Iowa Christian
Alliance
P O Box 65066
West Des Moines,
IA 50265
515-971-7363
January 28, 2007
LEGISLATIVE
ALERT
Norm Pawlewski
ICA Lobbyist
On
Tuesday, January 30th, the Iowa House or Senate or both will debate
"An act relating to the establishment of state and school antiharassment or
antibullying policies.."
These "antibullying" bills originated a few years ago with former Governor Tom
Vilsack. It was his
attempt to establish "sexual orientation and gender identity" as warranting
civil rights protections akin to that of "age, color, creed, national origin,
race, religion, marital status, sex, etc."
The United States Supreme Court ruled that sexual preference and/or behavior
does not merit civil rights protection.
By including "sexual orientation, gender identity" in Section 2, Sub-section b,
the Governor would have defined these behaviors as protected classes for civil
rights purposes.
Republicans in
both the Senate and House have agreed to support "bullying" bills if the "traits
or characteristics" (Sec. 2 Sub-section b) were removed from the legislation.
The listing of traits or characteristics that warrant protection in school
policies against bullying adds nothing to the main reason for the legislation,
i.e., the protection of school children from being bullied for ANY reason. That
is the position of Iowa Christian Alliance and most other values voters'
organizations.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DO!!!
Call your state
representative and your senator and ask
them to support school bullying legislation that does NOT list the eighteen
traits or characteristics that could engender bullying. Children should be
protected from bullies, PERIOD.
Your phone call
(preferred) or e-mail may convince your legislator to do what is right on this
legislation. It is critical that you make
this contact. If
you do, e-mail our webmaster at
webmaster@iowachristian.com site to let us know that you did. Thank you!
If you don't
know who your state representative or senator is, go to
http://www.legis.state.ia.us/FindLeg/ to find out who they are.