The de-activism is heating up regarding the homosexual Day of Silence. Many school administrators who participate are doing so mostly out of fear, believing they have no choice. But now that dozens of activist (or as Laurie Higgins calls them, “de-activist”) groups have challenged the legality of this obvious disruption in the nation’s schools, and have called upon parents simply to keep their kids home that day, some administrators are backing down. According to The Central Times, the student newspaper of Naperville Central High School in Naperville, IL, the administration has canceled both Day of Silence and Day of Truth, arguing that they cause ”substantial disruption” to the school day. There are schools here in southern PA that have not agreed to participate in the first place. There almost certainly will be more dropouts soon as more parents call and warn their schools not to politicize the classroom.
DOS walkout instructions
COLUMBUS, OH — A nationwide coalition of Christian and pro-family groups is calling for parents to keep children out of schools on Friday, April 25, 2008 - the day when thousands of middle schools, junior highs, and high schools will observe the 12th annual “National Day of Silence.”
Buddy Smith of American Family Association asserts, “It’s outrageous that our neighborhood schools would allow homosexual activism to intrude into the classroom. ‘Day of Silence’ is about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality. It’s time for Christian parents to draw the line - if your children will be exposed to this DOS propaganda in their school, then keep them home for the day.”
“It amounts to educational malpractice for school officials to engage in one-sided homosexual activism,” said Matt Barber of Concerned Women for America. “Our schools are supposed to be places of learning, not places of political indoctrination. It is the height of impropriety and cynicism for “gay” activists and school officials to use children as pawns in their attempt to further a highly controversial and polarizing political agenda.”
“Day of Silence” is promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a homosexual activist group that targets schools. The event is typically organized by a school’s Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) and is designed to pressure students to regard homosexual, bisexual, and transgender behavior as normal and worthy. Students and even some teachers remain silent throughout the school day, disrupting the teaching environment. Protesters wear t-shirts and hand out “speaking cards” protesting alleged injustice, harassment, prejudice, and discrimination toward “LGBT” people and their “allies.”
“Social activism does not belong in the classroom,” says Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth. “Students would be far better served by reading a good book at home - perhaps even the Bible - rather than being subjected to pro-’gay’ indoctrination.”
This year, GLSEN adds a special twist to “Day of Silence”: shameless exploitation of the recent tragic school shooting death of California 8th grade student Lawrence King. Los Angeles media report that although the boy had been entrusted to the care of Casa Pacifica, a residential center for “abused, neglected, and severely emotionally disturbed children,” he had been permitted for the last two weeks to attend school in feminine makeup, nail polish, and high-heeled boots. The adult guardians, school administrators, and teachers responsible for guiding and protecting this precious troubled child failed him miserably; GLSEN fails him again now by employing his violent death to manipulate and deceive millions of children.
What should parents do?
1.Call your local schools and ascertain whether they or passively allow students to observe “Day of Silence.” For a list of schools expected to participate, check the Mission America site.
2.Be sure to discover on what date the event is planned for your school. (The national date is April 25, but some schools observe DOS on a different date).
3.Inform the school of your intention to keep your children home on that date and explain why. (A sample letter is posted along with the school listings.)
4..Explain to your children why you’re taking a stand: Homosexual behavior is not an innate identity; it is sinful and unnatural. No school should advance a physically, emotionally, and spiritually destructive sexual lifestyle to students.
5.Pray with your children for sexual purity and for wisdom to lovingly counsel sexually confused teenagers in your own community. Grieve for Lawrence King.
6.Encourage your church leadership to follow the bold example of Pastor Ken Hutcherson who is vocally opposing “Day of Silence” in his community in Redmond, Washington. Let your light shine by spreading the word to your church and neighbors, and explain that most school districts lose money for every absence.
Linda Harvey of Mission America urges parents to understand that “Homosexual activism creates an explosive situation in schools. I encourage parents to keep their children home on ‘Day of Silence.’ Let’s pray that in the future, schools will offer hope to students who are sexually confused by first telling them the truth.”
Gary Glenn of AFA Michigan, said:
“The director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force broke homosexual activists’ code of silence on the threat homosexual behavior poses to young people’s health when he admitted this month that HIV ‘is a gay disease.’ GLSEN should cancel its celebration of that code of silence about the severe public health hazards of homosexual behavior, and any school administrator who continues to stand silent while enabling the promotion of such harmful behavior should be sued for criminal negligence.”
The coalition includes: Abiding Truth Ministries, American Family Association, AFA of MI, AFA of PA, Americans for Truth, Campaign for Children and Families, CAP Ministry (Child Care Action Project),Christian Information Service, Christian Civic League of Maine, Citizens for Community Values of Indiana, Concerned Women for America, Culture Campaign, CWA- Washington state, Defend Education (WA state),Defend the Family International, Eagle Forum of California, Exodus Mandate, Faith,Family,& Freedom Alliance, Illinois Family Institute, Indiana Voice for the Family, Informing Christians, Liberty Counsel, MassResistance, Mission America, New Generation Christian Center,North Carolina Family Policy Council, North Shore Student Advocacy, Parents’Rights’ Coalition, Right March, Stephen Bennett Ministries, Values USA, Watchmen on the Walls.
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For more information or media, contact:
Buddy Smith –662-844-5036;Peter LaBarbera –630- 717-7631;Matt Barber –202–488-7000; Linda Harvey– 614-442-7998;Gary Glenn — 989-835-7978
By Laurie Higgins for Illinois Family Institute
A broad coalition of individuals and organizations is urging parents to oppose the Day of Silence (DOS), a political action sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), because it politicizes the classroom for ideological purposes. The explicit purpose of DOS is to encourage sympathy and support for students involved in homosexual behavior and cross-dressing whose voices have been allegedly silenced by the disapproval of society. The implicit purpose is to undermine the belief that homosexuality is immoral. Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.
Parents should call their children’s middle schools and high schools to ask whether the administration and/or teachers will be permitting students to remain silent during class on the Day of Silence. If students will be permitted to remain silent, parents can express their opposition most effectively 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 all school board members. One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.
School administrators err when they allow the classroom to be disrupted and politicized by granting students permission to remain silent throughout an entire day. The DOS requires that teachers either create activities around the silence of some or many, or exempt silent students from any activity that involves speaking. Furthermore, DOS participants have a captive audience, many of whom disagree with and are made uncomfortable by the politicization of their classroom.
Some administrators assert that DOS merely seeks to promote “acceptance.” They fail to clarify, however, what precisely they want students to accept. While it is legitimate to teach students that there exist diverse opinions on this issue, it is not legitimate to imply that one of those opinions is preferable to another. While it is appropriate to teach acceptance of people, meaning that we should treat all with civility, it is not appropriate to suggest that students need to accept the view that homosexual conduct is moral. These important distinctions are rarely, if ever, made in public school discussions of “acceptance.”
One oft-repeated mantra is that the goal of DOS is to keep LGBTQ students safe. The problematic rhetoric of “safety,” however, substitutes speciously for the more accurate term of “comfort.” To suggest that in order for those who self-identify as homosexual or “transgender” to be “safe,” no one may disapprove of homosexual conduct is both absurd and dangerous. If this definition of “safety” were to be applied consistently, virtually all statements of disapproval would be prohibited.
Day of Silence participants claim they seek to end discrimination. There is, however, a problem with the way "discrimination" is defined in public discourse today. Groups like GLSEN believe that statements of moral conviction with which they disagree constitute prejudice or discrimination. While relentlessly promoting this view, administrators are never asked to provide evidence for the dubious presuppositions on which claims of discrimination are based. They are never asked to provide evidence for the arguable claim that homosexuality is equivalent to race; or that disapproval of homosexual conduct is equivalent to racism; or that homosexual impulses are biologically determined; or that the presence of biological influences in shaping desire renders a behavior automatically moral. The time is long past that parents demand justification for those claims.
If we allow schools to define discrimination so expansively as to prohibit all statements of moral conviction, character development is compromised and speech rights are trampled. And if administrators continue to define discrimination in such a way as to preclude only some statements of moral conviction, they violate their pedagogical commitment to intellectual diversity and render the classroom a place of indoctrination.
Finally, DOS supporters contend that one of their purposes is to end harassment. What they fail to acknowledge is that the worthy end of eliminating harassment does not justify the means of exploiting instructional time. There are myriad other ways to work toward that end. DOS participants have a First Amendment right to wear t-shirts, or put up posters, or host after-school speakers, or set up tables from which to distribute informative materials. They ought not to be allowed to manipulate instructional time in the service of their socio-political goals.
Here are responses to some common concerns about calling children out of school on DOS:
- - Some parents believe that there is value in having students who hold traditional views on sexual orientation in class on the DOS. This belief is flawed for two reasons. First, the adolescent culture is liberal, and adolescents desire to fit in. The vast majority of conservative kids do not feel comfortable vocally opposing their culture and will not do so. As those who are more public in opposing the normalization of homosexuality can attest, very few adults have the courage to oppose the dominant culture; we cannot expect teens to do what adults don’t do.
Moreover, the goal of calling students out of school on DOS is not to communicate an alternative message to that of DOS. The goal is to remove GLSEN-sponsored political action from taxpayer-funded classes.
- - Some parents express concern over the possibility of teachers exacting revenge through grading. First, it would be highly unethical for a teacher to treat a student punitively because of the teacher’s subjective assessment of the parents’ reason for calling a student out. If a teacher were to attempt to punish a student in such a way, parents should address the problem with the administration. Second, some students are willing to accept this possibility, viewing the cause as worthy of the sacrifice. Finally, those parents and teens who are not willing to risk even the remote possibility of teacher retribution can call their childout of school and not send a letter expressing their objections to DOS.
- - Some have argued that calling students out of classrepresents an attempt to deny free speech. Calling students out of class does not represent an attempt to deny free speech to students; rather, calling students out of class represents opposition to the exploitationof instructional time for socio-political action. Students are free to express their views in multiple ways mentioned above.
- - Some claim that those who oppose DOS must not care about the suffering of LGBTQ teens.It is utterly specious to suggest that parents, teachers, and administrators who oppose political action in the classroom support harassment. Put another way, this claim impliesthat theonly way parents, administrators, and teachers can prove they oppose harassment of homosexual or transgendered teens is to allow the politicization of the classroom. It also representsa classic ends justifies the means argument: If the ends, in this case, combating harassment of homosexual teens, are good, then any and all means are justified.
There are countless worthwhile goals that should not be promoted during class. Some might consider ending the tragedy of teen drunk-driving deaths, or the war in Iraq, or abortion to be worthwhile goals, and yet it would be equally inappropriate to use the classroom to promote them. The truth is that parents, teachers, and administrators can oppose harassment while concomitantly opposing the politicization of instructional time.
Schools have the right to prohibit student silence in the classroom if they deem it “disruptive.” It is our hope and belief that if schools have one group of students silent and another group called out, they will eventually decide that classroom silence is “disruptive.”
