This brief article explores two of the primary tools that have been used to combat bullying: litigation and statutory changes. Litigation has been useful in some cases, and can also act as a deterrent to other school districts where bullying is not being addressed in a responsible way by officials. But it is not the best vehicle for systematically addressing the deeper causes of bullying.

Recent statutes have begun to develop a more promising model: one that considers all affected populations within schools. For example, Massachusetts and New Jersey have lately enacted laws that require establishing plans to combat bullying with a combination of initiatives: helping the victims; seeing the perpetrators as both deserving of punishment and in need of counseling; training all members of the staff; integrating anti-bullying messages into the curriculum; and involving family members of both victims and perpetrators. These laws also require creating and evaluating the plans based on the best evidence available. This fresh approach is consistent with sound public health policy, as it takes into account the complexity of the problem and looks at all affected populations in designing interventions.

The article explores these decisions, and the more recent decision by the Iowa Supreme Court, as the culmination of a natural process of judicial evolution that has led from "virtual equality" (in states such as New Jersey and Vermont) to real equality. It argues that the choice of heightened scrutiny analysis is a natural, and perhaps inevitable, result of the recognition that the "virtual equality" conferred by “marriage equivalent” laws is insufficient to confer true equality on same-sex couples.

What public health and policy goals are we trying to further with laws recognizing and subsidizing marriage? How do the signals sent by privileging marriage advance or compromise those goals? Is there a continued justification for marriage, and, if so, ought we consider changing its prerogatives in ways that will further the public good? What might those ways be, and how will (or could) we know whether we have succeeded? This brief Article raises and explores these questions, and asks whether and to what extent the current privileging of marriage is (or is not) justified.