Though the bill was passed and signed into law this spring, conservative Christian activists continue to create wild claims about what the Safe and Supportive Schools Act means for students.

The act included sexual orientation and gender identity among 19 classifications for which bullying is prohibited. It also took Minnesota’s 37 word anti-bullying statute and expanded it to require school districts to maintain anti-bullying policies. It’s the inclusion of LGBT students that seems to have struck a chord with conservative Christians.

Take Marjorie Holsten, a Republican activist who recently appeared on AM 980 KKMS’ “On the Way with Ridgeway.”

During a conversation about Common Core education standards — a common boogeyman amongst the Tea Party set — she and host Paul Ridgeway made some startling claims about the new law.

Holsten: Thank you so much. Yeah, this topic is pretty scary and it’s not about education its about indoctrination.

Ridgeway: And that’s what’s troubling and we’ve seen in the millennials and the generation X-ers — the last 30 years a whole change away from biblical values and by the way after at least my generation is gone people that view of homosexuality, abortion, S and M, all this stuff, it’s really changing to say everything goes its just fine.

Holsten: Oh it is being heavily promoted and now as a result of gay marriage coming around and the bullying bill it’s going to be hard core taught and encouraged in Minnesota schools.

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Ridgeway: All these values that are against conservative Christian values and I know that in all these school districts, the bullying bill had a portion that you didn’t have to even tell the parents. I mean it wasn’t a bullying bill at all but when you look at the polling people think well bullying i’m not for bullying.
That bill had a whole homosexual agenda to it.

Holsten: Well, absolutely, it does and who defines what bullying is and then the schools are doing things that are very they are totally usurping parental values. They’re making some gay class activities mandatory which means a parents cannot even remove their child from them.

Ridgeway: the fact is the school districts were doing a good job against bullying and education and what’s happening to our children in the schools.

The duo also talked about the “religious freedom” to discriminate against LGBT people, and that soon Christians won’t be in the majority.

Ridgeway: You know Dr. Dennison who has the Denison Forum said that Christians are not only going to be marginalized, but more and more we will be in the minority as we say things are wrong. We’re going to see more and more and I know you are a lawyer. I know we are going to see people saying “hate speech, hate speech, hate speech, hate speech.
So how do you balance that and I want to jump off Common Core just a second. I know you’ve been involved politically. The baker in Colorado who now has to bake the cakes for gays.
And somebody will argue but, well, they have a business, they got to serve anybody. at a gas station you get served gas it doesn’t matter if you are gay or not you get served gas.
How do you argue that that the baker should or should not have a right to what he did?

Holsten: I’m an attorney I have a choice of which clients I wish to represent and not represent, so I am absolutely astounded that the First Amendment rights of this baker have basically been thrown away and he’s been told, “You will do what we tell you to do.” That’s what happens in communist countries.”

Holsten does have a choice in which clients she chooses to represent, but discriminating based on certain characteristics can land an attorney in hot water. According to the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct for attorneys, it is professional misconduct to “(h) commit a discriminatory act prohibited by federal, state, or local statute or ordinance that reflects adversely on the lawyer’s fitness as a lawyer.”

That applies not only to legal practice, but in all areas of an attorney’s life such as landlord-tenant relations, employer-employee relations, etc.

Host Paul Ridgeway added, “Barack Obama is behind it. He has no problem with this. He wants to transform America. Transform? He’s ruining America.”

Holsten gained notoriety when she appeared on the Daily Show speaking out against a high school student who wanted to take a porn star to prom.

And earlier this month, she made some more startling claims about sexual health education in schools.

“People say to me, why would they teach such awful things to our children?” she remarked. “If you go deep down and you connect those dots, you see that when children are desensitized to sexual things, that affects their ability at a later date to bond with a spouse.”

“And so if you have somebody who can’t bond, they’re not going to have a stable marriage. When you have unstable, broken households, how do they vote? Democrat. So this has a very evil underlying intent.”

Holsten’s obsession with sex and the classroom should not come as a surprise. She’s on the board of Education Liberty Watch, an archconservative and anti-LGBT group that helped launch Rep. Michele Bachmann’s career. Education Liberty Watch spawned the Minnesota Child Protection League, a group that spread falsehoods about the Safe and Supportive Minnesota Schools Act, which aims to curb bullying in public schools.

MNCPL teamed up with Republicans and the Tea Party this spring to spread false information about LGBT people and organizations.

In just the last month, the group has made disparaging comments about Minnesota’s LGBT community claiming the community is unhealthy and that it promoted sex with children.

This week, that group released a report called, “The Battle Against the Bullying Bill of 2014.”

Time and time again these legislators were warned not to betray our children. They were warned with billboards, with emails, with personal visits and visuals of examples of the pornographic curriculum this bill will sweep into our schools.
Yet they did betray our children. They placed our children in danger! – by intentionally voting for mandates that will usher in the kind of sexual materials our children must view and accept. They voted to violate the innocence of our children! How could they?
From the beginning, Governor Dayton’s Task Force on Bullying determined they would change the “climate” of our very culture—the “values, attitudes, and behaviors” of “the nature of human sexuality” by creating an entire new values enforcement system. In the original bill language, the two new state implementation and enforcement agencies were called the “School ClimateCouncil” and the “School Climate Center”. The word “climate” is used eight times in the final bill. (In the closing committee hours, attempting to deflect stiff objections over the massive state power overreaches, the HF826 authors actually changed the names of the School Climate Center and the School Climate Council to “School Safety Technical Assistance Center” and “School Safety Technical Assistance Council,” an almost laughable and transparent diversionary tactic. But the agencies’ powers remain completely intact!)

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Some key items included in the final Bullying Bill, now Minnesota law, are:
Under the guise of anti-bullying policies, explicit sexual diversity materials and programs will be introduced into classrooms, PreK-12 grade. Students of all ages will be intentionally exposed to behaviors and beliefs that many recognize as wrong, immoral, offensive or dangerous. Moral judgments will be interpreted as bullying behavior. (Click here for excerpts of such curriculum.)

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Districts and schools are required to consult with outside “community organizations” to adopt, implement, review, and revise their bullying policies. These outside groups must now play an active role in developing “best practices” for prevention, remediation, and discipline policies. All those affected by bullying incidents must be offered the “community resources” of these same groups. Parents will now be handing their children over to unnamed groups to counsel and instruct them, without their knowledge or consent. GLSEN (Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network) and its allies are the outside groups already mobilized to fill that role and they have made it clear they will be there to set up their Gay Straight Alliances in the schools. They are also the drivers behind this legislation.

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