Stacey Campfield = Sue Sylvester?

Our dear State Senator Stacey Campfield (whom we're pretty sure we saw wearing sandals and walking around with his girlfriend last week at the Better Than Ezra Sundown in the City concert) has gotten lots of attention over his "Don't Say Gay" bill lately. Slightly less attention has been paid to another bill he has sponsored, SB 426, that would allow parents to prevent students from joining extracurricular activities. The original bill would require schools to send out a list of activities at the beginning of the year, and parents could chose to veto certain ones - which does seem like a plot development out of Glee. Critics see this bill as a way to effectively get rid of gay-straight alliance groups, since many students who are out to their peers (or struggling to come out to their peers) are still a long way from telling their parents. 

But when the bill hit the Senate floor, Campfield unveiled a more sweeping version - now a parent would have to send a separate permission slip for any and all extracurricular activities.

"Some parents may not want kids to be involved in clubs, for whatever reasons. They may say, Hey, Johnny or Billy is doing poor in school, I don't want him doing chess club, or dance club or whoever knows what club. We may want him to be studying, instead. This is just to give those parents that approval power, similar to what we do for sports."

Some Senators called Campfield's new version overkill. They spun stories of their own children's involvement with the school system - a not-so-subtle dig at Campfield, a bachelor with no children of his own.

Campfield ignored the digs and continued to lobby for more parental control, but fellow Republicans sent the bill, with its broad new amendment, back to the Senate Education Committee for more study.

The Senate Education Committee is expected to take up the new version on Wednesday.