RALEIGH - A House committee this morning approved a bill that would make schools adopt policies to combat bullying, after first voting to retain a list of likely targets that includes homosexual students.

The House Education Committee decided to keep language in the bill that describes bullying as including acts motivated by bias against "any actual or perceived characteristic" of a victim, including race, gender, disability and sexual orientation. Some dissenters had objected to including sexual orientation on the list, because they said it would set a legal precedent unrecognized elsewhere for protecting gays and lesbians.

The committee voted 30 to 16 against a move to strike the language from the bill. Then the committee voted overwhelmingly to approve the bill and send it on to the full House.

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