SOUDER: On the issue of bullying, Mother knows best

I heard about a mom who was straightening up the family room when her 5-year-old son let out a blood-curdling scream. Almost immediately, he yelled downstairs, “Mom, Chelsea pulled my hair!”

“She’s only 2-years-old,” his mom called back. “She doesn’t know that hurts you.”

Suddenly she heard another scream, this time from the 2-year-old.

Before she could ask what happened, the older brother yelled again, “She knows now!”

If you have two or more children – or if you grew up in a home with two or more children – you can identify with this situation.

My wife and I have two children, and though they are, for the most part, well-behaved, obedient children, there are occasions when they don’t get along.

In response to their arguing, fussing and fighting with one another, instead of creating a new rule that specifically applied to each dust-up (“Don’t take your sisters toy!” “Don’t hit your brother!” “Don’t call you sister that name!” “Don’t bother your brother’s stuff!”), very early on my wife wisely instituted only one rule, which she called the “kind and loving” rule.

At our house, the only rule is that we are to treat each other in a kind and loving way. So, when the inevitable sibling disputes arise, the question we always ask is, “Was that kind and loving?”

It isn’t a perfect system, but it has eliminated a myriad of otherwise possible excuses our children might offer in justification of their not-specifically-banned bad behavior (“but you never said I couldn’t…”).

Since our blanket “kind and loving” rule applies to all unkind and unloving words and actions, we don’t have to try to think of all the potential different ways our kids could mess up and then prohibit them ahead of time.

I thought about this recently as I read about a group of activists – aided by a few left-wing legislators  – who will be trying to expand the legal definition of bullying to include the categories of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” when the General Assembly reconvenes this month.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe it is good or appropriate for kids to make fun of other kids or for any child to be bullied for any reason. Fortunately, there is already a law on the books that says just that.

In 2008, the General Assembly (possibly because they heard of my wife’s policy) passed “The Golden Rule Act,” which calls on all students to treat one another with kindness and respect.

This law applies equally to every student, irrespective of any specific distinguishing characteristic. In other words, the law doesn’t it make it “more wrong” to bully someone because they are overweight than it is to bully someone who is short.

This, of course, makes sense because all kids have the same inherent value. To specifically include some behaviors or characteristics in a bullying ban and exclude others suggests that some kids are less important than others.

However, it also makes sense if for no other reason than that it is impossible to try to specifically ban every reason that kids could think of to make fun of or bully other kids.

Remembering back to my childhood, here are some groups of people I have personally seen be subjected to ridicule or bullying: tall people, short people, fat people, skinny people, rich people, poor people, people with dark skin, people with light skin, people with Asian features, people with glasses, people with braces, people who needed braces but didn’t have them, people with freckles, smart people, dumb people, people with mental disabilities, people with physical disabilities, Hoosiers, Kentuckians, Buckeyes, people of Polish descent, people with funny names, people with big noses, girls with blond hair, people with bad hair, people with no hair, trouble-makers, “goody-two-shoes,” girls who were sexually permissive, girls who weren’t sexually permissive, effeminate males, masculine females, band geeks, dumb jocks and the list could go on and on.

If so many things are the subject of schoolyard ridicule and bullying, why are there no “braces-rights” or “big-nose-rights” groups clamoring for special recognition under the law?

Perhaps it is because the real intent behind the changes isn’t to prevent bullying but to silence religious speech. As Andrew Walker of The Family Foundation recently wrote, the proposed changes in the law “will have the practical result of the religious or moral objections to homosexuality being turned, by legislative fiat, into a crime. By a wave of the legislative hand, deeply held beliefs could be transformed into conduct punishable by law.”

In plain language, that means that if a child has the courage to express the once nearly universally accepted idea that homosexual behavior is morally wrong, he or she could be in danger of being labeled a bully – and be potentially charged with a misdemeanor.

I have written before of this “tyranny of tolerance” that seeks to silence or even criminalize Christianity, and the proposed change to Kentucky’s bullying law is a prime example.

As Walker points out, “We do not need to make our laws into a manifesto to identity politics in order to prevent bullying. All it requires is the application of something that has been a trustworthy guide to relationships for centuries.”

That “something,” of course, is what Jesus said in Matthew 7:12 (and that we now call “the Golden Rule”), “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you.”

Jesus said that if we only applied this simple principle – like my wife’s “kind and loving” rule – no other laws would be necessary.

As I stated earlier, I am certainly not in favor of bullying of any kind. Every person is made in the image of God and, as such, should be treated with dignity and respect.

But gay-rights legislation that masquerades as anti-bullying legislation will not help reduce bullying. It will serve only to limit religious speech.

And though some may think that is a step forward, as I look around at our crumbling society, I see a need for more of God – not less.

In a free society, you have the right to disagree. But if you do, at least be kind and loving.

As my kids will attest, you don’t want to cross my wife.

Chuck Souder is on staff at Shelby Christian Church. He can be reached at csouder@shelbychristian.org