FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) – A Senate bill aimed at curbing bullying in schools is being opposed by a conservative organization that contends the bill gratuitously enshrines gay rights.

The legislation would require local school boards to adopt discipline codes that prohibit “harassment, intimidation or bullying of a student” for any reason, including “a characteristic” listed in Kentucky’s statute on hate crimes.

Characteristics include a victim’s sexual orientation. Others listed in the hate-crime law are race, gender, religion, ethnicity and disability.

The Senate Education Committee approved the bill though The Family Foundation, based in Lexington, is lobbying against it.

“We can discourage bullying in schools without putting gay rights language in state law,” Martin Cothran, a policy analyst and lobbyist for the foundation, said in a telephone interview.

Casebier, without mentioning names, said some were trying to beat the legislation by raising the specter of “special rights” for gays and lesbians.

But debate of the bill in his committee included repeated questions about why it was needed, given the hate-crime law. “I find it rather redundant,” said Republican Sen. Dan Seum, who voted against it.

Casebier said some school administrators only become diligent about enforcement when a rule is spelled out. Shaughnessy said the idea was “to focus attention on a problem that’s getting worse, not getting better.”

Cothran said the bill, if it became law, would usher “tolerance police” into school buildings and make it an offense to “express disagreement with homosexual behavior.”

“If we want to protect everybody from bullying, then why not say we’re protecting everybody from bullying and not make a list?” Cothran said. “To us, this was an excuse to put certain sexual behaviors on a par with other characteristics.”

If enacted, he said, it would be “the first time that a law governing schools considered sexual orientation equivalent with race and religion.”