Flaw in Anti-Bullying Law

[OmniscientOstrich]

This bill is really a double edged sword if you stop to look at it.

Which is why I think they need to go back to the drawing board, as it stands it's too vague and open to exploitation.

 

[RaikuFA]

I'm confused about that rewrite that was put up...

Someone help?

Do you mean my thing?

No, hero in a half shell actually explained it in a way I understand.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

"religious or moral reason??" what kind of twisted fucked up bullshit is that? What kind of religious or moral reason could there possibly be for bullying someone??

Bullying the bullies. On the internet it's called "counter-trolling". Law enforcement call it "good samaritan".

Yeah? Well I call it lowing yourself to their level and it's is just as inexcusable.

You'd rather do nothing when someone is being abused and/or assaulted? You're just going to stand there and watch?

Defending someone may be the same as bullying, but complacency is worse.

But that's just the thing. Defending someone is not the same as bullying.

 

[the spud]

I don't get it. Who has religious reasons to bully someone? Even if they did, it shouldn't be allowed.

You mean besides christians?

What do you mean besides Christians? It shouldn't matter what reasons a bully has. They should be treated the same regardless.

 

[Vault Citizen]

I suspect that whoever came up with this "religious or moral reason" line just wanted to stop picking on gay kids from being illegal.

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The Bill doesn't actually work like that, here is the exact wording:
"This section does not prohibit a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil and parent or guardian."
It is designed to protect relgious free speech, so if I say that I disagree with evolution or homosexuality (or Lightbulbs, Psychologists, eating pork, blood transfusions, or killing animals) Then my views cannot be discriminated against and I cannot be punished.
It only protects a "statement" of this belief, so saying you don't agree with homosexuality is fine, beating off someone because they are homosexual and you think it's a sin is not alright.

I have a post on the first page explaining the thinking behind the Bill if you are interested.

so... I could constantly follow you around yelling my beliefs in your ear, and that would be ok. You finally have enough of that and haul off and punch me (after going through proper channels of course, but it does not phase me, I have my right to tell you my beliefs). I have a religeous belief to backup my action (according to the law) and you do not.

In the adult world, "bullying" is considered harassment. In the adult world we have things called restraining orders and orders of protection. I am not 100% clear why kids dont have these options, I could see school life getting mightly complicated... but this bill seems to allow more and encourage more, than reduce and discourage bullying.

Well, surely the Bill would only protect a person to the point the person decides to agressively follow someone and unneccessarily promote their beliefs, which would be considered harrasment, making the statement illegal and punishable by law.

But you are right that it is incredibly vague as to how much of an action a "Statement of belief" is. I would say that is a fault on the Bill writers part not to clarify that position, but they are probably just leaving it to the first case that this law comes up in court, where the Judge will then have to define what exactly the "Statement of Belief" actually means, and since a lot of Judges follow the same Christian ordeals as the Republicans creating this Bill follow, I think they are gambling that the Judge will rule in their favour. After all, in America Freedom of Speech is an extremely legally protected thing, and so the line between your protected speech, and harrassment through hate speech, is narrower than it is here in the U.K., I think the Bill writers are trying to use the Bill to improve that abiguity in their favour.

[Disclaimer] Any views expressed in this post are relating to the thought processes of the Republican Bill Writers, and are not neccessarily my own.

 

[TorqueConverter]

What!? An anti-bullying fucking LAW? What's next civil citations for name calling? Bullying is part of childhood. You either learned to quit being a target or take a stand against the bully.

 

[chadachada123]

A final word is that, after actually reading the part of the law, it's very clear that the law is not meant to be religious and does not allow bullying merely because a person is religious, nor is that the intention of the authors. Religiosity is not a problem in Michigan, but the authors knew that, without this exemption, the law could be thrown out for "violating free speech" if a kid is suspended for saying what he believes, even if his beliefs are by nature offensive.

You can say the law isnt intended to be used this way or that. Just I like a can say an icepick isnt meant to stab out somone's eye. It doesnt stop it from being used in PRECISELY THAT WAY!

The inventer of dynomite was horrified by the destructive uses found for his invention. Einstien and Oppenhiemer did not approve of their research being used to develope atomic weapons. Damn I was thinking of another good example and now cant remember... oh well I hope you see the point...

Well we'll have to wait and see if there are any cases, because from what I can read, the wording of the law does not allow bullying, it allows the statement of belief. There's a monster difference, and I think the law will still cover bullies using their beliefs TO bully, as opposed to merely stating their stupid belief.

If you're right, then yes, your examples are quite apt.

 

[Therumancer]

[
It's not the enforcement that's the problem. It's the loophole. So what if it's not enforced? If some kid gets pulled out by the teacher and tells him to stop harassing another kid all he or his parents have to say is that it's his "moral or religious duty" to harass someone different than him. It's not the problem of the law's functionality but its exception. On top of that, this is such a HUGE nod to religion in the state. Government's supposed to be secular and you have all the right to practice what you want how you want but when it infringes on the rights of others you've overstepped the bounds.

In the end what will happen I think is: Someone's going to go to the state supreme court, it's going to be deconstructed and a new bullying law will be drafted..

The problem is that just as easily a school counsler could notice a kid with a drug problem, rally a bunch of other students (friends, aquaintences, etc...) and ambush him in the gym with an intervention or something. It happens from time to time. That kind of hard core pressuring could be considered bullying as the law originally stood. This is why the "moral" loophole exists.

Likewise, a parent punishes their child for stealing, without the moral loophole, that could also be considered bullying.

As I said the problem is that this law was extended to apply to everyone, including school authorities and parents. Really given existing school policies that was the only reason for a law to begin with. This makes it fundementally stupid.

Now your right, the loophole counteracts the entire point, but it HAD to be included otherwise you'd have a law would basically prevent you from doing anything to a kid that he didn't like, even when it's your job. Without being able to justify it morally, saying that you did it because "stealing is wrong" would mean your still in trouble.

I myself said the religious aspect of it is stupid, and really didn't need to be there, but I suppose it doesn't matter since the intention was probably to stop a bad law from going through and actually being enforced.

It's a stupid law, and a stupid person complaining about it, I kind of get the impression our crying liberal there really didn't know how stupid this was even when she was mentioning the people the law applied to.

The law without those provisions that wrecked it was way too broad and far reaching. It should never have gotten as far as it did, thank god that part was added in to render it toothless.

It's not the conselor's job to stage an intervention, it's the parent's. If the parents arent willing to do something about their child's drug problem, then the fitness and responsibility of their parenting comes into question. THEN it may be the job of the state to determine what is best for the child. And whatever the f*ck happened to rehab clinics? Why do you need an intervention of school counselors and random students?

First off understand that the parents and rehab centers couldn't intervene either, our crying liberal even mentioned parents. By forcing the kid to stop, ot trying to, they are engaging in bullying.

That said, it is the school counselor's job in most places, this kind of thing is why these guys and girls exist. You can argue about their very existance and nessecity, it's not an uncommon issue, but the bottom line is they are there.

A lot of it comes down to liability, if a kid develops a drug problem and the parents don't notice it (or claim not to) but there is evidence at the school, and that the school is where the drugs likely were purchused, the school can be considered liable for not properly protecting the students. It varies from state to state and town to town in the US how far this kind of thing goes, but this is why they hire people to keep an eye on the student body, watch trends, and do things like interventions. In many cases (most in fact) the school will try and work through the parents, but sometimes that isn't viable or appropriate, and oftentimes the parents for one reason or another would prefer someone else do something like this and might approve of the intervention to begin with....

That's my point, the whole thing was too broad. It applied to everyone, if you do things a kid doesn't enjoy to force him down a specific path that's going to be considered bullying. The law went too far when it included parents, school authorities, and other groups that by definition need to enforce disapline, or intervene as a force of authority. As far as the law goes the term "bullying" to begin with includes so many things (the police are bullies when you get down to it) that it becomes too broad and subjective. This law was just bad, and it got kneecapped at the finish line, something we should be happy for.

Please note, if they want to create a similar law, that is more focused and limited in scope (not potentially being applied to parents disaplining children and things like that), with a very specific definiton of the behaviors falling under bullying, I'd likely support it. This one was just too ridiculous, and was shot down in an equally ridiculous fashion.

 

[Therumancer]

snip

Are you sure your definition of bullying is the same as everyone else's? I dont think a parent trying to get their kid to stop using a drug they are addicted to is bullying.

I do think that following around a skinny, effeminant kid, telling him "queers go to hell" IS BULLYING.

That is a distinction I would like to make. I could care less about what one crying woman said in response to a terribly written piece of legislature.

The thing is that the law does not make such distinctions, which is why we've had problems with laws in the past. Assuming that the law is going to be interpeted the same way, and understood to mean the same thing everywhere and forever is a huge mistake. That's why a law has to be very specific and something like "Bullying" is highly subjective as a behavior since someone who wants to run around and broadcast a neo-nazi agenda and is stopped could claim he's being bullied into submission the same way. Anytime you assert yourself with superior force on someone else to force them to stop doing something they want to, and might feel is fine, is bullying. Give it a couple decades worth of precedent and that law as written would effectively prevent anyone from infringing on anyone and stopping in their behavior.

The law cannot function if it's subjective and open to interpetation, and the very fact that we could argue about what constitutes bullying is EXACTLY the point. It's too vague, you would need to specify specifically what is being prohibited. Exceptions likewise have to be very specific. See, the whole "moral or religious" bit is paticularly broad as well, but was intended to castrate a law that was the same way, if your going to say that certain people or situations aren't covered under the law you need to specify what they are.

The problem with trying to regulate this is that it's very subjective to begin with. You might personally make a judgement about how it's wrong to pick on a gay kid, but it's okay to pick on a neo-nazi kid to shut him up, the law however can't be so subjective to begin with, and even if it was going to you'd need to use language that would specify and itemized specific behaviors, because anything broad enough to encompass a lot of differant things can, and will, be used in ways not intended by the law's designer.

Honestly this was a bad idea to begin with, and totally unnessicary, since the trick is to get schools to enforce existing policies. This law was however nightmarish in it's original form, and the changes DO render the law irrelevent, but that was doubtlessly the point.