by Fidel Ortega
365Gay.com Newscenter
Miami Bureau
(Tallahassee, Florida) A bill that would ban harassment of LGBT students in Florida schools has been tied up by dozens of amendments that gay activists say threatens its passage.
The amendments are all from one Senator, Republican Anna Cowin. Among them are references to obscene phone calls and sex with corpses and animals.
"We can only guess at her intentions because the sheer volume of her amendments have blocked even so much as a hearing on the bill," said Nadine Smith, Executive Director of Equality Florida.
"Either she thinks dealing with school safety is a joke or she¹s manipulating the system to block any real debate on a critical school safety issue."
The amendments have stalled the bill in the Senate Education committee and unless the amendments are withdrawn the bill could die at the end of the session.
The Dignity for All Students Act would require schools getting public tax dollars to ban harassment and discrimination, provide training to educators to deal with these situations before they escalate to violence and ensure the effectiveness of the training is tracked.
The bill protects all students and provides specific guidelines around harassment based on race, color, religion, national origin, marital status, sex or gender, disability or sexual orientation.
The bill has drawn strong bipartisan support and has more than 22 sponsors in the House and Senate.
Despite the inclusiveness of the bill, opponents have most often targeted "sexual orientation" despite research showing that students perceived to be gay or lesbian are the most frequent targets of the most vicious harassment.
Anthony Verdugo, the leader of the failed effort to repeal Miami-Dade¹s human rights ordinance claims to be the architect of Cowin¹s strategy.
Similar laws have passed in 8 states and three others are considering such legislation.
Earlier this month a federal appeals court ruled that Public school administrators who fail to take effective steps to counter anti-gay harassment may violate the U.S. Constitution's guarantee of equal protection of the law. (story)
Linear Mode
