SB 2017-126: Protecting Our Students Act (Passed)

[Anna Komnene]

I like the idea of being open to all of the minorities listed here, but I wonder if some of the parts in section 4 and 5 are kind of overboard. Or maybe I'm not reading it right?

In the last sentence it sounds like schools are meant to make almost any accommodation someone could ask for as long as they have a medical, religious or cultural reason. So like... to make a horrible analogy from an overdone issue... if little Mary Mapleton is having a bake sale at the school to raise money for the yearbook. She makes a batch of her famous maple syrup and brown sugar cookies, which she sells to any students who want them. However, Sammy Swansong is an open lesbian who brings her younger brother Jeb! Swansong to school. Sammy wants to purchase one of Mary's delicious cookies to support her fundraiser, but Mary says that her religious beliefs mean that she is prohibited from offering the fruits of her labor to cretin sinners like Sammy. Is that a religious accommodation that schools can make for Mary?

Maybe it's an unrealistic demand like it says in section 5, but how do we determine what is an unrealistic demand and what isn't? I'm a little worried that schools in different parts of Atlasia might have different ideas about what counts as an accommodation and what counts as an unrealistic demand.

[Anna Komnene]

Oh is "dietary accommodations in accordance with a student's religious or health needs, or any other religious, medical, or cultural standard" meant to apply to just the dietary part? I was thinking it was in addition to the dietary stuff in order to cover something that was left out of the language or something.

Maybe dress is something that should be included since that seems to be an issue in Islam, Judaism, and some other religions.

Another thing that I just thought of is are all of these things accommodations that would also be made to Christian students?

[Anna Komnene]

I agree about not wanting to exclude Christians. I'm not sure if any of these accommodations are things they don't already have but I don't feel comfortable providing other religions with potentially extra accommodations that Christians don't have.

[Anna Komnene]

I'm more comfortable now with the amended version of the bill.

[Anna Komnene]

Aye