Corinne's Law -- Anti-Bullying in Texas

Check out this amazing and heart breaking video put together by Equality Texas in support of "Corinne's Law," Texas's proposed anti-bullying legislation:

The Law, HB1323, is currently 60 bills back and looks about ready to die on the floor of the House (it needs to be on the floor by midnight tomorrow, if I'm reading this right). If you are from Texas, you are encouraged to contact your representative to vote FOR it and to make sure it gets to the floor...

...but this blogger is not hopeful that it will make it. Cross your fingers, folks.

The anti-bullying law will:

• Provide for the movement of the perpetrator to another classroom or campus, at the discretion of school administration. Under current law, the victim is required to move to another classroom or campus in order to escape the perpetrator;
• Expand the definition of bullying to include cyber-bullying by electronic means such as computers, cell phones, text messaging, and instant messaging;
• Require notification of the parents or guardians of both the victim and the student who is bullying or sexually harassing another student;
• Expand the mandatory sexual harassment policy that school districts are required to have to include bullying;
• Expand the state's Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) reporting requirement to include incidents of bullying, harassment, and sexual harassment. Currently, the state does not know the magnitude of the problem. The only way to assess the magnitude of this problem is to collect data on the frequency and nature of occurrence.

So, actually, it's not a "gay" bill at all. It protects all students. I wonder why it's taken so long to get it through. (The law failed to come up to a vote in 2007, as well.)