protected victims. This is evidence that Senate Bill 526 is part of a national strategy to legitimize homosexual and transgender behavior through the avenue of public schools. Our children should not be pawns in this battle over homosexual rights.
- The Iowa Supreme Court relied on its state’s anti-bullying policy which enumerates “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as specially protected classes as a reason to overturn its marriage statutes. Senate Bill 526 would be the first legislative step toward a similar result in North Carolina.
While no child should be bullied at any time under any circumstances, it is not necessary to list the characteristics of victims or the motivations for bullying in order to protect them. Bullying is bullying. All students deserve to be protected from bullying, not just certain groups of students.
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Urgent – Take Christian Action:
Click HERE to contact your NC House Representative, Now!
Forward this alert to as many friends and colleagues as possible!!!!!!
Download the Christian Action League’s insert for your church bulletin by clicking HERE Use this bulletin insert to get as many people as possible from your church to contact their NC House Representative.
Important note: Someone from the church staff will need to determine which Representative represents the district of the church. That can easily be determined by going to this link on the North Carolina General Assembly’s web site. Then write the NC House Representative’s name and contact information on the bulletin insert before making copies and placing in the church bulletin.