Bullying is Bullying

I just have to ask…why?

The Minnesota School Board Association is advising school districts across the state to expand their harassment and violence policy to specify several more groups, including gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) students.

What does it matter for what a student is being “bullied?”

Shouldn’t they add even more groups then?

Short. Tall. Fat. Skinny. Bespectacled.

I was teased for being a “carrot top” in elementary school. Shouldn’t “Individuals with Red or Auburn Hair” be added in case teasing escalates to bullying?

37 thoughts on “Bullying is Bullying

  1. Well obviously, you must belong to an Approved Victim Group (TM) for the MSBA to be concerned about you.

  2. The religious beliefs that underly discussions of GLBT issues really require school policies to be more proscriptive.

    My wife teaches Masters Degree college students who want to become community (and school) counselors. She has a lecture in one of the classes that she teaches that deals with that very issue. Counselors frequently encounter clients who have GLBT issues and they must understand that working with such clients does not mean they have an opportunity or obligation to “convert” them. Counseling wise, they must keep their personal beliefs out of the discussion.

    It is obvious, by the news reports I have been reading, that educators are having similar difficulties when dealing with GLBT issues. That is why MSBA is recommending more proscriptive policies.

    The same difficulty in objectively applying current policies simply does not exist where your red (or auburn) hair is concerned.

    Sorry…

  3. JR, the redheaded kids will be taught an important lesson: There are protected classes of people in the world, and redheads are not one of them.

  4. So if a kid is bullied because he is smart, but bad at sports, but just happens to be a Gay-American, does that count for extra punishment?

  5. Leslie, John did not choose his hair color, and to the best of my knowledge, red-headed people do not have a very militant political caucus.

    Sorry….

  6. Another good reason to avoid anything but religious — or at least honest — counselors. Otherwise you will be counseled in whatever way best pleases the State.
    Homosexuality is associated with many negative health effects. Decreased life span, higher rates of certain physiological and psychological diseases among them. Since homosexuality is a learned behavior, it would seem to be in the best interests of the client — as opposed to the State — to counsel them against it.

  7. Terry,

    You have made my point nicely. For many, their belief systems will trump reality, even in the face of much evidence to the contrary. Whatever homosexuality is, it is NOT a “learned behavior” and people who hold to that or similar beliefs are not likely to interpret existing policies about “bullying” as objectively as they would if the victim were, for instance, a boy with red hair. I imagine that everyone could agree that the red head was born that way. Obviously everyone cannot agree that to be the case for GLBT issues. It certainly seems to have been the case in the Metro educational systems. I think MSBA is attempting to respond to that reality.

  8. Terry,

    This is from an article written “way back” in 2008:
    http://www.thetech.org/genetics/ask.php?id=155
    It’s a pretty good description of the scientific issues involved.

    And:
    http://www.utexas.edu/courses/bio301d/Topics/Gay/Text.html

    And this one that expresses the issue in a way that you might agree with:
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21309724/ns/health-health_care

    Yet, even this piece ends with the following:

    ‘Jim Larkin, 54, a gay journalist in Flint, Mich., said the genetics study is a move in the right direction.

    Given the difficulties of being gay in a predominantly straight society, homosexuality “is not a choice someone would make in life,” said Larkin, who is not a study participant.

    He had two brothers who were gay. One died from AIDS; the other committed suicide. Larkin said he didn’t come out until he was 26.

    “I fought and I prayed and I went to Mass and I said the rosary,” Larkin said. “I moved away from everybody I knew … thinking maybe this will cause the feelings to subside. It doesn’t.” ‘

  9. “I was teased for being a “carrot top” in elementary school. ”

    Awwww. Did the little ginger get his feelings hurt?

  10. “Anti-bullying” legislation – and now adopting “policies” since the legislature is not about to go along with it – is introducing a socio-political agenda into the public schools.

  11. “to the best of my knowledge, red-headed people do not have a very militant political caucus.”

    Then, dammit! I think that it’s high time we start one!

  12. Leslie, you are missing my point/question by a mile. Whatever behavior constitutes bullying is the issue and what is to be recognized as such and punished.

    The victim’s status is immaterial. They are a victim of an act of bullying or they are not. If my kid is “normal” (whatever that means these days) but is a victim of bullying I would expect the school and the perpetrator’s parents to react in no way differently than if my child were gay or whatever.

    What if a group of gay students bullied a straight one?

    It is no surprise that the public school system, and the government in general is making this more complicated than it has to be, no doubt to justify their bloated ranks or to create yet another category of victim that needs The State to rescue them.

  13. The victim’s status is immaterial.
    Exactly. Children can be cruel. They are people with little or no impulse control. Humans are hard-wired to reject other humans with perceived weakness or difference. Try going through elementary school with the name Kermit, if you don’t believe me.

    I swear, GLBTs can be a bunch of whiny little bitches.

  14. Here’s something I’ve been thinking about. When I was a kid, because I was a poor athlete and less well coordinated than other kids (partly because I was one of the youngest in my class), I was often called a “fairy” by other kids. This was, of course bullying.

    Today, activists dealing with bullying seem to heavily imply that being bullied is a “gay” issue. The implication being that if you were bullied, you were probably gay.

    So what it boils down to is that the anti-bullying activists are repeating the taunts of my childhood bullies, and implying that I’m a “fairy.” They just use nicer words.

  15. Leslie, those links don’t show what you seem to think that they show.
    They are pop-culture articles. They are not serious science. Haven’t you ever wondered why it is that if it is so obvious that gay people were “born that way”, the science behind this conclusion is so weak?
    “Being gay” is an aspect of human behavior. Nearly all human behavior has both a genetic and an environmental factor. The people who say that birth order or left handedness can determine or influence sexual identity would be horrified if the same sort of “science” was used to justify treating people differently when it came to college admissions or treatment by the justice system.

  16. Kermit, the left has strange ideas about what science is and is not, and what it can and can not do.
    Lately the lefty blogs have seized on the phrase “climate science”, rather than “climatology” or “climate theory” to describe their apocalyptic vision of the future. They think that by calling something “science” they are calling it a “truth”.
    The “truth” is that theories which show that atmospheric CO2 has a small or negligible effect on the global climate are just as much “science” as the theories that predict calamity. It is all based on statistical models with incomplete (and very noisy) data as inputs. Most bloggers, and virtually all journalists, are incapable of understanding the “science” behind the models.

  17. This whole “bullying” meme is pure bullshit. The GLBTXYZ, “sand-is-food” crew has been hammering away at the public schools for 20 years, and they’re making progress.

    I’m not going to waste time explaining why homosexuality isn’t on par with hair or skin color, there’s smart people reading SITD and I won’t insult them to accommodate the few morons that attend.

    Suffice it to say that forceably buggering a guy (or a gal) will get you 20 years in the pen….so there’s a whole lot of choice being excersized these days.

    It’s a choice, see?

  18. You see Swiftee’s equally attracted to ladies, dudes and hogs dressed up in Victoria’s Secret teddies. He just chooses to do it with hogs.

  19. Read what I wrote, Mr. Clown. I didn’t say that I agreed or disagreed with the AGW promoters.
    Except to say that I think that using the phrase “climate science” is a cheap rhetorical trick.

  20. Sure Terry, it’s just scientists doing sciency stuff to study the climate in a scientific way. Totally cheap rhetorical trick.

  21. And the reason these climate scientists publish their lies? To turn America over to the socialists, duh!

  22. . . . and scientists like Freeman Dyson are reading the entrails of chickens.
    In your long absence you have not improved your acumen, Angry Clown.

  23. angryclown said:

    “Plus Jesus says climate science is fake, eh Terry?”

    No, but the warmie climate scientists need to exclude dissenting opinions does cast a cold shadow on their work. Even they seem to have little confidence that their theories will withstand scrutiny. It’s a good thing they have true believers like you on their side, eh angryclown?

  24. Plus Jesus says climate science is fake, eh Terry?

    Not sure what Jesus thinks about climate science, but Jesus definitely thinks that the Mets suck.

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