Wednesday, November 16, 2011

They Took The Baby Jeebus Exemption Out Of The Law

Sometimes when you apply a little pressure, shine a little light, or raise your voice to bigotry, things can change.
Case in point: Rick "The Senator Formerly Known As Asshat" Jones, a Michigan state Republican senator, has agreed to drop the “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction” provision in that state's anti-bullying bill, so no longer will the "The baby jeebus made me bully" be an excuse, or a right, or reason, to bully.
Jones announced that he would drop his amendment and vote for the House version--which contains no such "religious" provision--after critics said the language could allow gay, Muslim or other minority students to face harassment.
Now, this is all nice and sweet, but, it still makes me wonder, what is wrong with people who think you need to include language in any legislation that allows intolerance and bigotry and bullying, verbal, emotional, and, perhaps, even physical bullying.What was Jones thinking in the first place?
Senate Republicans, like Jones, say they were just protecting free speech and never intended to create a religious exception for bullying. Had he foreseen the controversy, Jones said he would have removed the problematic language. he didn't see that a young person walking up to another young person and saying, "God hates fags" or "The Bible says you're an abomination" are 'problematic.
But, again, I ask, how can you not see it?
Perhaps because you aren't looking at it the right way.

5 comments:

  1. When you consider the odd stuff in any religious text things could get really out of hand. Do not suffer a witch to live!!! And then all hell breaks loose.

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  2. They saw it. They just didn't do anything about it until someone forced their hand.

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  3. It's amazing how easy it is to not see things a certain way if you've never bothered or needed to bother to see things from another perspective. It's good to know that they took care of that portion of it, but apparently there are still no specific protections for sexual orientation or gender identity in the bill. So much like with the hate crime bills, it becomes a situation where people will still be able to get away with it.

    Incremental change isn't working. Maybe we're just hearing more about it because people are more aware of it now, or maybe the problem is becoming an epidemic.

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  4. They do it because they think they can. I believe they know exactly what they are doing and they just hope it will fall through the cracks, that no one will notice. Thank goodness this one got noticed!

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  5. Anonymous5:08 PM

    They knew exactly what they were doing, they got caught, and now they're trying to look like saints for fixing it.

    At least they're fixing it!

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