“This time it’s in both chambers,” says executive director
Christian Action League
Dangerous legislation known to many of the Christian Action League supporters as “The Bullying Bill” has resurfaced again. The measure, HB 548, sponsored by Rep. Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland) and SB 526, sponsored by Julia Boseman (D-New Hanover), both entitled the “School Violence Prevention Act,” were introduced Wednesday, March 11, accompanied by a Press Conference that included a number of lawmakers, education, health and religious group leaders.
The bill requires local school boards to amend their existing bullying policies to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression.” The measure would not only create a protected status in North Carolina’s public schools for homosexuality, bisexuality, cross dressing and other alternative sexual behaviors, but would also require schools to teach that these behaviors are normal and acceptable.
“We had a difficult time killing this measure in the 2007-2008 biennium,” said Rev. Mark Creech, executive director of the Christian Action League. “But this time it’s in both chambers and not just in the House like before. So now it’s a double threat.”
In 2007, an effort to remove the objectionable language from this bill was defeated by one vote on the House floor. After the legislation passed in the House with the objectionable language, it was sent to the Senate and the Senate stripped the bill of the pro-homosexual language and sent it back to the House for concurrence. But instead of making a motion to accept the Senate version, the primary sponsor, Rep. Rick Glazier (D-Cumberland) asked the House to send the measure to the House Judiciary I Committee to keep the bill alive for the 2008 session where proponents would try to put the objectionable language back into the legislation. In 2008, however, there was no agreement between the House or the Senate on the measure and the bill died in Committee.
If this legislation succeeds it will be the first time in North Carolina history that homosexuality, bisexuality, cross dressing and other alternative sexual behaviors are legitimized by law. When this legislation was argued on the House floor in 2007, Rep. Rick Glazier said these enumerations were needed so that school administrators can “teach and train” students about their prejudices and biases.
Glazier (D-Cumberland) has written an extensive article that seeks to make the case for the “School Violence Prevention Act” in the November/December 2008 edition of the North Carolina Medical Journal. In that article Glazier refers to Christian organizations like the Family Research Council, the Christian Action League and the North Carolina Family Policy, which oppose the measure, as “marginal” and “ideological extremists.”
“That’s interesting,” said Rev. Creech. “I’m quite certain a large portion of the churches in Glazier’s district who share the same values as these ministries, not to mention thousands of churches across the State, don’t feel that they are ‘marginal’ or ‘ideological extremists,’ but instead believe that Glazier is the one with a marginal belief system and an extreme ideologue. Make no mistake about it, under the guise of protecting school students and staff, Glazier is carrying the water for the homosexual rights groups and promoting the normalization of homosexuality in the public schools.”
The Christian Action League continues to advocate this is the real motive behind the two measures. A bill that would have protected all students, the Senate version which had no enumerations and simply required bullying to be addressed regardless of the cause would have most certainly passed last year. It didn’t, however, because proponents of the “School Violence Prevention Act” insisted on the objectionable and restrictive language.