Resolved: Governments ought legislate anti-bullying policies focusing on sexual orientation.

I want to start off by stating I do not condone bullying of any kind, against any person (gay or not). Bullying is absolutely reprehensible. I will state also that unfortunately it is just a part of life, and to think you will escape it once in adulthood you are sadly mistaken. I believe the focus should be on teaching children to deal and cope with it rather than tell people to stop bullying. Studies have shown that in the work place with the increase in "sensitivity training" harassment has not declined, and some studies actually show an increase in harassment after these types of training has been implemented. Counter to your 1st Contention:"Anti-bullying legislation focusing on sexual orientation is practical" How is this practical? When you consider homosexual students only account for about 5% of the student body. So you want schools that are already broke to expend a great deal more money to focus on such a small group of students. As with most policies there needs to be more focus on the actual consequences and outcomes, NOT the well intentions of the policies. Too often policies end up hurting more, the ones they are intended to help. http://cnsnews.com... Counter to 1a: "Bullying is common against members of differing sexual orientation, and this has severe negative effects." I will not dispute that bullying has negative effects, it does and does so on all groups (gay or not). Common? According to the American Medical Association (non-bias unlike the source you cite) has only found that "one-fourth of students across grades reported that they had been harassed or bullied on school property because of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability". Now that one fourth group comprises not just gay but all the other minority groups mentioned. The problem with the findings in the report you cite is that only those whom were bullied were surveyed. Where as in the AMA survey not only were the victims surveyed but also the perpetrators. A victim is really just guessing as to what the motive of the bully was when they were bullied. And just because a bully may have used "gay offensive" words while conducting the bullying does not absolutely give their motive. Perceived bigoted words could only be a result of observation of the victim's perceived condition. The bully may in fact not have anything against a peer being homosexual, but just simply knows by saying anti-gay words and phrases causes more harm to their victim. The AMA and the APA have conducted studies on homosexual children and found no causation between their being bullied and their rates of depression. The students who report to not have experienced any bullying have been found to have about the same amount of depression. Counter to Sub point 1b: First of all you begin this point it seems by stating since legislation is being passed then it must be effective. Just because many states pass similar laws that address the same issue does not mean they are effective. Without going into much detail just look at anti-texting laws, states haves passed these laws one after the other, so anti-texting laws must work right? Nope, they have not the number of accidents has gone dramatically in each state that passes these laws. Our legislators primary motive to pass laws is that the public perceives that they must not be doing their job if they don't pass laws. Which in many cases it is actually best they do nothing. You give percentages though that attest that students where there is some type of anti-bullying law but do not specifically state 'you shouldn't pick on gay children' that 74.3% of these children still hear "homophobic remarks" vs. places that have no kind of anti-bullying law 75% of students say they hear "homophobic remarks". Then you assert or the report asserts that places that have anti-bullying laws that specifically mention 'don't pick on gays' experience less, yet no statistic is given of how much less. Interesting? Could it be that there is no significant decrease. And here is the quote "...those enrolled in schools with enumerated policies experience less bullying, feel safer overall, and report that teachers are significantly more likely to intervene in instances of anti-gay bullying." A student "feeling" safer does not mean they are actually safer. Then there is this "... but sexual minority youth are less likely to receive this support at home. Approximately one third of gay and lesbian teens have suffered verbal abuse or physical violence from a family member as a consequence of coming out, and one half have experienced some form of parental rejection." How is it that homosexual youth are less likely to receive support from home when only 1/3 suffer verbal abuse after coming out? That means the majority of these youth (2/3) are not getting verbal abused when they come out. And one half have experienced some form of rejection, and again half are not being rejected that hardly tells me they are less likely, now if the study gave us stats on other issues maybe we could say there is a problem. In either case children where is the comparison to non-homosexual children? For instance why did the study not look into an easy target when we are talking about "support at home". That is teen pregnancy which would be your pool of heterosexual children, I know that these girls were miss-treated in school when I attended and I am pretty sure most of their parents did not say kind words to them either when they informed them, and we all know these girls experienced some form of rejection too. My point is that most disturbing news to parents from their children is not welcomed. The study would have been better had it did a follow up to these children coming-out, maybe at first the parents reacted harshly but then as time passed things changed. This concludes my counters. ________________________________________________________________________________________________ Contention 1: According most studies I have read children whom are bullied because they are homosexual is only about 15% of all bullying that happens. With the majority of bullying committed by a male on a male simply because the victim is perceived to be weaker, or exhibits weak behavior (shy, timid, not very vocal, etc.). If any money should be spent I would say it should be spent on the bigger problem and that is bullying of any type is wrong. The problem I have with focusing homosexual bullying is that it seems to dominate the conversation these days about the issue. Also it is turning into the new "boy who cried wolf" hate-crime. That is in this country if a white commits a crime on a black it is automatically assumed that the white person was racist, however the converse is not treated the same. This starting to happen as well with homosexuality. If it is identified that a victim of a crime was gay and the perp was not, then the perp is assumed to be "homophobic". I will find the Journal Article and post in a later round. However many studies have shown that sensitivity training or even anti-bullying classes in schools and the work place do not work and in many cases end up leading to more of the same. We have the same goal "to lessen the instances of bullying" (it is a pipe dream to think we could eliminate it), however where we disagree is the means to get there. What I have seen when I attend my children's anti-bullying assemblies is more bullying. All it does is bring more attention in the wrong way. However here are my solutions, and they mostly will cost next to nothing. 1. Teachers should be trained on how to recognize who bullies are. 2. Bullies should be punished openly and immediately(bad behavior needs to be dealt with and good behavior needs awarded) 3. The all encompassing no-fighting rules need to go away. A bully will most likely stop once he/she gets popped in the mouth.