I don’t think a bill is necessary, for many of the reasons stated on
this blog. I also think if a bill does go through, it should be
limited to bullying in general, without mentioning specific
groups. However, assuming that the group list is going to happen,
there is an alternative to the current approach.
Instead of requiring the government to enforce rules in favor of select
groups, as the bill does, the government should be prohibited from
applying a general anti-bullying provision in a discriminatory manner.
This
is similar to a positive rights/negative rights argument–although I’m
not sure if it perfectly fits. The idea is that the current bill
creates a positive right where the government is required to protect
certain classes of people. The negative right approach is to
ensure the government refrains from actions that discriminate against
certain classes of people.
In plain English, the bill could have
a general anti-bullying provision as has been suggested and still
protect groups that some of the legislators are concerned about.
The law could simply state that a school may not discriminate against a
bullying victim due to sexual orientation (among other things–the list
should be expressly clear that it is not exhaustive).
This revised legislation also wouldn’t have to get into figuring out
the intent of the bully, as it apparently tries to do now. The
current legislation focuses on the actions of the bullies in regards to
the sexual orientation of the victim. It instead should be
focusing on the actions of government when it comes to sexual
orientation of the victim.
