Florida Voters Support Anti-Bullying Protections

TAMPA (U.S. Newswire)-- Equality Florida, the state's largest organization fighting anti-gay discrimination, today released the results of a statewide poll showing Floridians overwhelmingly support passage of a "Safe Schools" bill protecting gay and lesbian students from bullying.

"We're very happy to know this level of support is out there," said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida. "Passing comprehensive anti-bullying legislation has been a priority of ours for years and I hope these results will spur our Legislators to action."

Specifically, two "Safe Schools" questions were placed before Florida voters. The entire questions and answers are:

"Please tell me if you strongly favor, somewhat favor, somewhat oppose or strongly oppose passing a 'safe schools' law in Florida to prohibit bullying, harassment and violence in schools against students based on race, religious beliefs, gender, ethnic background or sexual orientation."

Strongly favor: 64 percent
Somewhat favor: 16 percent
Total favor: 80 percent
Somewhat oppose: 6 percent
Strongly oppose: 10 percent
Total oppose: 16 percent
Undecided: 4 percent

"Other things being equal, if a candidate for office supports anti-bullying legislation to protect all students, including gay and lesbian students are you more likely, to vote for the candidate or against the candidate?"

More likely vote for: 71 percent
More likely vote against: 14 percent
No difference: 15 percent

"There is a strong consensus that all students, regardless of sexual orientation, deserve to be able to attend school safely," said Bob Meadow who conducted the poll for Equality Florida.

Earlier this year, Representative Ken Gottlieb (D-Miramar) sponsored bill 1303 which would have extended basic anti-bullying protections to students. The bill was defeated in a House Education Committee on a 9-2 vote.

"It's a law to protect our children," said Rep. Gottlieb. "Hearing that 80 percent of Floridians support it doesn't surprise me. That the Florida Legislature refuses to act on it surprises me. It's time for lawmakers to take this issue seriously and pass this legislation."

"These results show that Legislative leaders have nothing to fear in doing what is right for Florida's students." Smith said. "When seventy-one percent of your constituents say they are more likely to vote for you just for protecting someone's basic rights, it becomes harder for any legislator to justify refusing to champion this basic protection."

The poll was conducted by the national polling firm of Lake, Snell, Perry, Mermin and Decision Research from May 21-28, 2005 with 1,200 interviews in English and Spanish and has a sampling error of 2.8 percent.