November 4, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Hillary Clinton has pledged to spend $500 million on expanded “anti-bullying” school programs if she becomes president, but critics say her plan discriminates against socially conservative states by using taxpayer dollars to reward states with liberal “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” school laws.
Under Clinton’s “Better Than Bullying” plan, only states with such LGBTQ-affirming laws would be eligible for special federal “matching grants” giving four federal dollars for every dollar in anti-bullying programs spent by the states. In a web post touting the plan, the Clinton campaign website states (emphasis in italics added):
To be eligible for [federal anti-bullying] funding, states must adopt comprehensive anti-bullying laws or policies that: (1) Clearly describe prohibited behaviors, including verbal abuse and cyberbullying; (2) Include grievance procedures for students, parents and educators to address incidents; and (3) Explicitly prohibit bullying on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, and religion.
Linda Harvey, president of Ohio-based Mission America, who has monitored “gay youth” activism and pro-LGBTQ bias in schools for decades, says the Clinton plan would further politicize schools by creating a powerful financial incentive for state legislatures to abandon Judeo-Christian morality and neutral anti-bullying approaches in favor of programs that affirm homosexuality and “gender confusion” (transgenderism).
“Hillary’s plan will lure states with the promise of Washington funding into passing or expanding ‘anti-bullying’ bills with categories like ‘sexual orientation’ and ‘gender identity,’” Harvey said. “Yet many states deliberately declined to add such categories since this essentially legitimizes these behaviors and shuts off valid moral concerns, which are then erroneously called ‘bullying.’ That negative label is precisely what pro-homosexual advocates like Hillary Clinton want.”
Another conservative critic says Clinton’s school plan is laced with politically correct agendas and would expand the massive amount of pro-homosexual and pro-transgender federal funds already dispensed under President Obama to direct even more U.S. taxpayer dollars to her LGBTQ allies.
“Hillary’s plan would expand the federal slush fund for liberal programs that often end up indoctrinating students in pro-homosexual and pro-transgender political correctness,” said Matt Barber, founder of Barbwire.com. “Schools certainly can stop bullying and teach civility without promoting homosexuality and gender confusion.”
Meanwhile, the homosexual lobby group Human Rights Campaign (HRC) – which has endorsed Clinton — praised her anti-bullying plan and used it to stoke a Democratic campaign theme accusing Donald Trump of inciting violence. Said HRC President Chad Griffin in a statement:
As Donald Trump’s rhetoric continues to foment violence and encourage division among Americans of all ages, Hillary Clinton is bringing real solutions to fight the bullying and abuse that so many LGBTQ youth face on a daily basis.
The Democrats’ “violence” narrative against Trump has been complicated by the release of Project Veritas’ undercover videos. The series of videos reveal that Democratic front groups and operatives working directly with the Clinton campaign paid money to provocateurs to instigate violence at Trump rallies — e.g., at a massive rally in Chicago that was cancelled after fights and violence broke out.
Moreover, Trump has not campaigned heavily against the LGBTQ agenda. In fact, he has welcomed support from the “LGBTQ community” and even said Bruce (“Caitlyn”) Jenner could use the women's restroom at his Trump Tower (which Jenner did).
For decades, LGBTQ activists have pushed for schools to adopt pro-homosexual and pro-transgender curricula under the rubric of “safety.” Ironically, however, Education Week reports that bullying in schools has gone down in recent years:
Reports of student victimization at school continue to decline, and students' reports of fear of harm at school also keep falling, data released today show.
Between 1992 and 2014, the total victimization rate at school fell from 181 victimizations per 1,000 students in 1992 to 33 victimizations per 1,000 students in 2014, according to the most recent federal data. Those victimizations include incidents such as theft, assault, robbery, and sexual assault.
Despite the falling bullying numbers, Clinton’s “Better Than Bullying” plan would also push for passage of the “Safe Schools Improvement Act” (H.R. 2902; S. 311), a federal bill long favored by homosexual and transgender activists. The Act would use federal funds to require that schools adopt pro-LGBTQ codes that explicitly ban bullying of students based on various categories, including “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.”
The pro-LGBTQ “Safe Schools” bill is part of a growing network of local, state and federal LGBTQ laws, proposed legislation and corporate policies that effectively punish dissenters and people of faith who adhere to traditional sexual morality and natural marriage.
Said Harvey: “GLSEN [Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network] has been trying to pass the Safe Schools Improvement Act through Congress for years, and Hillary plans to get this done if she can. It’s another avenue to force federal oversight of pro-homosexual and pro-transgender programs on local schools, all to supposedly combat bullying. But no schools need to embrace these deviant behaviors in order to protect students from actual harassment.”
The Obama administration has made unprecedented efforts to pressure school districts to adopt pro-homosexual and pro-transgender “nondiscrimination” policies. In 2012, the Department of Justice — working hand in hand with the Southern Poverty Law Center – a far-left group that spuriously maligns pro-family organizations like American Family Association as “hate groups” — sued a Minneapolis-area school district after several complaints of harassment against LGBTQ youth.
The joint SPLC-DOJ campaign targeted the Anoka-Hennepin school district’s policy of explicitly staying neutral on homosexuality and transgenderism. A local pro-family school watchdog, Parents Action League, said the systematic harassment charges were exaggerated and questioned the SPLC’s “frivolous lawsuit.” The district ended up settling with the federal Departments of Justice and Education and adopting pro-LGBTQ polices as part of the settlement.