Oregon School District forces LGBT kids to read bible as punishment

[Neo-Scholastic]

You can't take social and sexuality issues out of the classroom because that's where they're developing; gay kids can no more put their social and sexual development on hold for school than straight kids can. And then faced with bullying on account of that, and the teachers side with or turn a blind eye to the bullies because of their religious beliefs, do you think that's right or wrong? If you were a teacher in that situation, what would you do?

No child should be bullied for any reason. As I understand it, bullying has less to do with whatever pretext is attributed to it and more to do with a simple perceived power imbalance. Bullies make excuses to target other kids that appear weak and vulnerable regardless of their demographic. I do not know what should be done about it. I know that schools have anti-bullying programs now-a-days and I only know about them second had. The general consensus is that school officials cannot be everywhere at all times to stop teasing, etc. There also often are issues at home that teachers cannot hope to remedy. Children are encouraged to band together and confront bullies with social pressure,..."not cool", etc. Turning it into a social identity issue doesn't seem helpful to me. When the issue is framed as one between abuse of power and vulnerability, then children can more easily cross demographic and cliche lines. Maybe the solution is not to emphasize tribal identities; but rather, to focus on common causes. Maybe then you would see more Christian kids standing up for the weak (like they should be doing) by recognizing a common humanity despite profound differences of worldview.