If one were a responsible lawmaker, he would want a program that educates parents on the warning signs of abusive teenage relationships to include all types of relationships — even the gay ones. But then South Carolina Republican Rep. Greg Delleney isn’t a responsible lawmaker.
As the South Carolina House debates a bill that “would require school districts to send home information or include in their student handbooks information about teen dating violence,” Rep. Delleney introduced an amendment that would limit the information to heterosexual relationships. You know, because he doesn’t “want the Department of Education or school districts to teach children in grades six through 12 about (same-sex) relationships.”
So you would think the bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Joan Brady, would have a problem with this anti-gay measure, right?
Wrong.
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Brady is fine with the amendment and anticipates the bill will pass today. “My intent is to make sure that every child is protected. But the predominant occurrence of teen dating violence occurs in girl-boy relationships.”
Now you see, Rep. Brady, you just contradicted yourself. If you wanted every child protected, you would battle against the amendment. We’ve got a feeling a single phone call to the Anti-Violence Project would school you on the “less predominant occurrence” of gay dating abuse.
AlanInSLC
Thats messed up! Though its not too often that gay teens on the younger side of things actually date during junior high or high school. Most young gays keep themselves in the closet or don’t start dating until later on, closer to graduating high school. Though this isn’t an excuse to allow discrimination against gay kids, nor is this the rule for all young gays. Its just my opinion on how things are. Its more likely that young gays will date the opposite sex to put on a front to keep attention off of their sexuality until they feel secure with their environment or themselves and THEN they come screaming out of the closet. Regardless of the way that kids come to realize their own sexuality, there should be NO discrimination built into a bill in regards to children/teens.
dgz
i just don’t get what information concerning dating violence could be considered gay or straight, or even gender specific.
Daniel
Actually check with local GLBT youth groups. There are plenty of young GLBT people in Junior High and High School who date other young GLBT people. GLBT kids come out way early now. Ask the youth groups.
TANK
“But the predominant occurrence of teen dating violence occurs in girl-boy relationships.”
If it’s a numbers game, more breeders exist to batter each other about than homosexuals. But going by the statistic, domestic violence occurs at the exact same rate amongst homosexuals as heterosexuals: 25-28% of all relationships are abusive. The need is there, and this guy needs to be exited for abnegating his obligation to the electorate–the entire electorate.
TANK
@dgz:
Why is that?
TANK
@TANK:
Further, it needs to be gender specific, because heterosexual men are, for the most part, responsible for domestic violence (over 85% of the time, it’s the man abusing a partner in a heterosexual relationship).
Bruno
South Carolina is a shithole.
stevenelliot
@Bruno: yep. Its a shithole. Lived there for a looong time. and Im glad I finally moved. It will be the last state in the union to do anything with gay rights. Id put my money on it
a. mcewen
I’ve talked about this bill this morning. It’s a hot mess. But unfortunately the only way to keep a shithole from smelling is to clean it up. Spreading this story and talking about the basic unfairness of the bill goes a long way to cleaning up the mess.
HYHYBT
I don’t quite understand how abuse would be different in straight vs gay relationships; if someone coherent could explain that it would help. Meanwhile, this is South Carolina: the bill would not pass at all without the amendment, so even if the situations do turn out to be significantly different, helping some teens is better than helping none.
annwsc1
The original bill was gender neutral. It addressed dating violence without regard to gender. Unlike some press reports today, gay and lesbian youth were not mentioned in the bill. There is a statewide effort going on right now to stop the bill in the house on the third reading or stop it in January when it reaches the Senate. There are enough of us in South Carolina who are infuriated by this that the legislature be able to sneak it out now with no one noticing.
TANK
It shouldn’t be gender neutral, of course. After all, it is called men’s violence against women for a reason: men disproportionately the perpetrators–over 85% of the time.
The differences are the methods of abuse in same sex relationships. For example, an abusive partner can threaten outing, which can’t happen in a heterosexual relationship. Many police officers aren’t trained to deal with same sex domestic violence and are homophobic themselves, and thus, as usual, members of the lgbt community don’t receive adequate services when fleeing abusive relationships. Most domestic violence agencies aren’t themselves equipped to deal with same sex domestic violence, and don’t have shelters for men (for example) or transgender individuals, and have staff and volunteers who are homophobic.
Additionally, many members of the lgbt community refuse to acknowledge that their relationships are abusive because they already feel inferior to heterosexual couples as a result of state sponsored bigotry, and thus force themselves to look the other way or cover it, denying it as a “straight relationship problem”, or as more ammunition for the opposition.
TANK
@TANK:
Same sex teenage couples face all of the problems of their heterosexual counterparts including not being able to legally access services because they’re minors, but also the threat of outing by an abuser, and the social stimgas perpetuated by heterosexuals that accompany their relationship. but even if they could, those services are largely unequipped or underequipped to assist them anyway. There are exceptions, and organizations which specifically deal with same sex domestic violence.
strumpetwindsock
@TANK:
Try not to take it personally, but I disagree.
It has to be gender neutral for a couple of reasons. If it were gender-specific it could be challenged as unconstitutional (something would be a crime for a man, but not so for a woman).
Secondly, in terms of legality (not cause) gender is irrelevant to the crime. Gender is not a crime, after all.
I can’t think of any criminal laws, actually, which are gender-specific.
Thirdly, even though battering is usually men victimizing women, the law needs to be broad enough to cover cases of women victimizing men or women.
A good friend of mine was harrassed by a his employer about 25 years ago. He was a young guy, about 6’4″. She was probably in her late 50s. When he tried to report it he was laughed at because he was a big strong guy who wasn’t supposed to be afraid of an old lady. This, even though it was a university campus, where people should be a bit more open-minded.
Fortunately people are a bit more aware nowadays that abuse is abuse no matter who is committing it.
TANK
@strumpetwindsock:
I stopped reading a short ways in. You don’t know what domestic violence is nor have a coherent understanding of its causes. I have seen you take a similar “disagreement” with other issues concerning sexism in islam and religious extremism. Feel free. Just know that in this particular case, not only are the numbers against and speak for themselves, but so is the domestic violence movement itself (of which, thankfully, I don’t speak on behalf of or have any affiliation with directly). This is a crime against a gender because its root cause is sexism.
Disagree for its own sake, but given the pandemic nature of the problem (28% of all relationships are abusive), it is, once again, not a very ethical disagreement.
TANK
@strumpetwindsock:
And further, I see nothing wrong with information which classes domestic violence as men’s violence against women and the relevant statistics to back that up conflicting with legal gender neutrality. The truth isn’t going away just because one wishes it would. There’s no conflict.
strumpetwindsock
@TANK:
Yeah, I agree with you about the stats (though I don’t need the stats to be aware of the predominance of male violence).
Most (not all) of the abuse cases involving friends of mine were men attacking women.
And no, I don’t have that much experience with domestic violence.
Personally though I have only suffered harrassment/abuse from women. In one particular case it involved verbal abuse in public, having objects and hot water thrown at me, and a knife pulled on me. This was also back in the days when the authorities didn’t take women attacking men too seriously.
(the people who turned guns on me I told you about before.. they were guys)
And I shouldn’t have to say (though I will) that I gave her no cause for her attacks. We were just friends and she presumed a lot more.
And one lesbian friend of mine was in an incredibly abusive relationship.
So yeah, I agree with you, most of it is men hurting women. But the gender part is not the crime.
TANK
I accept your apology, M’am.
strumpetwindsock
@TANK:
If you’re talking to me, I offered no apology for anything.
Jennifer R.
As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you
Adam
As a 21 year old living in South Carolina I am not at all suprised by this bill. I’m openly gay, I’m the head of security for one of the states more well known Gay Night Clubs, I’m an aspiring law enforcement officer, and at first glance you wouldn’t be able to tell if I were heterosexual, or homosexual.
When I was in highschool I didn’t stay in the closet long. After my freshman year was over everyone knew. No one had a problem with it, and if they did they didn’t voice it. I didn’t flaunt my homosexuality, nor did I wear it on my sleeve. However when someone asked me I gave them a truthful answer, yes, I am gay. It felt great being an openly gay teen in a right wing red state. I never worried about being bashed, or mistreated. After I came out there was a large amount of people who followed. Now my former highschool, a rural one, boasts one of the largest gay teen populations of any other school in the state.
The point of this is that while most gay teens stay in the closet and often don’t come out until much later, things are changing.
Gay teens, straight teens, it shouldn’t matter. While its wrong and obscene to shove minorities out of the picture like SC has done, its a common occurance here in the Palmetto State. SC is the last state in the book for thing good, and the first in the book for things bad. Its reality. I love SC, its given me a youth ill never forget. I just hate the state government. 🙂
Fitz
@Adam: Adam, you have a good perspective– you have good memories of a pleasant childhood, which is great! You might be surprised to see how much easier it is to live, love & make money in other places, though. Just something to think about, from someone who was raised in a red-neck farm town.
Adam
Iv never had a problem living, loving, nor making money. At the age of 20 I was working as a Loss Prevention Manager for a fortune 500 Retail Corporation here in SC. I have four older sisters and two caring and loving parents, I lived only two hours away from them and missed them dearly. I have no desire to leave SC. Part of SCs problem now is that citizens would rather opt to move away to be more comfortable. I’m not the kind of guy that wants to change the world, but I do want to see future generations grow up in a more progressive and tolerant Carolina. I plan to do as much as I can to help that happen.
Player Profiles
Best you could change the blog name South Carolina Wants to Protect Teens From Dating Violence. Just Not Gay Teens / Queerty to something more generic for your blog post you make. I enjoyed the blog post nevertheless.