Last Week at the Legislature

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Last Week at the Legislature

Special Report - May 4, 2009
With two weeks left until crossover deadline, the pace is picking up at the General Assembly. In a carefully orchestrated move late in the afternoon of Wednesday, April 29, two key education bills were re-referred to the Senate Mental Health and Youth Services committee which passed HB 88-Healthy Youth Act and SB 526-School Violence Prevention Act. Both bills are now on the Senate calendar for Monday night.

HB 88, would eliminate the standard of Abstinence Until Marriage (AUM) sex education in North Carolina public schools by forcing the 104 out of 115 school districts statewide who do not teach a contraception-focused Comprehensive Sex Education (CSE) program to implement both a CSE and AUM track. SB 526 is a resurrection of last session's failed pro-homosexual "Bullying Bill" that seeks to use bullying and harassment in public schools as the mechanism for introducing special legal protections based on "sexual orientation" and "gender identity" for the first time in state history. The passage of similar bills in Iowa were used as a rationale for the court there to legalize "same-sex marriage." If you have not already contacted your N.C. state senator, about these bills, you can do so through our Citizen Action Center at ncfamily.org.

Finally, the House Ways and Means committee approved HB 1110-Clarify/Alien. Of Affection/Crim. Conversat'n that would limit the application of the torts of alienation of affection and criminal conversation that apply to a third party who interferes with a marriage relationship. The House was additionally focused on the budget (SB 202-Appropriations Act of 2009) and HB 205-Lottery Act Changes, which among other things would stagger the audit schedule for the Lottery Commission.