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Loading ...Conservative groups call for school boycott on Day of Silence
04.15.2009 9:37am EDT
(New York City) A coalition of conservative Christian groups is calling on parents to pull their children out of school on the National Day of Silence, scheduled to take place in hundreds of schools on Friday.
The coalition is made up of organizations that have a national history of opposing LGBT civil rights and includes The American Family Association, Campaign for Children and Families, Concerned Women for America, Liberty Council, and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays.“The implicit purpose of the Day of Silence is to undermine the belief that homosexuality is immoral,” the groups said in a statement. “It is the belief of the sponsors of the Walkout that parents should no longer passively accept the political usurpation of taxpayer- funded public school classrooms through student silence.”
The statement said that parents can express their opposition by calling their children out of school on the Day of Silence and sending letters of explanation to their administrators, their children’s teachers, and school board members.
“This day is not about ‘tolerance’ as it claims, but about forcing propaganda and acceptance of high-risk behavior into the schools with no opposing views allowed,” said Linda Harvey of Mission America.
Many of the same groups are involved in a national protest day which they call “The Day of Truth” as a response to the Day of Silence, and school districts which bar counter demonstrations are being threatened with lawsuits. It is scheduled to take place Monday April 20.
The Day of Silence was created by University of Virginia students in 1996 and became a national event in 1997. The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network became the national sponsor in 2001.
A study released by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network in 2006 showed that homophobia is widespread in the nation’s schools.
Nearly one-in-five students reported they had been physically assaulted because of their sexual orientation and over a tenth because of their gender expression.
Three-quarters of students surveyed said that over the past year they heard derogatory remarks such as “faggot” or “dyke” frequently or often at school, and nearly nine out of ten reported hearing “that’s so gay” or “you’re so gay” – meaning stupid or worthless – frequently or often.
Over a third of students said they experienced physical harassment at school on the basis of sexual orientation and more than a quarter on the basis of their gender expression.
The study also showed that bullying has had a negative impact on learning.
Last year’s National Day Of Silence was dedicated to the memory of 15-year-old Lawrence King.
The openly gay eighth-grader was shot by a fellow student in front of classmates in February 2008 in Oxnard, Calif. He died after being declared brain dead and life support was removed.
Brandon David McInerney, a fellow student, has been charged with murder as a hate crime.
On Monday, hundreds of people attended a funeral in Springfield, Massachusetts for Carl Walker-Hoover, an 11-year-old boy who hanged himself after enduring months of anti-gay harassment.
His mother, Sirdeaner L. Walker, said that the New Leadership Charter School did nothing to stop the bullying despite her repeated complaints to the school.
The 11-year-old did not identify as being gay, but Walker said that he suffered taunts and threats from other students who made fun of him, insulted the way he dressed and called him gay.
It was at least the fourth suicide of a middle-school aged child linked to bullying, the GLSEN said.
Earlier this month, the parents of a Mentor, Ohio, high school student filed a federal lawsuit in connection with their son’s suicide.
Mohat, 17, went home from school on March 27, 2007, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.
In a federal lawsuit, the parents of Eric Mohat allege that he regularly “was called ‘gay,’ ‘fag,’ ‘queer’ and ‘homo’ among other names” and that the school did nothing to prevent it.
Some 8,000 schools nationwide took part in the National Day of Silence in 2008.
Well I guess it would fit in with their agenda – keep people ignorant so that they believe in the ever lasting life fairy. Education is a bad thing for religion – makes people ask questions.
I read this and was outraged. It figures right? These groups are wanting members of the GLBT community, myself included, to respond in the worst possible way that we can. That isn’t going to happen. It is their own ignorance that will be their downfall, for lack of a better term. These people can not see past the views of the bible, which in many ways is irrational, and produce logical thought. How is it that the Day of Silence isn’t promoting tolerance? It is an event to help show the enormity of the harrassment recieved by GLBT youth in high school because of intolerant people such as these groups. I am going to quote the article: “This day is not about ‘tolerance’ as it claims, but about forcing propaganda and acceptance of high-risk behavior into the schools with no opposing views allowed,” said Linda Harvey of Mission America.” This quote shows how little these groups research. The Day of Silence is not promoting high-risk behaviors. The GLBT community is at more risk for HIV/AIDS then the straight community yes, but this is not about sexual relations between two people of the same sex. This is about the harassment of GLBT and questioning youth in high school because of their knowed or PRECIEVED sexual orientation. I am so happy that these groups can’t do research and see that GLSEN has found that 44.6% of straight students were “gay-bashed” because of their precieved sexual orientation. It is kinda ridiculous that these groups are being so narrowminded and not doing their research. They want to have their protest to bring out the “truth” about homosexuality and the Day of Silence, let them. If someone listens to them that is fine, but if people don’t then it might just show that their message isn’t working, cause people will be thinking rationally, unlike them. These groups need to see that they might preach something, but unless you can back it no one will listen to their hate.
Jesus stopped the Jewish leaders from stoning the prostitute. Take a hint people! It must be more fun to act like you are better than everyone else.
Tom in Long Beach
You know I am as a strong as a believer as there is. But these so called Christian groups make me angry and sick to my stomach. To attach the word Christian to their programs is an oxymoron. The only solace I can take is that it is promised that the hate they throw at others usually, if not always, comes back and lands on them,as it rightly should.
I do need to make a correction to my earlier comment,
I stated the 44.6% of straight students were “gay-bashed” because of their precieved sexual orientation. It is actually that as much as 4 times the amount of gay students that are harassed because of their sexual orientation, are harassed for their percieved sexual orientation even though they identify as straight.
those who walk out, and the organisers of the boycott are responsible for the harrassment of LGBT students and they well know it. these groups are shameful.
It is the schools responsibility to give demerits to those students pulled out by their parents, and the parents a citation for promoting truancy. There are laws against truancy and the must be enforced.
Okay…one more time.
We must simply remind everyone that simply being called faggot is NOT an insult.
WHY is being called a faggot an insult?
I AM a faggot.
I AM a queer.
I AM homosexual.
I AM gay.
It would like being insulted if someone called me blue-eyes or brown-hair.
It’s meant to be derogatory, but we cooperate when we let it be.
What is inherently shameful about being queer, or gay?
Nothing, as far as I’m concerned.
The best answer?
“You faggot!”
“Yep. Now what?”
Or
“Thank you.”
There was a court ruling recently in which someone had sued someone else because that someone else had identified them as being gay.
The court ruled that in order for being called gay to be insulting or damaging to one’s reputation, the court would have to support the concept that BEING homosexual was inherently harmful to the person.
As for physical assault? It’s a crime and should be treated as such.
I remember when I was in high school, I was physically assaulted. I didn’t tell the principal. I called the police.
At first, no one took me seriously…until I pointed out that assault was a crime and I had been assaulted and just at what point in my life could I expect police action for a crime upon my person.
The other guy was arrested.
He then had a record. A real record. A juvi record, but a record none-the-less.
Kids who are assaulted in school should whip out the ol’ cell-phone and call 911. If the police refuse to respond because it’s a “kid”, then there is further action, obviously, that can be taken.
Assault is a crime.
As an educator I don’t find this shocking. However, those kids pulled will just grow more curious about what and why they are supposed to be hating something so much. Kids today are WAY different in good and bad ways.
Teachers coming out would put an end to all of this.
Seems like we’re at war kiddies. But no one on our side wants to fight. Unless they are closeted in the military that is… What is everyone so afraid of? Death? Arrest?
Wouldn’t it be better to die in the name of gay truth? Get arrested for something that matters? Or give into the squalor in the mind of others?
Wow. How nuts do you have to be to get that worked up about silence?
AHHHHHHH – Can u feel that Christian Love? NOT!!!
Apparently some words have been redefined lately. The word “conservative” now means “completely out of touch with reality,” and the phrase “evangelical Christian” means “filled with hate and vitriol.”
I had a conversation with a seminary professor in which I said that to find out what a group really believes, you don’t look at their creed, you invert their greatest heresy. He agreed. Then I said that all these “evangelical” churches who are preoccupied with marriage and rabidly anti-gay are really just sex cults. He hesitated, but agreed.
These people make me sick. They are the most un-Christian Christians I’ve ever seen. Kids are being taunted and harassed at school, and are killing themselves. All these idiots care about is this non-existent evil gay agenda that threatens humanity. To put it simply, they are all vile hateful human beings.
@Sarrellec
For the first and last time… It’s the way the words are used not the words themselves.
Like you we all identify in some way as queer or as a fag or dyke etc…
The problem is that when they are hurled as insults they can and do hurt, which is the intention of the hurler of the insult. The words are also often the start of a physical assault to come.
When some asswipe says “Thats so gay” meaning stupid it hurts like hell. If you replaced the word gay and said to a priest “Thats so Catholic” or “Thats so Jewish” to a Jew the intent is to hurt the person on the receiving end.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” Yeah, the words DO hurt and often for a lifetime. Whenever I hear someone wispering behind my back I often wonder if I am getting insulted, It brings me right back to High School because the words do hurt, Still.
@ Randy
I am sorry but this isn’t just ’silence’. It is about the safety of GLBT youth in high school. The Day of Silence is about the metaphor of the silence these youth face on a daily basis because of the hatred towards who they are. It is not simply ’silence’. It is to stop the harassment and discrimination. I am a gay high school student and have felt this discrimination myself. I have been harassed throughout my school career because of being gay. I am one of the hated, and will not stand by and let others be hated because of who they are. Randy, follow John Rawl’s veil of ignorance and you might just see the truth. Put yourself as though you had the chance to be in a gay student that is being harassed shoes. Would you like to be harassed everyday for who you are? I wouldn’t think so. Would you want to be denied the basic safety rights that all other students receive? I don’t think so either. So it isn’t just ’silence’ its a lot more.