DFLers have introduced legislation that would beef up Minnesota’s anti-bullying laws and include specific prohibitions against bullying that include sexual orientation, and gender identity and expression. The GOP has offered a watered-down bill that does not include LGBT students.

According to a study by the U.S. Department of Education in 2011, Minnesota has the worst anti-bullying laws in the nation.

The DFL bill contains the following language:

(f) “Prohibited conduct” means bullying, cyberbullying, harassment, or intimidation as defined under this subdivision, retaliation for asserting or alleging such conduct, perpetuating such conduct by transmitting hurtful or demeaning material, or engaging in speech that will materially disrupt a student’s learning environment. Prohibited conduct includes discriminatory conduct based on a person’s actual or perceived race, ethnicity, color, creed, religion, national origin, immigration status, sex, marital status, familial status, socioeconomic status, physical appearance, sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, academic status, disability, or status with regard to public assistance, age, or any additional characteristic defined in chapter 363A, as well as association with a person or group of persons with one or more of these actual or perceived characteristics; however, prohibited conduct need not be based on any particular characteristic defined in this paragraph or chapter 363A. Each district and school must list in their policy the characteristics identified in this paragraph.

It’s called the Safe and Supportive Schools act. It was introduced by Reps. Jim Davnie (Minneapolis), Barb Yarusso (Shoreview), Carly Melin (Hibbing), and Carlos Mariani (St. Paul), and Sens Scott Dibble (Minneapolis), Chuck Wiger (Maplewood), Melissa Franzen (Edina), and John Hoffman (Champlin).

On the Republican side, an anti-bullying bill includes provisions presumably aimed at socially conservative students.

“The policy must specifically require that nothing infringe upon a student’s first amendment rights or prohibit a student from expressing a religious, philosophical, moral, or political viewpoint to the extent the student’s expression does not materially disrupt the learning environment.”

Most of the bill’s authors have a 100 percent rating from the Minnesota Family Council, which opposes any inclusion of sexual orientation or gender identity in anti-bullying legislation.

Of a bill in 2011, the group said that the bill “gives preferential treatment and status to homosexuals, bisexuals, cross dressers, transvestites and transsexuals – persons who have sex change operations – by singling out sexual orientation and gender identity or expression for special protection. Homosexual activists will use it as ‘leverage’ to promote acceptance and normalization of homosexuality, homosexual marriage and unhealthy sexual behaviors.”

The Republican bill is sponsored by Reps. Steve Drazkowski (Mazeppa), Michele Benson (Ham Lake), Kathy Lohmer (Lake Elmo), Marion O’Neill (Buffalo) and Mike Beard (Shakopee), and Sens. Paul Gazelka (Brainerd), Mike Benson (Rochester), Dan Hall (Burnsville), and Sean Nienow (Cambridge).

One DFLer, Leroy Stumpf of Plummer, is also a sponsor.