Read a June 11, 2013, article from the Los Angeles Times about legislative efforts to protect students from anti-gay bullying and the resulting conservative backlash.

Read a June 16, 2013, article from the Los Angeles Times about a No Child Left Behind revision intended to protect students from anti-gay bullying.

Kenneth Pennington holds the Kelly-Quinn Chair of Ecclesiastical and Legal History at the Catholic University of America and is an expert in church history and canon law. He has written extensively about the papacy.

A Nov. 17, 2008, report from the Britain-based website Ekklesia notes that one in four young people from across all religions have been bullied because of their religious beliefs.

See an April 16, 2010, article on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s site about some Christians’ concerns that efforts to highlight harassment of LGBT students, such as the “Day of Silence” observed at some schools, are essentially attempts to promote gay rights.

Read an Aug. 29, 2010, Denver Post article about Focus on the Family’s objection to anti-bullying programs that it says promote homosexuality and portray conservative Christians as bigoted.

Read a Sept. 8, 2010, Huffington Post column by U.S. Sen. Robert Casey, a Pennsylvania Democrat, criticizing Focus on the Family for opposing a bill he introduced that would combat bullying.

Elizabeth A. Segal is a professor of social work at Arizona State University in Phoenix. She is a co-founding editor of Journal of Poverty and co-edited The Promise of Welfare Reform: Political Rhetoric and the Reality of Poverty in the Twenty-First Century (Haworth Press, 2006).

Ellen K. Scott teaches in the sociology department of the University of Oregon in Eugene and has written extensively about welfare reform and its effect on family well-being.