Mr. Speaker, there has been a lot of confusion about the effect that SB 2 will have on schools. I wanted to try to help clarify the issue.

Officially, Section 29 of SB 2 prohibits discrimination against a student on the basis of his or her sexual orientation. If this passes, a school will violate the law if it denies access to a class, program, or sport for the sole reason that a student is gay. Teachers will be prohibited from discriminatory treatment on the basis of sexual orientation.

But the passage of SB 2 will have a more profound effect than merely prohibiting official acts of discrimination. In fact, SB 2 will help make schools more tolerant, accepting, safe environments for all students.

SB 2 can not, in and of itself, change the way that kids act toward each other. Words like "gay" and "queer," thrown as insults across a crowded hallway or whispered behind a classmate's back, will continue to sting.

But SB 2 sends a powerful message to principals, teachers, and students that Oregon does not tolerate discrimination in our schools. By passing this bill, we stand symbolically with the principal who wants to address this type of bullying but is concerned about the community's reaction. We stand symbolically with the teacher who adopts a zero-tolerance policy on hateful speech in the classroom. And we stand with the courageous student who calls out a peer for his hallway insult.

SB 2 will help make our schools safer, more tolerant, and more understanding.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to also say just a few general words about this bill. We have heard a lot about the significant step forward SB 2 represents for equality. I share this excitement, but I wanted to pose the question, "equality for what?"

"In what sense is this equality valuable?"

Posed that way, I think it is possible to see SB 2 as about something even deeper than equality. By prohibiting discrimination in employment and housing, SB 2 speaks directly to our heritage as a society that makes liberty the supreme principle governing human relationships. No one's freedom to seek housing or employment should be diminished on the basis of something as irrelevant to those contracts as sexual orientation.

The Englishman John Stuart Mill, one of the 19th Century fathers of the modern concept of liberty, seemed to understand that it is our ability to make choices that truly makes us human. Others may make choices that we disagree with, even find repugnant, but, as long as those choices don't harm others, we should tolerate them.

Likewise, as legislators, perhaps our most profound responsibility is to preserve and extend individual liberty insofar as it does not harm others.

Discrimination, in any form, undercuts and narrows the possible choices available to those who are victims of it. No Oregonian should see their freedom to compete for jobs and in the marketplace diminished because of their sexual orientation.