About a month ago, U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., introduced the Student Non-Discrimination Act of 2010 (SNDA). This bill, which now has 60 or so bipartisan co-sponsors, would prohibit discrimination against students on the basis of sexual orientation. It mimics the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans racial discrimination, and Title IX, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of gender.
The need for a law like SNDA is obvious. According to GLSEN’s 2007 National School Climate Survey, nearly 9 out of 10 gay, lesbian, bi- and transsexual students experience harassment at school because of their sexual orientation. About 61 percent feel unsafe at school for the same reason.
So how have conservatives responded? With the same calm thoughtfulness that we normally associate with the phrase “gay panic.” Mat Staver of the right-wing Christian legal group Liberty Counsel told Fox News that the bill is “completely contrary” to American values. “We have an administration that wants to push a radical social agenda,” he said. (Apparently, he does not realize that the Obama administration has yet to back the bill publicly.)
In the same report, Neal McCluskey of the Cato Institute, tried to couch his opposition in the language of free speech. “The definition of harassment could be broadly interpreted that anybody who expressed a totally legitimate opinion about homosexual behavior could be made illegal. That’s a violation of those kids who want to express opposition to LGBT opinions or behavior.”
For some reason, Fox News did not bother reporting some of the less-restrained objections to the bill, like this one from the Family Research Council: “Openly homosexual Representative Jared Polis (D-Colo.) is chief sponsor of the bill, which would give radical homosexual activist Kevin Jennings [of the Department of Education] almost unlimited power to mandate his vision of homosexual indoctrination in schools across America.”
Missionamerica.com put in its two cents by shrieking, “It doesn’t get much more fascist than this! It’s a sexual revolutionary’s dream.”
And that’s just for starters.
LGBT activists have heard all this before. This same rhetoric crops up every time a company proposes domestic partner benefits for gay and lesbian couples or a city dares to honor a gay celebrity. But the volume on the fight over SNDA is bound to go higher because school kids are involved.
In case it needs to be said, the bill has nothing to do with free speech or limiting the rights of straight people. Ask yourself – did the Civil Rights Act stop kids from making racist comments? Did it stop racists from holding or expressing racist views? No. It simply prevented those views from being translated into active discrimination.
That’s all SNDA will do for gays and lesbians. Bigots will still have their God-given right to take cheap shots at LGBT kids (and those perceived to be LGBT). But they won’t be able to mount campaigns of personal destruction and discrimination based on those views.
Federal law already prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, gender, disability or national origin. This bill merely ads sexual orientation and gender identity to the mix. It’s about time.
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