Coalition fracturing over anti-bullying legislation

LANSING — A coalition of LGBT and advocacy groups supporting a school anti-bullying bill in the Legislature is splitting apart amid a decision by some of the coalition’s members to change course and begin supporting a version of the bill that does not specify lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students as being protected by the bill.

The Safe Schools Coalition — which includes several LGBT groups and the Michigan Association of School Administrators and the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan — has been pushing the Legislature to pass anti-bullying legislation called Matt’s Law.

From 2001 until early December 2008, supporters stressed that the bill had to enumerate, or specify, the protected classes covered by legislation. Supporters of enumeration say that without it, the proposed legislation lacks teeth.

But two weeks ago, Jean Doss, a lobbyist representing Detroit-based Triangle Foundation — which is part of the coalition — told Between the Lines that a compromise bill that arose in the lame duck session of the Senate would protect all youth without enumeration.

“These are very tough decisions. They’re decisions that are very hard for people outside the legislative process to understand because they felt that the bill was further weakened in its ability to protect all children,” Doss said of the bill that passed the House last session. “This is not a GLBT bill. This is a bill to protect all children. We had to make a decision that after eight years of advocacy on this and strong work that this was still better than nothing.”

Doss referred questions to Triangle’s director of policy, Bernadette Brown, for comment. Brown declined to comment on the apparent split.

In response to Triangle’s decision, Julie Nemecek, co-director of Michigan Equality — another coalition group — sent an e-mail to supporters Wednesday saying her organization would not back the compromise bill:

Michigan Equality will only support legislation that includes enumeration of protections which includes sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression. While we believe protections based on religion, ethnicity, height, weight, income-level, and many other things are important, we believe the exclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity and expression from legislation does little to stop the systemic verbal, social, and physical abuse directed at LGBT people; including many children and teenagers.

On Monday night, the newly reformed and renamed Michigan Democratic LGBT and Ally Caucus passed a resolution opposing any anti-bullying legislation that does not include enumeration. It also adds that the caucus will not support legislation that does not include criminal penalties for school officials who do not act to stop bulling. In addition, Log Cabin Republicans of Michigan, a gay Republican group, said it supports enumerated legislation.

This is not the first time a schism has appeared in the coalition. In March 2007, coalition members agreed to a compromise bill in the state House that removed enumeration and instead made reference to it in a second bill tie-barred to legislation that required school districts to adopt a 2006 model policy that defines “harassment or bullying … as being motivated either by any actual or perceived characteristic, such as race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, gender,sexual orientation, gender identity and expression.”

Some coalition members called the passage of the compromise legislation “ugly” and noted the way it was pushed was “immature” and “not politically savvy.” While the legislation referred to enumeration, it was the first time coalition and political leaders allowed the language to come out of the bill.

Kevin Epling, the father of Matt Epling, an East Lansing teen-ager who committed suicide in 2002 after being bullied and for whom the bill is named, said passing anti-bullying legislation is an urgency. He backs the compromise bill, which has the support of Sen. Wayne Kuipers, R-Holland.

“Since we have been involved, five additional families have lost children to suicide due to bullying,” he said. “Having something in place for every child in Michigan is better than what we currently have. As a society we cannot continue allowing our children to pay the price for our failure to put them first. I think people need to read the legislation and understand there has been tremendous cooperation and compromise on all sides to craft something that will guide schools, inform parents and in the end protect students.”

Epling acknowledges there could have been more communication.

“We are further than we have ever been. Hundreds of people across this state have worked together to make this happen. This is a time we should band together and complete the mission at hand, not delve back into what is ‘mine’ or ‘yours’ but what is right for ‘us’ as a society,” he said.

But Noel Siksai, president of the Michigan Log Cabin Republicans, said the compromise bill would not be in the best interest of children.

“The unenumerated bill is a huge mistake,” he said. “Passing it to get something through that doesn’t have the necessary protections is only going to lead to abuse. If school boards don’t have an enumerated bill to comply with, there’s no incentive for them to adopt the enumerated policy.”

Editor’s Note: Todd A. Heywood works as a Capitol reporter for Between the Lines newspaper and worked briefly for Michigan Equality last year.