We try to teach kids about bullying. There are laws against bullying. No name-calling weeks in schools. We urge children not to be intimidated.

But they shouldn’t look to the grown-ups for role models. Not when it comes to guns. On that matter our leaders pretty much cave before the gun lobby, one of the biggest bullies in Washington.

The supreme bully is the top gun of the NRA, Wayne LaPierre, who after the Newtown Connecticut school slaughter called for more guns, rather than fewer guns. And, how about arming all the teachers?

It was such a nutcake idea that had we not all been in shock and in tears we might have laughed him back into his bunker.

But he didn’t go away. He’s still lurking, snarling and growling and saying boo. Along with his lieutenants.

Bullies don’t do it alone. Bullies need backup, in this case a gun lobby goon squad. To threaten and mock. To make people afraid. To argue others into submission. To make people lose their resolve.

In some circles it goes to the very top. Consider the five Republican members of the Senate (Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and James Inhofe) who promise to filibuster additional gun restrictions when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tries to open discussion. It doesn’t matter that the parents of the 20 first graders slaughtered in December want an open debate about guns. The bullies won’t budge.

Bullies rely on bystanders not getting involved. And there are too many bystanders in Congress, including weak-willed Democrats who first said they want to do something about gun control but now worry that the bully might “sight-in” on them.

For the bully to prevail he must create a real or perceived power imbalance. He uses coercion and intimidation to get his way. I got that from a government website designed for teachers and parents to help kids identify, prevent and deal with bullying in the schools. It’s called stopbullying.gov. Among the suggestions is to change the attitude of adults who tolerate bullying. The bully mentality needs to be challenged early or it will become accepted as normal.

Unfortunately the government has no such anti-bullying website for itself.

Bullies count on creating cowards. They make people give in even when they know something is wrong. But there is some reason for hope. There are some people who are standing up. New York, Colorado and Connecticut have enacted new gun control laws. And across the country last week more than 130 groups from Arizona to New Hampshire rallied for common sense gun legislation.

But in Washington, D.C. there’s every reason to fear the bullies will get their way.

So far, the inaction of Congress has created an environment in which “cowards can succeed,” said California congresswoman Jackie Speier who calls her colleagues “gutless” because “they know in their heart of hearts” the right thing to do. “But they are more concerned about their reelection.”

There was great resolve after we buried those first-graders and their teachers. But, so far, common sense, a sympathetic president and the pleas by parents of dead babies don’t seem enough to stand up to the NRA.

Sorry about all this, you 20 first graders. Your country, our leaders and honestly, most of us don’t seem to have the guts. You didn’t even live long enough to hear the lesson on bullying.

It’s no surprise that young adults increasingly support gay marriage and think it’s just fine for two moms to have kids.  Young people grew up with gay friends. They may have a gay stepbrother or a lesbian minister.

But the part that’s bothered me all along in the debate over marriage equality is why older people are assumed to be against same sex unions. When old people were young people they too had gay friends and most likely a gay relative, teacher or neighbor, but they either didn’t know it, refused to accept it or were part of keeping it a secret.

But since then have come decades of changes in societal thinking and real life experiences. It baffles me how you can get to be 60, 70, 80 or whatever age one is considered an old person and not revise some of your thinking, too.   One advantage to living a long life is to have participated in a great span of human history and to evolve with it.

It’s called wisdom, one of the promised perks of old age. And if you’re anywhere near old you’ve experienced some pretty amazing advances in gay equality.  There are now six openly gay and lesbian members in the House of Representatives and the first open homosexual in the U.S. Senate. The wedding pages of the New York Times and other papers routinely include same sex nuptials. Who didn’t weep watching Brokeback Mountain? Who doesn’t love Ellen?

Yet, the gay lifestyle has an image of being flat-out resisted by the older generation.

But look at this. As the Supreme Court took on same sex marriage,  opinion polls reported that approval of gay marriage has increased over the last 10 years in all generations. Including boomers and older.

There are several reasons why opponents switched their thinking, say researchers for the Pew opinion poll. First big reason is personal connection. You have friends or family who are gay and  lesbian, not strangers whose lifestyle you don’t get but people you love and respect.

The second reason people gave for reconsidering their opposition was they became more aware, studied the issue and grew older.

There it is. Pollsters didn’t say which age group attributed their change of heart on getting older, but the hope is that the longer we live the more we learn. The more kinds of people we get to know.  Differences disappear. The heart opens. They become us.

Anyone who is 65 today and defends his prejudice on what the church and Readers Digest told him as a kid gave up on life as a learning process.

As for me,  I prefer to think of my brain still expanding, not shrinking to fit what most people thought in the 1950s in rural Pennsylvania.

Don’t lump me in your stuck generation.

As an older person I know many things can threaten my happy heterosexual home. But it’s not the two fathers living down the street.

And the claim that every child needs a mother and a father? Well, biologically speaking that’s true. But in my experience it seems that what children need once they’re in the world are parents who love them and love each other. Who will keep them safe, make sure they eat their greens, go to their basketball games and teach them to be kind and brave and think for themselves.

To worry about same sex marriage redefining family doesn’t wash either. We long-time straights redefine family when we remarry, become step parents and give the grandchildren four sets of grandparents.

If you have been on this earth a while and have been paying attention, it seems pretty obvious that opposite sex couples are no better at loving and parenting than same sex couples. Or visa-versa.

When their oppressors fled, the people of Mali danced, The African women wrapped themselves in bright colors, some even bared their bellies, and they got out into the street and shimmied. How sweet, freedom. It makes you want to dance.

We don’t normally count dancing as a defiant act in this country. There are no pleasure police peeking inside my window to arrest me the next time I dig out some old Brown Sugar and hop around the living room.

But dancing is a threat and a sin in some places. Mali is only the latest place where religious extremists forced women to stay inside, covered them in veils, banned all music and dance, , and brutalized those who offended the new morality laws.

Then French soldiers came in, liberated the people from al Qaida and dancing became a celebration of independence.

And so it will be on February 14, next Thursday, Valentine’s Day, when the world is invited to dance on behalf of all women and girls and defy those who would oppress them.  It’s an easy way to show our solidarity. No special training required.

In this world-wide protest no bullets will be fired. No cars set ablaze. No angry mobs. Just a world full  of people moving their hips and waving their arms.

The global event called Rise Up Dancing, is part of an organization called One Billion Rising. No surprise, the idea came from the playwright and activist Eve Ensler.  Her gutsy play The Vagina Monologues has been in production some place around the world since she wrote it in 1996. She’s not afraid of taking on those who subjugate women be they Congo rebels using rape as a weapon of war or American politicians arguing the definition of rape.  Last year when Michigan lawmakers banned a woman legislator from the House for using the word vagina in arguing an anti-abortion bill, Eve was there saying, oh, boys, grow up.

For 15 years she’s been putting together events on Valentine’s Day to both celebrate women and decry the violence against them. This year she called for an “outrageous disruptive dance action” by women and the men who love them.

With all the horrible things done to women –  the gang rape in a bus in New Delhi, the gang rape by football players in Steubenville, Ohio – you would think that we might be more moved to get together and weep.

But crying feels awful and dancing feels so good. It makes your body happy.

It takes confidence and courage to dance. Which is just the opposite of what it takes to hurt a woman. There’s no courage in attacking a woman if you’re bigger and stronger and you have a bunch of goons including the law, your tribe and your church backing you up.

Men who beat up women are all cowards.  All rapists are cowards.  So are military men who cause military women to fear them more than the enemy.

Those who would manage women with their rules, be it forcing them to wear a burqua or refusing them birth control are cowards. So too are members of Congress who run away from the Violence Against Women Act .

So we will dance against all the big dumb brutes who try to control women with their fists and their laws. We’ll dance for equality and power and strength and we’ll move our bodies just how the music tells us to, and no one else.  And maybe we’ll wear short skirts, too.

In the Bay Area there are Rise Up Dancing events popping up all over, including one in Santa Rosa at 3 p.m. at Monroe Hall and Courthouse Square at 5 p.m. Also in Petaluma, Sonoma, Mendocino and throughout San Francisco. To find an event and to let them know you’re coming, go to www.onebillionrising.org.