Shut Up!

Did you know that yesterday was the National Day of Silence? This event has been happening for 13 years but I only just heard about it. It was created by a group of students in 1996 to bring attention to anti-gay name-calling, bullying, and harassment in schools. Now hundreds of thousands of students participate each year to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior in the schools, behavior that causes so much misery and an appalling amount of teen suicides. Just last week, an 11-year-old boy named Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanged himself after enduring endless taunts about being gay at his middle school, despite his mother’s weekly pleas to the school to address the problem. That makes at least four suicides of middle-school children this year linked to bullying.

As was the case with Carl, you don’t have to be gay to be attacked with anti-gay language. Students learn to use anti-LGBT language as the ultimate diss of their peers when they are very young. According to a recent study of more than 6,000 LGBT students, 9 out of 10 reported being verbally harassed at school during the past year because of their sexual orientation. Half reported being physically harassed and about a quarter reported being physically assaulted. Those numbers don’t apply to Leah’s progressive school, I’m happy to say. I don’t think the school observed the Day of Silence but the day before they celebrated Diversity Day which included workshops led by the openly gay students and teachers at the school. Of course it's mostly about what happens at home. Children learn these things by example and modeling, and if the parents of the children in the above photo who encouraged their children to demonstrate with those hideous placards aren't guilty of extreme child abuse, I don't know who is.

A group called the Illinois Family Institute created an obnoxious anti-Day of Silence PSA that I almost included here but I couldn’t bear to see it on my site so I’ll just link to it. It would be quite laughable if it weren’t so packed with lies and absurdities. Can I ask one question: why are anti-gay people such bad writers? Their ads are always horribly written and always include crazy theories about the “gay agenda” and claims that gay people want to stamp out religion in this country. Yuck.

But that PSA looks like a Gay Pride parade crossed with a Liza Minnelli concert compared to the much higher budget anti-gay-marriage PSA called “A Gathering Storm” that is currently making the rounds on national television. It was made by a group called the National Organization for Marriage and is unparalleled in its scare tactics:

The actors pretending to be real people whose lives have been negatively affected by same-sex marriage were exposed when someone found and posted the audition tapes for the spot. I don’t care how desperate those (awful) actors were, their reputations deserve to be blackened by their participation in this outrageous bullshit. I looked up the guy representing the organization, Damon Owens, and found him involved in some weird offshoot of extreme Catholicism and Opus Dei (that secret group at the center of “The Da Vinci Code”) called Theology of the Body or the Spirituality of St. Josemaria. Oy.

The National Organization for Marriage pulled the embarrassing audition tapes from YouTube as soon as they could but you can still see excerpts from them on this Rachel Maddow report:

The names of these organizations make me want to hurl. The so-called Illinois Family Institute has nothing to do with MY family, and God knows the alleged National Organization for Marriage has nothing to do with MY marriage. It’s not that I’m this repulsed by every group or individual who doesn’t share my views. I admit that it’s probably impossible for someone to make an argument that I would support against gay marriage but I do think it would be possible for people with different perspectives to present their case without resorting to outright lies, distortions, and crazy paranoia which they include for the sole purpose of scaring the bejeesus out of their followers. It’s truly reprehensible. Instead of students remaining silent as a sign of protest I wish we could get the blowhards in these groups to shut their traps. 

Comments

[La Framéricaine]

With respect to bullying in schools, regardless of the reason, I think that efforts to raise consciousness and set a zero tolerance level for that behavior are where date rape and domestic abuse prevention efforts were 20 years ago.

Adults are still in denial and are not providing the kind role modeling that is required to change attitudes and behaviors in large groups of children in schools--regardless of what type of school.

I would like to see more publicized examples of litigation against principals and teachers when bullying has not been addressed as it was occurring. It has to hurt in the pocketbook to get anyone's attention. Being humane--as in do unto others...--in and of itself, doesn't seem to be a significant goal toward which all people are working together.

Another thing that I've always thought is that mean people will always triumph to the degree that nice people do not stand in solidarity with whomever is the latest target for bullying an/or discrimination--LGBT people, fat people, women people, disabled people, unattractive people, old people little people, vulnerable people.

I voted No on Prop 8 and I wish the anti-gay crowd would just get over it but we will probably have to drag them there kicking and screaming just like we had to do with anti-black, anti-Chinese, anti-Japanese, anti-Mexican, anti-dumb, anti-smart, and anti-anyone else I left out. In general, people do not seem to use their capacity for empathy in an all inclusive way. That's a shame. Don't you think that it is amazing in this day and time that individuals are still so fearful and judgmental?

Glad you decided to bring up this subject. I have never heard of National Silence Day. Perhaps it will help to raise awareness.

[Stephanie]

Absolutely horrifying.

[Anne]

The suburban high school where I teach had "Day of Silence" yesterday. We also have a GSA organization (this is the first year for it). I have always tried my very best to directly address any intimidation/harassment that I am aware of at my school but I agree with you that it has to start at home. Modeling tolerance at school is a start. It's never too late for change.

[jason]

Frightening, Danny, but not surprising. Seeing that first image was enough to turn my stomach, a representation of the instilled hate I remember facing in school decades ago. We didn't have a Day of Silence back then. I wonder how it might have changed things...

It's a shame that people must focus so much hate out of ignorance. Anti-miscegenation came from the same source, that deep dark well of cancerous rage that blindly fixates on others no matter the harm done or the lives ruined--let alone taken. And most disturbing of all is that the prolific source of that vile bigotry and intolerance is generally religion (not faith, though, as the two are quite different).

[Gordon]

"Indeed, Miss Manners has come to believe that the basic political division in this country is not between liberals and conservatives but between those who believe that they should have a say in the love lives of strangers and those who do not."
--Miss Manners (Judith Martin)

[churlita]

Luckily, I live in a very progressive college town. Once when my daughter was in 6th grade she told me she would be much more popular if I was a gay vegetarian like all the cool kids' parents.

I know plenty of gay people who are extremely involved in different organized religions, so how do the anti-gay organizations account for that? it blows me away that people can still be that ignorant in 2009.

[Dave]

It still surprises some to find out that I'm both a Christian and gay. The radical right has done such a good job of painting all gays as being of one mind that it really is difficult for people (both gay and straight) to realize that the two are not incompatible.

What amazes me is that the radical right focuses so much attention on gays and gay marriage as being a threat to the institution but do nothing to combat divorce. It seems obvious to me that those who target gays without targeting divorce with equal fervor are just hypocrites. But, sadly, hypocrites with a deep war chest and while they may not admit, or even realize it, they often times are filled with hate, not love.

[suzanne]

Can't believe it but the freaks from Westboro are coming to where I live (Corona del Mar) THIS Friday! It's sad and yet, I get one of my greatest wishes granted, I'm going to show up and yell over him and his crazy followers.
Yeah, I'm bringing the kids and we won't be SILENT.