Earlier this week, a diverse coalition of religious and education groups led by the American Jewish Committee and Religious Freedom Education Project released a set of what they called bullying “guidelines.” While little actual advice was given, the guidelines suggested that bullying has little to do with the “disagreements” that happen between students and that priority should be given to ensuring that students’ religious condemnations of gay students have a fair hearing.

In response, the Anti-Defamation League urged Education Secretary Arne Duncan to disregard the guidelines because they are “ill-conceived, unnecessary, deeply flawed, and counter-productive to confronting the growing and serious problem of bullying and cyberbullying”:

Directly contrary to the Department’s Dear Colleague letter, however, the Guidelines issued this week emphasize students’ First Amendment rights over the responsibility to create a safe learning environment for all students — especially vulnerable minority, disabled, and LGBT students.  While we agree that students’ free speech and religious expression rights are important, we strongly disagree with the Guidelines’ direct implication that such rights have been given short shrift in current federal and state law and policy and need greater protection.

The Guidelines issued this week have the word “Bullying” in their title, but break no new ground and offer no insights on preventing bullying.  Even worse, they are tone-deaf as to the actual dynamics of real-world bullying in our nation’s private and public schools.  Bullying situations very rarely erupt as conflicts over political or religious speech.  Instead, they much more often involve the intentional targeting of an individual with less physical or social standing for physical or verbal abuse.  Targeted students are in a very different power position than those doing the bullying.  The aggressor’s objective is not to convince his/her target of the rightness of a policy position – it is, rather, to cause physical or emotional harm.

The ADL’s rebuke is significant because of the variety of religious organizations that had signed onto the guidelines. What’s most important is not protecting religious speech, but making sure that all students have a safe and welcoming environment in which to learn.

After Jessica Barba (right) was suspended, some of her friends, like Hannah Babbino (left) made t-shirts to support her and her anti-bullying video.

As a project for a persuasive speech class, 15-year-old Long Island student Jessica Barba created a video about a fictional girl named Hailey who committed suicide after experiencing extensive bullying and cyberbullying. For that, Longwood School District suspended her for five days, with Superintendent Allan Gerstenlauer calling the video “unfortunate in that it created a substantial disruption to the school.” The school also told her that removing the video would help “soften the blow” of her punishment, but after her suspension was passed down anyway, she reuploaded it. The school also took down the fictional Facebook page Barba had created for the character in the video.

Yesterday, however — after Barba had already missed several days of class — the school decided to lift her suspension and wipe it from her record. She reacted to the decision:

BARBA: I’m going back to school, and that’s what I wanted… The school did the right thing… they turned a wrong into a right, and that’s all that matters. It feels great to have made [the video] go around the world and made it get to different children’s eyes, and I hope made kids be inspired to be not bullies, and stand up for bullying. Speak up, speak out, and that’s what I’ve been saying.

Neither Jessica nor her father would comment on the school’s intention for suspending her in the first place. As one Longwood alum wrote in response to the incident, “The disruption was there before Barba’s project. It is she who is bringing the disruption to light and challenging others to talk about and deal with a real and dangerous problem.”

Watch Barba’s video, which now has over 130,000 views on YouTube:

Illinois Sen. Kyle McCarter (R)

The state of Illinois already enumerates bullying protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity, but a new bill, HB 5290, would strengthen the laws to require that all schools maintain a bullying prevention policy. Such a policy would publicly define bullying for each district, lay out procedures for reporting and investigating incidents, and implement trainings, services, and interventions to help promote a positive climate. But this week, the Illinois Senate rejected the bill, heeding concerns from a local hate group that the bill was too pro-gay.

Sen. Kyle McCarter (R) appears to be the leading opponent of the bill, but his talking points parrot the Illinois Family Institute, a fringe spin-off of the American Family Association that has been declared an anti-gay hate group in its own right. McCarter and the IFI insist that the bill should include an “opt-out” provision for any students who don’t want their anti-gay religious beliefs challenged with basic knowledge about the nature of sexual orientation:

MCCARTER: There are anti-bullying programs that have an agenda, to only protect one class of individuals. Some of these programs are very good. They indeed encourage kids not to bully. But there are programs throughout the United States, used in some high schools and universities, that really have just a pro-homosexual agenda, and nothing but that.

McCarter seems to believe that this policy would be a step toward mandating programs about homosexuality, though nothing in its text lends itself to this claim. Reports even suggest that the only reason the bill has been opposed is because its chief House sponsor, Rep. Kelly Cassidy (D), is openly gay and because LGBT groups like Equality Illinois have endorsed it. HB 5290 is a simple opportunity to make sure schools actually implement anti-bullying efforts, but conservatives like McCarter seem overly concerned that young people might actually learn that gay kids deserve to be treated with respect.

Though the measure failed by one vote on Tuesday, it could still pass if called for another vote in the coming week. Twelve senators voted “present” and some supporters were absent, so the bill is not dead yet.

The Christian Broadcasting Network covered the bill, featuring a comment from the IFI’s Laurie Higgins calling the proposed interventions “indoctrination sessions on homosexuality”:

A coalition of national groups, led by the American Jewish Committee and Religious Freedom Education Project, have released new “guidelines” for public schools that attempt to walk the line between combating bullying and protecting religious speech.  The guidelines themselves are not particularly specific, but they seem to suggest that religious rhetoric should not be curtailed in anyway, regardless of how damaging or disruptive it might be to those who “disagree” with it:

With respect to sexual orientation and behavior, one student’s call for legalization of same-sex marriage may be perceived by another student as a challenge to his or her deeply held religious beliefs. Conversely, one  student’s expression of his or her religious convictions concerning what he or she  regards as sinful sexual behavior will be perceived by another student as suggesting that gay and lesbian students have no place in the school. A student may wear a T-shirt proclaiming “Straight Pride” to counter another student’s “Gay Pride” T-shirt, or vice versa.[...]

When confronting one student’s claim that another student’s speech conveying an idea is harassment and bullying, school officials should consider, time and circumstances permitting, explaining on an age appropriate basis, that disagreement about an idea is not necessarily a personal attack; that some students’ faiths may require them to express their views publicly; that students have a right to disagree with the view of other students or the school and to express that disagreement; and that the most effective response to an idea one disagrees with is often to express a contrary idea, not censorship. Suppression of speech should be the last, not first, resort.

The rhetoric in this document is troubling, because it ignores the current context for how prevalent anti-gay bullying currently is in schools, and how particularly damaging research has shown it to be. Rather, these guidelines suggest that “disagreements” are a two-way street — that a religious condemnation of homosexuality is equivalent in effect to a student’s opposing position defending gay people. This is absurd and completely ignores how vulnerable young people in the throws of coming out can be to such anti-gay viewpoints.

As documented in The Good News Club, conservative Christians are proactively encouraging anti-gay evangelism within schools. It’s unsurprising that among the endorsers of these guidelines are Christian Educators Association International, the Christian Legal Society, and the National Association of Evangelicals. Noticeably absent was GLSEN or any group that advocates for the LGBT community. These organizations are within their right to defend religious expression, but to minimize the impact of anti-gay bullying by conflating “condemnation” with “disagreement” is dangerously disingenuous. The key to reducing anti-gay bullying is training about LGBT issues, not openly humoring religious reproach while ignoring the harm it causes.

An article in The Washington Post last week outed Mitt Romney, the likely Republican presidential nominee, as a bully in high school who once targeted a presumed gay classmate. Romney has said he does not remember the incident, but he added that they used to play pranks at his prep school that may have gone too far.

Despite Romney’s poor record on LGBT issues along with the anti-gay bullying allegations, Fox News political analyst Brit Hume called the Washington Post story “ridiculous” on Fox News Sunday, and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editor Paul Gigot declared that the bullying claims would have no effect politically.

PAUL GIGOT: He was a leader of the prankster group. So what? And this is the only anecdote I think they found that was kind of edgy. [...] I think in terms of politics, if this is the worst thing that the American people find out about Mitt Romney in the next five months, he is going to be a very happy man.

Watch here:

Along with Romney’s record, it’s not hard to find other incidents of LGBT bullying from Romney’s close staff. Romney campaign senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom outed a transgender woman in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, effectively ending her political career, when he was a reporter for the Boston Herald.