Kentucky’s House Education Committee voted down along party lines an anti-bullying bill even after hearing crying testimony from several parents whose LGBT students literally had been bullied to death. Republicans on the committee called the bill “just more verbiage,” an attempt “to achieve equality by making some people more equal than others,” and, not about bullying but “about gay rights in our schools.” One Republican lawmaker, Rep. C.B. Embry Jr., said “We have a death penalty against rape and murder but they still happen.”
Via Kentucky.com:
“If this bill does not get on to the House, if it does not get through the Senate, my daughter’s death will be in vain,” said Travis Cambell of Hopkinsville, whose 14-year-old bisexual daughter committed suicide on Feb. 4.
House Bill 336, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Mary Lou Marzian of Louisville, would require schools to have a code of conduct that bans bullying and harrassment motivated by a student’s race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or learning disabilities.
It fell two votes short of having the majority needed to clear the committee. The tally was 13 votes in favor, 10 against and three passes. All Republicans voted against the bill, except two who passed.
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Darryl and Carol Denham of Northern Kentucky and Campbell pleaded with the committee to approve the bill.
Sam Denham, 13, an eighth-grader from a Northern Kentucky middle school, and Miranda Campbell, 14, a high school freshman from Hopkinsville, committed suicide in the past five months to escape bullying, they said.
Denham said his son, who was not gay, killed himself in October after he was bullied and assaulted at school.
“What does it take to get schools to address these problems?” he asked. “No child should be afraid to go to school because of bullying.”
Campbell showed lawmakers the bullet that he said took his daughter’s life.
“I made a pledge on her death bed — make something good come of this,” he said.
His daughter was “condemned” at school because she was bisexual, he said.
“Teachers have often turned a blind eye to bullying because of sexual orientation,” Campbell said.
The bill was opposed by the Family Foundation of Kentucky, a radical anti-gay extremist organization.