pudding7: That's how I feel when I read the book that inspires the idiots that wrote the bill.

They've never read a book, especially the bible.

Well, there goes the family trip to Michigan.

I think Ronald McDonald might have something to say about this!

"The bill does not prohibit bullying. It does not apply to students. It does not require any student to do anything or to refrain from doing anything. It requires school boards to adopt anti-bullying policies," Douglas Laycock, Robert E. Scott Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of Virginia Law School.

*snicker*

/Yes, I'm 12. How did you know?

Oh come on! I loved the bill as it was written! How else was I going to have legal grounds to bully religious farktards because of my moral conviction against using moral convictions to bully people?

Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Serious Black: Oh come on! I loved the bill as it was written! How else was I going to have legal grounds to bully religious farktards because of my moral conviction against using moral convictions to bully people?

That. It is my moral conviction that Christian godbotherers are the enemy of a free society and must be pants, wedgied, and swirlied at every opportunity until they learn the error of their ways. It's just not natural.

Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Could set a dangerous precedent for other states. . ..

Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Because this is Fark, and this bill is farked up (new window, to Detroit Freep article updating, with comments from State Board of Ed.).

Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

I don't think the "Michigan Messenger" is national news, but if you're asking why it's on FARK it's because we like stories about dumb shiat, and this was a dumbshiat law even before they added the even more arbitrary dumbshiat exception clause to it. We can't resist that much concentrated stupid.

Somacandra: He's legendary for trying to stop Wicca in the state.

So he's not all bad, is what you're saying?

Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Because it essentially states that if I dunk you in the toilet and steal your lunch money, I can't get in trouble for it if I claim God told me to do it.

Under this proposed bill, can Muslim kids beat the crap out of Christian kids for eating pork?

/or does it only apply to gay-bashing?

So I'm new to the politics tab (mostly avoided it out of fear), a politically minded new mate of mine introduced me to the sheer silliness of it all.

As for this whole thing... Like, seriously? I mean, REALLY? Actually? How is this not a prank? I get it, there are some serious farktards in the States but... c'mon man.... isn't obvious troll obvious enough? I literally do not understand how this can be legit. It is utterly beyond my comprehension that this is even being considered debate worthy, let alone anything else. The sheer farked-uppedness of it all is overwhelming me.

/Wow, just wow.

Well, how do you prove whether a not a stated belief is sincerely held or not in the courts?

I think kids parroting their parents is the exact opposite of a sincere belief.

La Mit: So I'm new to the politics tab (mostly avoided it out of fear), a politically minded new mate of mine introduced me to the sheer silliness of it all.

As for this whole thing... Like, seriously? I mean, REALLY? Actually? How is this not a prank? I get it, there are some serious farktards in the States but... c'mon man.... isn't obvious troll obvious enough? I literally do not understand how this can be legit. It is utterly beyond my comprehension that this is even being considered debate worthy, let alone anything else. The sheer farked-uppedness of it all is overwhelming me.

/Wow, just wow.

Click the links on the new Mississippi bill, but tighten your seatbelt first.

Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Shut up, pipsqueak and hand over your lunch money.

wingedkat: Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Basically, after a bullied Michigan boy committed suicide (Matt Epling of East Lansing), a bill was proposed to require schools to create anti-bullying policies. This was not big news, it was just sad.

Then republican legislators added a clause stating that schools could not prohibit "a statement of a sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction of a school employee, school volunteer, pupil, or a pupil's parent or guardian." This addition made this national news.

Yep. It's pants on head retarded for at least two reasons: (1) it's morally reprehensible to say "teachers can bully students as long as it's moral or religious bullying", and (2) Michigan is broke enough already, and doesn't need waste millions of of money dragging this through the court for the next five years.

Last night I was at a meeting unrelated to this bill. In walks in the my State Senator, whose committee this bill came from. I introduced myself and said this bill was a bad idea. She apologized and basically said she had so much stuff going on she didn't know was the bill said and didn't realize what she was voting for. Good excuse!

Michigan is awesome.

So, if a high school janitor has a sincerely held moral conviction that Jesus was an extraterrestrial, it will be perfectly fine for him to dump christian kid's lunch tray on the floor, right?

MrEricSir: Lunchlady: Can someone summarize why this Michigan Bill is in the national news?

Shut up, pipsqueak and hand over your lunch money in the name of Jesus.

FTFY

Hasn't Darwin always been kinda beholden to the "bullies"?

Serious Black: Oh come on! I loved the bill as it was written! How else was I going to have legal grounds to bully religious farktards because of my moral conviction against using moral convictions to bully people?

The little nihilistic voice in the back of my head points out that the 'usual crowd' would suddenly have to argue that atheism isn't a religious belief. A rhetorical snap-around that fast could easily tie their tongues in literal knots.

/ Waiting to see if it happens in this thread.

gregario: Last night I was at a meeting unrelated to this bill. In walks in the my State Senator, whose committee this bill came from. I introduced myself and said this bill was a bad idea. She apologized and basically said she had so much stuff going on she didn't know was the bill said and didn't realize what she was voting for. Good excuse!

I would have told her that she got my vote for just the same reason, but that I would be paying more attention when she was up for reelection.

I'm a scholar. There is no Duntis; it's just the wind in the cave.
I'm a scholar. There is no Neptune; it's just an undersea volcano.

So now its OK that Jesus killed my fig tree?

what_now: Could the Bahai kid bully the Christian kid for not believing that all religions are equal*?

*I'm not really clear on the Bahai religion.

Bahai believe in progressive revelation and that all major religions are part of the one true religion; they're just interpreted differently because of the time and location of the prophet that gets revealed the truth