Michigan State GOPs just passed “Matt’s Safe School Law” (named after 14-year-old 2002 bullycide victim Matt Eppling) which does not list sexual orientation or gender identity as protected groups. As Democratic State Senator Gretchen Whitmer mentions above, the bill also makes bullying okay as long as “a student, parent, teacher, or school employee can come up with a religious or moral reason for doing it.” Y’know, because free speech and all that. Maybe it will also allow religious racists to harass students of color because they are afflicted with the Curse of Ham.
Image via n2linux
Juhnuppi
One more reason not to visit the “united” states of america..
doug105
And yet another reason to hold the GOP in contempt.
Bob
So GoProud and Log Cabin Republicans, are you proud of your party in Michigan?
Aiden
@Bob: You just know they are. They’re not like the rest of us hippies,freaks, libruls, etc.
shayna
Its pretty troubling when you have idiots like this making the laws in your country. A religious reason? according to what religion? what if you’re an atheist? does that mean its okay for christians to bully you? And how can there even be a “moral reason” for bullying someone when the very act of bullying is immoral?
Bob
This country is getting very scary for the LGBT community. Isn’t this how it started in Nazi Germany? The Republicans are controlled by big business that does not give a damn about anything but making money off the backs of the poor and by the religious wacko’s, many of whom would be glad to round us up and put us in concentration camps in the name of their god and Jesus. What would Jesus say if he came back today to see his work perverted to this extent? And to top it off, our own people (I admit, even friends of mine) belong to GoProud. When will they wake-up and see that we cannot change the hate mentality of the Republican Party. What will it be like if they take over the Whitehouse along with both the Senate and House of Representatives on their side? What is the LGBT’s fate?
Chad
This is why religion should be outlawed. It’s ok to bully in the name of religion????
Will
Isn’t the Curse of Ham what happened to Gaz in Invader Zim?
the crustybastard
Religious assholes have always been granted a de facto right to bully, but now they’ve been granted an actual legal right to do it?
Congratulations, you conservative dicks.
Riker
@Bob: So we shouldn’t do outreach and try to bring them around at all?
Bullshit.
Anything done by one party can be undone by the other. Without gay republicans talking to their representatives, DADT would still be in effect. Senators Brown, Collins, Snowe and a few others were crucial in passing it.
Ruhlmann
What a passionate and honourable woman Senator Gretchen Witmer is.
Mic
Religion is an illness that needs purged from humanity. I’m with Chad, lets outlaw this bullsh*t!!
Patsy Stoned
Gretchen Whitmer is awesome!
Three guesses what happens when a Muslim student uses his “deeply held belief” and berates a Christian one as an “infidel.”
Flick
This doesn’t surprise me of Michigan. It is more and more becoming the Mississippi of the North (culturally and economically). They have incredibly restrictive marriage and adoption laws too. You can also get fired from a private employer because you are gay there as well.
This is ironic considering the state has far too many other problems to be so wrapped up in making life miserable for gays there. The state’s biggest export is it’s population, and all of its major stand-alone cities are decaying. Whenever you see a top 10 list of bad attributes, Michigan is almost always at or near the top of the list. It’s too bad, but its politicians seem to be more focused on other things.
Queer Supremacist
Now that bullying is not only legal but a moral virtue, let’s do it to them before they do it to us! I’m tempted to make a trip to Michigan to start pogroms against Christians and Muslims. My religion calls them heretics. But then I would have to set foot in Michigan. Dearborn was full of anti-semites before it became Camelfuckerville, USA.
Hitler was a bad man not so much because of what he did but because of who he did it to: innocent people. What did Jews, gays, gypsies, slavs, etc. do to deserve being systematically executed by a bunch of filthy Aryans? Instead of being afraid of being shoved into concentration camps, let’s be the ones doing the shoving. Bashing Republicans is putting the cart before the horse. The gentiles are the ones responsible for this, and they are the ones who need to pay. With their lives. Banning religion is not enough. They are not innocent people; hell, they’re not even people. I really want to see mass murder against gentiles and heterosexuals and I will spend the rest of my life working towards a goy-free, Aryan-free and breeder-free world.
Mae rogers
What happened to “Judge not that ye be not judged”?Don’t these people read their own bibles?If sinning makes one a legal target then look out overeating will get you beaten!
Are we going back to stoning adulterers?
Haightmale
This ignorant f*ng Senator modified the bill (he actually let the Michigan American Family Association modify the bill) which in itself should be an impeachable offense.
Michigan had never had an anti-bullying law, and they are now the 1st state to pass a pro-bully law. I have the bill sponsors email address and phone number on my blog – email him and call his office next week to complain. I doesn’t matter where you live let’s show him what happens when he scorns us. Thanks for listening……the link is just below here. Cheers!
http://bit.ly/ts9LXK
Roy
Haightmale
This ignorant f*ng Senator modified the bill (he actually let the Michigan American Family Association modify the bill) which in itself should be an impeachable offense.
Michigan had never had an anti-bullying law, and they are now the 1st state to pass a pro-bully law. I have the bill sponsors email address and phone number on my blog – email him and call his office next week to complain. I doesn’t matter where you live let’s show him what happens when he scorns us. Thanks for listening……the link is just below here. Cheers!
http://bit.ly/ts9LXK
Roy
jiveinthe415.com
kylew
I wonder how Epling’s father feels about this? His son’s suicide seemed like an extreme over-reaction to a case of very mild hazing, but there were all kinds of anomalies in the case, both in the way the police handled it and in other details.
Frankly, the exemptions in this law would not have mattered to Matt because he wasn’t bullied per se, or if he was, it was the kind of bullying that friends do to each other every day. It was a single incident, and the police said afterwards that Matt was “a very angry young man”.
I know that some people may be angered by me saying this, but a lot of these campaigning parents seem to be doing so to exhonerate the guilt that THEY feel at not having taken their kids’ pain seriously enough, or having recognised that they were in pain at all.
Of all people, they should be the first to appreciate that it is often hard to identify and resolve cases of bullying from general youthful disharmony.
Chris
@kylew: “I’m ashamed of this law. They have tarnished the person whom it is named after. It does not reflect our beliefs nor Matt’s beliefs,”
Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxDNATDLgfg
btseven
So, I guess that means I can kick the shit out of some religious asshole that tells me ” God Bless you” since I am not religious?!
I am being facetious here…don’t get your panties in a bunch.
kylew
@Chris: Thanks for that link Chris – I wasn’t aware that Kevin had his own youtube channel.
Pat
@Queer Supremacist: @Queer Supremacist:
So what gender do I need to be for you to marry me?
Elias
Hey, guys, calm down. Not all Muslims hate the gays. And neither do all Christians.
I’m very pro-LGBTQIA, but I’m also Muslim.
I live in Texas, but surprisingly, there are a lot of welcoming churches and mosques down here. (Though I do think the Christians are a little bit ahead of us in tolerance. Where the churches down here accepts all types of queers, Muslims will merely tolerate them and really only accept trans* people because they believe “being gay” is a “disease” that can be “cured” by changing your body to fit your gender. Note: the quotation marks show common beliefs held by the majority, not my feelings on the subject.)
I’m just as outraged at this law as the rest of you are. Religion should never be used as justification for things such as bullying or attacks, or wrongdoing.
John B
Wow way to go republicans :/ woot…..is this what its going to be…i swear if they pass a law like that were i live it wont be myself they will have to worry about killing….
Morph
@Elias:
Thanks Elias.
Personally I’m not Christian of Muslim… but I do consider myself religious. And hell, I can understand a lot of people’s upset, especially at organised religion. My own mother once had me roughly exorcised by her church because she believed I was inhabited by a devil, simply because I started defending myself from her physical, mental and emotional abuse. But that’s a whole can of worms.
The concept of God’s will has been used since the beginning of time as a reason to subjugate and abuse the rights of others. But that’s just it… the idea of God was abused by humans to hurt other humans. I’m not gonna debate the nature of God/s, but I will highlight the nature of human beings.
What I’m getting at is that most hateful, selfish people would be hateful and selfish anyway. Organised religion gives them an excuse and a perceived moral safe haven, yes… but some of them are also beautiful, lovely, tolerant people! Readers… PLEASE realise that when you blanket hate RELIGIOUS people you’re indulging in a similar hate to what we ourselves despise!
While we need to fight for what we believe in, we also need to do it with love and tolerance. Please don’t pass the hate around.
Morrigan
@Elias:
Thanks Elias.
Personally I’m not Christian or Muslim or any kind of well-defined believer… but I do consider myself religious. And hell, I can understand a lot of people’s upset, especially at organised religion. My own mother once had me roughly exorcised by her church because she believed I was inhabited by a devil, simply because I started defending myself from her physical, mental and emotional abuse. That’s a whole can of worms, but I want to point out that for a long time just going into a church for a wedding or christening made me physically ill. For a long time I found joy in ripping open the contradictions of arrogant Christians. I was awash with resentment and disdain… but it never bothered them. It only made me feel worse.
The concept of God’s will has been used since the beginning of time as a reason to subjugate and abuse the rights of others. But that’s just it… the idea of God was abused by humans to hurt other humans. I’m not gonna debate the nature of God/s, but I will highlight the nature of human beings.
What I’m getting at is that most hateful, selfish people would be hateful and selfish anyway. Organised religion gives them an excuse and a perceived moral safe haven, yes… but some of them are also beautiful, lovely, tolerant people! Readers… PLEASE realise that when you blanket hate RELIGIOUS people you’re indulging in a similar hate to what we ourselves despise!
While we need to fight for what we believe in, we also need to do it with love and tolerance. Please don’t pass the hate around.
Morrigan
Crap, I double posted… I guess my earlier attempt at posting got through. Not intentional.
Liam
This is a huge step backwards! Who in their right mind thinks that this is the correct, moral and best thing to do. All this does is leave a gap in the system for racist bigots to abuse their right to “free speech” in order to put down or mentally abuse these young minds. And the fact that is called “Matts safe school” is completely ironic, this is a right wing scheme using backdoor politics, just awful.
Rachel
Translation : “It’s not okay to bully!… Unless they’re different and God say’s its cool. Than continue on children.”
THIS IS SICK. Where is the justice? These are CHILDREN, and no one is doing a damn thing. Shame on you, congress. Shame on you.
Queer Supremacist
@Pat: Male, but I’m taken.
@Morrigan: Love and tolerance couldn’t save Matthew Shepard.
mmaclean86
You all really need to educate yourselves on Christianity and stop believing what you see on TV. I come on this site to read because my cousin is a lesbian, and I have transgender friends who I know struggle. But.. And let me make this clear for you, that this “christians hate everyone and think bullying is ok” is purely bs that someone has fabricated in there head, probably out of boredom. I am a Christian, say all you want, but you hating on me or other christians is hypocritical if your saying how bullying and hate is bad. Bullying and Hate is wrong no matter what… Everyone is equal… End of story. Christians, true christians do not believe bullying is ok in any circumstance, we are taught to treat others better than ourselves! We are taught that to hate another person is to hate God.. God is not what you should be hating on, its society. God, if these youngs souls had Him, could have been their shield and their comfort. I hope next time you better educate yourself on Christian belief before blasting us on a forum using incorrect information. All the best
Henry
@mmaclean86, I was a Christian for most of my life. I’ve done a lot of study about Christianity, and I’ve experienced extreme and persistent harassment by a Southern Baptist/Calvinist Christian, which led me to deconvert. Your reply is just so much “I feel this” and “I feel that,” when the truth is that Christianity is inherently anti-gay and in many cases causes people to hate gays. It gives them a justification for hatred that they wouldn’t have had through any other source. Gay Christians learn this very clearly. It’s undeniable to those of us who have been on the receiving end of the intense and highly irrational hatred.