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RALEIGH – Many state lawmakers said the School Violence Prevention Act, which aims to put a stop to bullying at school, is something they can all get on board with.

“When I was elected, one of the last things that I thought I would be doing is telling school boards that you have to implement policies to protect all the kids from bullies,” Sen. Julia Boseman said. “If it’s race, sex, whatever, it’s not acceptable.”

But some state lawmakers argue that the way the bill is written, it will have a much more far-reaching effect than just the one anti-bullying law.

“It’s not about protecting children. It’s about accepting the term sexual orientation and gender identity and how they define human sexual behavior. That’s the whole point of it,” Rep. Nelson Dollar said.

State republicans came forward Tuesday to say they have concerns about the use of the term “sexual orientation” in the bill. They pointed to a court case in Iowa where the use of the term in one bill opened the door to the possibility of same-sex marriages.

“[Iowa’s] constitution, which is the same as ours, its defense of marriage, which is the same as ours, and used the fact that the legislature had put sexual orientation in the statute as a reason to declare unconstitutional the Defense of Marriage Act,” Rep. Paul Stam said.

But bill supporters said school bullying is too important of an issue to get bogged down in that sort of partisan debate.

“My daughter had a friend in high school who hung herself after constantly being called names daily,” Rep. Susan Fisher said.

Because of the debate over the use of the term sexual orientation, a House committee did not have time to vote on the bill Tuesday. They will bring it back up for debate Thursday.