Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
We've got an incredible situation going on in Lansing, Michigan, where a school bus driver harassed a lesbian student on the bus - and another student recorded it on his cell phone camera. My colleague Todd Heywood has an article at the Michigan Messenger about the situation and the response from local activists and legislators.
When the girl went to get off the bus, the driver told her to "get your gay tail off my bus" and then said, "Hopefully you and your little girlfriend don't get lost in your unsaved lives." Another student captured that on his cellphone, and to their great credit her fellow students are standing up for her.
All of this is happening in the context of a fight over the last couple years over passing anti-bullying legislation for schools in Michigan:
The law came close to passing the Michigan Senate during the lame duck session nearly a year ago, but it died when Sen. Alan Cropsey, a Republican from DeWitt, refused to allow the Republican-controlled Senate to vote on the compromise bill pending before the chamber. It passed the Michigan House earlier in the year.Legislation has been introduced this session by Sen. Glenn Anderson, a Democrat from Westland.
"It's sad that an incident like this has happened," said Anderson in a phone interview from Chicago. "It shows the need for Senate Bill 159 to be passed, to demonstrate the state is serious about this problem."
"This incident in Lansing is an example of why anti-bullying laws are needed in our schools in Michigan. Bullies come in all sizes; it's extra insidious when it is an adult against a child," said Alicia Skillman, executive director of the Detroit-based Triangle Foundation, a gay rights organization and member of the Safe Schools Coalition.
In this state, the Senate is where bills go to die. The Republicans control it and if the majority leader doesn't like it, it doesn't even get a vote even if there would be enough votes to pass it.
The bus driver has been put on "administrative leave" pending an investigation.
Politics
Comments
This is a perfect example of how the "saved/unsaved" mentality is for some people just a way to look down on others. It's like "white power" in a sense. People who have nothing else going for them latch onto it and use it to demean people who are in pretty much all other ways their betters.
Posted by: Wes | December 7, 2009 9:34 AM
The bus driver will no doubt see herself as a martyr if/when she loses her job. But hopefully, she'll lose many nights of sleep worrying about the fact that kids these days don't share her homophobia.
Posted by: Imrryr | December 7, 2009 10:04 AM
A bus driver is much easier to replace than a cop or a teacher. His ass will be on the curb in no time.
Posted by: Brandon | December 7, 2009 10:11 AM
Feel the Christian love.
"As you have done unto the least of these, you have done unto me."
Posted by: James Hanley | December 7, 2009 10:22 AM
"Hopefully you and your little girlfriend don't get lost in your unsaved lives."
Makes the ex-evangelical in me cringe, big-time. This is how you show the love of Jesus to the unsaved? Once again, we see a religion which has nothing to do with its putative moral teachings per se, but only with using those texts as a source for in-group/out-group markers.
Posted by: Eamon Knight | December 7, 2009 10:35 AM
It's good to see that the younger generations are finding such behavior unacceptable. When R-71 was up for a public vote this year here in WA, I was a little sad to see how many teenagers were out holding signs against R-71.
Posted by: Madrocketscientist | December 7, 2009 10:39 AM
Unsaved? From what? Apparently bigoted school bus drivers. A person's job is no place for soapbox preaching, especially from a person who's job it is to ensure the safety of all aboard a school bus, both in the physical and mental sense.
Posted by: OMC | December 7, 2009 10:59 AM
Reminds me of the case in Nederland CO where a parishioner acted on his pastor's impassioned urgings and killed a worker at a nearby ski resort for not being Christian. I would like to see the crazy ranters held accountable for the bad that comes from their words. In this case, only a job is lost but I feel it important that, if there is a pastoral source, that person be contacted and guilted with their part in the results.
The real guilt falls directly on the driver regardless of where they learned their hate but if the source can be educated about consequences, maybe the tone would change. I'm not holding my breath.
Posted by: MikeMa | December 7, 2009 11:01 AM
I'm intrigued whether any talking head pundit will take up the bus driver's cause. With minimal spinning, this event could feed into the Christianist persecution myth that government defending gays' rights equal to others will decrease their speech and religious freedom rights.
The nuance that the bus driver represents the government and this is less a speech issue than a disruptive bully can easily be avoided given the rhetoric we expect out of conservatives.
Posted by: Michael Heath | December 7, 2009 11:05 AM
Imrryr @ 2:
>>>The bus driver will no doubt see herself as a martyr if/when she loses her job.
You can bank on it.
In fact, ten bucks sez that if/when this driver is fired that the first call she makes will be to Fox News looking for a venue on which to plead Christian persecution.
And of course, Fox will be only too happy to oblige.
However, I agree that what's most encouraging about this story is how the student in question's classmates are going to bat for her.
Posted by: CHV | December 7, 2009 11:36 AM
I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that a strong anti-bullying campaign in schools would do way more good than even the most successful No Child Left Behind-type testing-oriented program.
Posted by: xebecs | December 7, 2009 12:36 PM
I don't try to predict Glen Beck's reactions, but it would be quite a leap to see him taking this case up. After all, it is not the bus driver's job to manage the love lives of the students who ride her bus. I'd say the odds are about the same as the possibility that Beck would kill the girl in question, rape her and then serve her with a nice chianti.
Posted by: kehrsam | December 7, 2009 12:47 PM
Well, Glenn Beck has continually refused to deny allegations that he raped and murdered a young girl in 1990. So does that mean he would take this case up?
Posted by: Ll | December 7, 2009 12:51 PM
@CHV - I'm having a hard time coming up with a way for Fox to spin this story so that the bus driver looks sympathetic, but if any "news" organization can do it, Fox can. It could just amount to the bus driver claiming that since she knew the girl was gay, the girl must have been "flaunting" her gayness, and Jesus required the poor bus driver to die on the cross (i.e. make some ignorant comments). Some BS like that just might do the trick. Hmm... hopefully Glen Beck isn't reading this.
Posted by: Imrryr | December 7, 2009 3:20 PM
Great.
Now let's do something about the teachers who do the same thing, day in and day out.
Posted by: Endless, Nameless | December 7, 2009 3:29 PM
#14: to a Fox News audience, hating gays is all it takes to make the bus driver sympathetic. Showing one's contempt for homosexuals and sinners goes by the name of 'standing up for what you believe in' these days. All she has to say is that she has the right to refuse service to anyone based on her Christian beliefs, just like those pharmacists who refuse to dispense various medications, and the sympathy (and $$$) will just start rolling in.
Posted by: mad the swine | December 7, 2009 5:07 PM
Ed -
Leave with pay or leave without pay? IMO he can stay on the latter until the Senate passes that bill, for all I care.
Posted by: eric | December 7, 2009 5:18 PM
@mad the swine - Palin/Unidentified Lansing School District Bus Driver 2012!
Posted by: Imrryr | December 7, 2009 6:04 PM
BTW, only marginally on topic -- the driver was "put on administrative leave pending an investigation", as is typical in these cases. And as is typical in these cases, I'm left wondering: What the hell is there to "investigate"? There's the video, and the testimony. You have it already. And really, the video is all you need. What are you going to know about this case weeks from now that you don't know today?
How refreshing it would be to hear "she's fired" on the same damn day the story is reported. More cynically, is "pending an investigation" just code for "we're not going to do anything, now go away"?
Posted by: Nemo | December 7, 2009 6:26 PM
Imrryr @ 14:
Fox could spin it easily. They'd just claim the driver's free speech rights had been violated by the local liberal establishment in Lansing.
And mind you, I'm not being facetious here.
I seriously think that's the way that, say, Beck, Malkin and/or O'Reilly would go about expressing their outrage that a poor Christian woman is being persecuted for her beliefs by a vicious gay teenage girl.
May God have mercy on her gay soul.
Posted by: CHV | December 7, 2009 6:28 PM
This case also highlights the importance of lettign people carry recording devices. The poor girl probably would have had trouble getting anyone to believe her otherwise.
Posted by: Ace of Sevens | December 7, 2009 6:58 PM
@Nemo - I suspect that even if the administration wanted to fire the idiot driver on the spot, they'd still have to take a few days to talk to the union, fill out the paperwork, and all that crap. Calling it "under investigation" is a good way to keep people off their backs while they get that done.
Of course (hedging my bets), they'd say the same thing if they planned to wait until the press goes away to pat the driver on the back and give her a raise. You just can't tell. However, I suspect there's enough attention on this by now that they'll have to fire the driver no matter how they feel about it personally.
Posted by: BobApril | December 7, 2009 7:10 PM
I'm all for anti-bullying legislation, but doesn't that generally apply to students? In what universe is this an acceptable way for any adult employed by the school system to talk to any student?
Posted by: katydid13 | December 7, 2009 10:25 PM
I hope they get a new bus driver and throw the old one out on his christian ass. Imagine harassing school kids - what an asshole.
Posted by: MadScientist | December 7, 2009 11:50 PM
Just wait till the school board suspends the student for violating the driver's privacy by videotaping him without his consent...
Posted by: Bill Poser | December 8, 2009 12:21 AM
Sounds similar to this story about a guy to tells his boss that, "Regarding your homosexuality, I think that's bad stuff" and is fired as a result. Of course, he played the victim when it was him who was raining on her parade.
Posted by: ckitching | December 8, 2009 12:36 AM
Please tell me this time there are no evangelical groups rushing to defend this man in the name of free speech.
Posted by: Jim | December 8, 2009 9:17 AM
Picking up from Eamon Knight in post #5, the true test of the Christians in that town will be their public reaction to the bus driver's religion based bigotry.
Posted by: John Norris | December 8, 2009 12:41 PM
you don't need 'anti bullying' legislation. This was plain and simple harassment. Period.
a lot of 'anti bullying' legislation, or the way it sometimes gets used, goes dangerously into free speech areas
Posted by: jay | December 10, 2009 12:28 PM