Bullying is a challenge children regretfully need to overcome. Empathy or sympathy leads each of us to identify that non-acceptance hurts.
However, current legislation in Minnesota appears to be an effort to redefine morality and exacerbate the problem.
House File 826 and Senate File 783 have been submitted in St. Paul to make bullying much more subjective. Instead of clarifying bullying, these bills fling open the subjects of sex and sexual orientation for children below the age of consensual sex.
Bullies submitting K-12 public education legislation want to openly communicate adult sexual subjects in a school near you. Lines 4.11-12 from the state of Minnesota Senate bill are a glimpse of what they perceive bulling means: "Creates or exacerbates a real or perceived imbalance of power between students. Violates the reasonable expectation of privacy of one or more individuals." How's that for pointing a finger at bullies?
A more practical deterrent from bullying is assigning this line from the Declaration of Independence to K-12 education: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." That's meaningful legislation.
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Nature's God is still acknowledged in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence. It's self-evident when it comes to legislating morality that the creator promotes equality in public education, too. Is public education up to quoting the Declaration of Independence?
Will our state Legislature dismiss this destructive legislation?? One way for a person to contact legislators is via leg.state.mn.us. Otherwise, a legislator really could perceive that giving public education latitude to bully children is good legislation. It's time to spare a school teacher more grief.
Tim G. Riley
Duluth
