GLSEN’s ’Day of Silence’ Generates Plenty of Noise
This year's annual "Day of Silence," a day when students vow to remain quiet as a means of drawing attention to the voicelessness of GLBT youth, is generating plenty of noise in advance of its April 16 date, with anti-gay groups slamming the wordless protest as "disruptive" and encouraging parents to pull their kids out of school for the day if the school allows students not to speak.
"Hundreds of thousands of students at thousands of middle schools, high schools and colleges will participate in GLSEN's 15th annual Day of Silence on Friday by taking some form of a vow of silence to bring attention to anti-LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) name-calling, bullying and harassment," reads an April 13 press release issued by the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a safe schools advocacy group that focuses on the needs and experiences of GLBT youth.
"Students from more than 6,000 middle and high schools already have registered as participants at www.dayofsilence.org for the student-created and student-led event sponsored nationally by GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network," the release continued. "Students typically participate by remaining silent throughout the school day, unless asked to speak in class. The event is designed to illustrate the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment on LGBT students and those perceived to be LGBT."
Anti-gay group The Illinois Family Institute posted a "DOS Walkout" page at which they quoted the ACLU, which outlined what students participating in the Day of Silence could do to exercise their rights of free (non) speech. "You DO have a right to participate in Day of Silence and other expressions of your opinion at a public school during non-instructional time: the breaks between classes, before and after the school day, lunchtime, and any other free times during your day. If your principal or a teacher tells you otherwise, you should contact our office or the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network," the quoted text reads. "You do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak."
But despite those guidelines being made explicitly clear so as not to interfere in the ability of schools to teach, the group encouraged parents to "de-politicize" the day--by yanking their children from schools that permit the Day of Silence to take place.
The page also made reference to what it called "GLSEN's socio-political goals and its controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality."
But the GLSEN press release outlined reasons for the Day of Silence that had little to with social theories, citing the daily experiences of thousands of GLBT youths in America's schools. "Anti-LGBT bullying is a pervasive problem in America's schools and creates unsafe learning environments for countless youth," said the GLSEN's executive director, Eliza Byard. "The Day of Silence was created by students as a simple yet powerful way to raise awareness about a problem that very few schools adequately address. More than a decade later, the Day of Silence is an example of how people of any age can bring about positive change by working together to make their world a better and safer place."
"Research has continually shown that anti-LGBT bullying is commonplace in American schools," the release said. "Two of the top three reasons students said their peers were most often bullied at school were actual or perceived sexual orientation and gender expression, according to From Teasing to Torment: School Climate in America, a 2005 Harris Interactive report commissioned by GLSEN. The top reason was physical appearance.
"Nearly 9 out of 10 LGBT youth (86.2%) reported being verbally harassed at school in the past year because of their sexual orientation," the release continued, "nearly half (44.1%) reported being physically harassed and about a quarter (22.1%) reported being physically assaulted, according to GLSEN's 2007 National School Climate Survey of more than 6,000 LGBT students. The report also found that 3 out of 5 LGBT youth (60.8%) felt unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation."
The release noted that, "The Day of Silence originated at the University of Virginia in 1996 and has grown each year, with GLSEN coming on as national sponsor in 2001.
Students participating in the Day of Silence hand pre-printed cards to people who attempt to engage them in conversation. "Please understand my reasons for not speaking today," the cards read. "I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment.
"I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today."
De-Politicize... or Capitalize?
But far from promoting a "de-politicization" of the schools, anti-gay groups are making a political feast of the event. Anti-gay group Concerned Women for America warned readers of its website about the Day of Silence, claiming, "While wearing the mask of a 'safe schools' program, this is actually a movement to silence any criticism of homosexuality. It is a homosexual activism day." The text went on to call the event "a manufactured crisis of violence upon gender-confused students," a euphemism among anti-gay groups for GLBT teens, who are, such groups maintain, merely "confused" about their sexuality and vulnerable to being preyed upon by gay adults wishing to "recruit" them into a homosexual "lifestyle."
"Adult homosexual activists have manufactured it to promote a political agenda," the text reads, but instead they are ruining young lives, putting children at risk because of deadly behaviors, and forcing gender confusion on the vulnerable."
The site also encourages parents to pass on to their children the anti-gay view of homosexuality. "Parents should explain to their children why they are taking a stand: homosexuality is not innate. It is immoral and should be resisted; it is not equivalent to race; disapproval of homosexuality is not equivalent to racism or hatred or bullying."
Credible mental health experts say that homosexuality is not a pathology, and that it is inborn. Even some anti-gay churches, such as the Roman Catholic faith, acknowledge that gays do not choose their sexual orientation, although the church also condemns any expression of same-sex desire or affection as "inherently evil." Mental health experts also warn against so-called "reparative therapies" that are promoted by religious anti-gay groups; such attempts to "convert" gays into heterosexuals, warn mental health experts, are more likely to do harm than good.
Go to School... With God
Some groups want students to go to school but take with them a different message. Exodus International, which promotes the view that gays can be "cured," has launched its own response to the Day of Silence, called the Day of Truth. "As an individual who is fighting same sex struggles and submitting this battle daily to Christ, you bring a different and much needed redemptive viewpoint," text at the site reads. At another area, text tells the reader, "You may well know that schools are becoming more and more biased when it comes to homosexual issues. Messages about homosexuality are seeping into classroom lectures, and teachers and administrators alike are enforcing one-sided rhetoric."
"You have rejected the world's answer to homosexuality and are experiencing a new-found freedom through Jesus Christ," the text assures its audience. "You are proof that there is another way! By participating in Day of Truth, you can be an advocate for other hurting and struggling students at your school.
"Now, please don't hear us saying that you should broadcast your battle with homosexuality to your whole school. This certainly may not be the time and place for that, but you don't have to share your testimony in order to be effective. You can still be a great influence in helping bring understanding and compassion to this issue without divulging your own personal battle.
"However, if you feel lead to share your story to the DOT participants and/or the student group you're involved in, be bold in your freedom and share the redemption you've experienced through Christ. Be confident that you're not alone and there are thousands of other students battling right alongside you all throughout the world. Your story can plant seeds of life into the hearts of the broken and help other Christians see the grace of God in a new and different way."
Advice for Straight Youth from 'Ex-Gay' Group
For those who may be straight, the text advisers, "Place yourself in the shoes of a gay-identified, or homosexually struggling peer. Imagine you grew up feeling different and alienated from your same-sex peers. You've struggled with feelings and attractions towards the same-sex for as long as you can remember. Out of shame or guilt, you've hidden it from your family, friends, church leaders, and the world around you. The last thing you want is for anyone to know your 'secret' as you pray night after night for God to free you of this struggle. You wonder how this even happened and why, out of all the things you could struggle with, homosexuality has to be your struggle. You didn't choose to have these attractions; they just developed and you feel like there is no way to make it all go away.
"These are the kinds of things that characterize a person's life who is dealing with same sex feelings and attractions," text at the Day of Truth site continues. "Once you can get an idea of what they are going through, hopefully you are able to view them in a different light. They are no longer 'sick' people who choose to have these feelings. They are dealing with temptations and sin."
Text at the Concerned Women for America site states, "Schools should not support a behavior that is physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive to individuals and society."
In recent years, several gay middle and high school students have committed suicide after being continuously bullied with anti-gay harassment; two of the youngest victims were only eleven years old.
But anti-gay groups such as MassResistance, a Massachusetts-based group, lobby state legislators when bills pertaining to bullying in schools are proposed. Such groups claim that anti-bullying laws would, in effect, endorse homosexuality and possibly subject religious youth who speak out against gays to legal prosecution.
MassResistance, too, made political hay out of the Day of Silence, encouraging parents to pull their children from school for the day rather than allow them to be subjected to the silence of their GLBT-affirming peers. Moreover, the site posted what it claimed were "obscene and hateful" emails sent by Day of Silence proponents. "This is how these activists practice 'tolerance,' " text at the MassResistance site read.
"What is unacceptable and outrageous is that you are teaching and promoting bigotry and hate. It's long, long past the time that your kind retired quietly to the shadows with the rest of the evildoers on this planet who, like you, promote violence, discrimination, bigotry, homophobia, separatism, and hate in the name of your personal gods," read one message.
Another said, "Homosexuality is a beautiful gift from God that people are born with. To deny such is disbelieve facts which makes you an ignorant and stupid person. And to tell people that disapproval and violence towards gay people is OK is wrong. I hope you stupid fucks get sued."
Read another purported email from a Day of Silence supporter, "I hope you die of cancer...but rest assured, I do not mean that in a bigoted way, or a violent way, or a discriminatory way. just like you freaks always say."
Although GLSEN does not receive money from the government, anti-gay groups have called the Day of Silence a "waste of taxpayers' dollars," according to FoxNews.com. An Illinois Family Institute staffer, Laurie Higgins, told FoxNews.com, "There are better ways to use taxpayer money. We send our kids there to learn the subject matter, not... to be unwillingly exposed to political protest during instructional time."
The FoxNews.com article said that anti-gay leaders viewed pulling kids out of school to protest "disruptive" silent classmates as a form of civil disobedience," and revealed that under the rhetoric there was a finance-driven motive: to cost schools some of their funding. Said Bryan Fischer of the anti-gay American Family Association, "Most schools get reimbursed on the basis of average daily attendance. In other words, they don't get taxpayer dollars for teaching students anything--they get taxpayer dollars for having fannies in the seats. So if you have fewer fannies in the seats that's less dollars for school administrators and that's an incentive for them to do the right thing here."
As far as disruption to a child's education goes, yanking them out of classes for a day is far more disruptive than having classmates not say anything outside of class time, reckoned Byard: "Participants in Day of Silence go to school, go to class and answer when called upon," she told FoxNews.com. "For a family to decide to take their child out of class, it would disrupt that child's learning and that would be a shame."