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“Day of Silence:” Gay Groups Promote Another Silly Stunt

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The various national (and some local) gay and lesbian groups have promoted a great variety of silly gimmicks to get their message across that it becomes hard to determine which is the silliest.

Well, today the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is sponsoring a Day of Silence where at schools across the country, “students take a day-long vow of silence to symbolically represent the silencing of LGBTQ students and their supporters.”  That certainly ranks up there.

I just don’t see what these stunts accomplish in a day when gay students are free to organize and speak out in favor of openness and inclusion and against discrimination.

I know that some social conservatives overreact to this Day, with one promoting a video about the project which “exposes how our children are being indoctrinated, held captive and forced to accept an unproven and dangerous ideology while Biblical Truth is undermined” (via Althouse).  Silly the stunt but be, but indoctrination it is not.

I just wonder though at the need of gay groups to promote events where people go out of their way to advertise their difference and to make a statement.  Wouldn’t it just be easier to encourage students to come out and live their lives openly and telling them to be unafraid to report any harassment by their peers?

Such stunts seemed geared to a different time when people were less open about their sexuality than they are today.

(It seems I had something else to add–and may at a later time–but am drawing a blank right now.  Maybe it will come out in response to the comments.)

Comments

  2. Wouldn’t it just be easier to encourage students to come out and live their lives openly and telling them to be unafraid to report any harassment by their peers?

    It would, but that would make sense. Plus it’s more dramatical this way.

  3. Dan, I think you’re right in part to note that some soc-cons have problems with this stunt and make the silliness a fuss –and then a soc-con here makes that very case with the above comment.

    On our trip up to Tax Day Tea Party, the teachers held an impromptu civics lesson. This issue came up with lots and lots of others. The students we escorted asked about this very day and shared with all on board the planning underway and what it meant at their respective high schools, Catholic students included -they didn’t have anything planned of course but knew about it.

    As far as I know, no student on the bus declared they were gay and all on the bus knew of my & MMpartner’s nature… including 4 parents and 3 teacher advisors.

    The students main point during discussion: it’s not a day for gay kids at school. It’s a day for the str8 kids at school to find empathy and solidarity and support for the gay students in open, overt ways. MMpartner asked them how many gay students they thought were in their respective schools… 7 students knew a single gay student in school. That was about 10% of the kids on the bus who knew a peer who was gay. One of the parents said later that they thought it would have been much higher in our liberal, liberal, Left town (3:1 for Obama in the Gen).

    I said I thought it was neat that these student leaders (they were either NHS, student govt or association officers) were doing it for other students, not themselves. She said “Hey, they go to football or basketball games to cheer on classmates. Why not something this easy for gay students?”

    Drama queens? I think not.

    A stunt? Well, that’s what I thought of the Tea Party a few weeks/months ago until, like Saul, I got knocked off my mule onto my ass. Sometimes stunts are needed. Sometimes they even work if people of good will can drop the judgment and earnestly embrace our diversity.

    Are there Day of Silence events that go far a stray? Sure, probably. Kind of like one of the signs I saw in Lansing saying “Now, let’s have the SEALs turn the rifles on the real pirate at 1600”.

    Is it a day worthy of respect? I guess that depends on how it’s observed locally.

  4. “students take a day-long vow of silence to symbolically represent the silencing of LGBTQ students and their supporters.”

    What “silencing”? I followed the link, and couldn’t tell. “Silencing”? Gay kids were silenced in 1959 or 1979, maybe even 1989. Not in 2009.

  5. Dan, I think you’re looking at this “stunt” in isolation. It has been an annual event since I went to college in 1994 and, I presume, was going on in some for or another before that. I think it’s particularly poignant this year given the death of the 6th grader up in Massachusetts who, regardless of whether he was gay or not, was perceived as gay, persecuted as such, and killed himself presumably because of that persecution… and his school’s administrators did nothing to protect him despite weekly calls from his mother. So, to call it a “stunt” I think (a) ignores the history behind it and (b) ignores the very real issues it is attempting to address.

    Now… as to whether it is effective or not I think is an entirely relevant question as, although I was openly gay in college, I never participated in this. Presumably like you, I felt that by being open every day I made more of a statement than by being silent on one.

  8. PS, I forgot there was another suicide just a little earlier but didn’t quite get as much press coverage it seems. This one was in Ohio and, apparently, the kid was also being taunted for being perceived as gay.

    http://tinyurl.com/d6h9tn

    Again, I think you can debate the effectiveness of these Days of Silence, but I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them as meaningless stunts. JMO.

  9. Thanks, CR.

    Reading the second link, a news article, I can’t help thinking there is more to the story than meets the eye. Bullying can be awful, but doesn’t normally make kids suicidal. And when kids get suicidal, there are usually warning signs, which the boy’s parents didn’t seem especially aware of. I kept getting the feeling that I was reading a one-sided account and something was missing from the story.

  11. you can debate the effectiveness of these Days of Silence, but I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them as meaningless stunts

    If they can’t be explained in a way that makes any sense (see my #3), they’re ineffective. If they’re ineffective, then they’re pretty much meaningless.

    I felt that by being open every day I made more of a statement than by being silent

    Exactly. Now, not that you should expect kids to come out, but still, a Coming Out day might make more sense. If there are no kids who can or will come out, then use that as an occasion to talk about the difficulties a gay kid might face.

  13. ILC, I readily admit that is a possibility. So far, despite the week-plus since the event, I haven’t seen much in the way of follow-up stories offering the school’s side of it. Unfortunately, while it is entirely speculative on my part, based on what I know of Springfield, it wouldn’t surprise me if it is true… But you’re right, it is a one-sided account at this point. Doesn’t mean it’s not true, but does leave open questions.

  15. School children should not be encouraged to engage in demonstrations, or behavior that detracts from learning.

    It’s one thing for a kid to go to an event on their own, it’s another to encourage them to scream, jump, walkout, or participate in protests at school.

    Transgenders have their “National Day of Temperance” another useless demonstration of victimhood.

  18. I got two boys who just finished high school. They *and* their gay friends thought these “days of silence” were just stupid. The only ones who participated were the activist nerd Reese-Witherspoon-in-Election types.

  19. having had to sit with a mother and father who had just discovered their son was gay and was outed by his Jock friends, he decided to kill himself by hanging himself in the family garage. . .

    or the young man who’s shoulder was so completely mangled during an arm twisting when discovered by ‘friends’ as being gay. The young man was star wrestler. . .

    or the young girl who was raped, for the boys thought she just needed a good f#(4 to eliminate the lesbianism and to cleanse her of her demons with a dousing of gasoline. . .

    ah, no need of any work in schools. . .

  20. I just can’t understand how we got mixed up with the transgendered/Bi crowd.
    Its seems like it happened many years ago but for the life of me I can’t figure out how Gay and bi folks got lumped into the same thing.

    I think it has really set us back.

  21. Sooooo……we’ve gone from “Silence=death” to being silent? Uhmmmmmmmmmm………………ok.

    And aren’t we supposed to talk to people we have problems with without preconditions?

    I remember some sort of dealy where our HS cheerleaders were supposed to be quiet for one day before a football game. Don’t remember the point, but most didn’t make it past Home Room and the rest were talking by second period. All of us did whatever we could to make them talk.

  23. I don’t have anything to add to this discussion, but I don’t want to just lurk around. Truth is, I stop by your blog because it feels right side up in an upside down world. It’s reassuring to know that there’s a place where people are just, well, honest and normal. No utopia, no drama, no jihad, no fake smiles, no fear or self-loathing… it’s just so exhausting out there. I guess I’m just an average straight white guy catching his breath. Why do I feel like everything would be o.k. if these so-called liberals would just stop insisting otherwise?

  24. ,i.School children should not be encouraged to engage in demonstrations, or behavior that detracts from learning.

    It’s one thing for a kid to go to an event on their own, it’s another to encourage them to scream, jump, walkout, or participate in protests at school.

    This is pretty much my opinion. I think wearing a t-shirt, or something easily seen is a fine way to make a statement, but I am troubled by any kind of activity that means teachers have to adapt the classroom or may prevent students from learning. They are at school to learn-not make political statements. If they want to be silent in the hallways and in the lunch room-fine, but during learning time they need to be full participants.

    I am admittedly not a huge fan of these kinds of things at school anyway-for any kind of cause. I also am not really seeing gay students silenced at school. Shoot some of the most well liked and popular kids at my kids’ high school the last several years have been gay (or in one case bisexual) students.

    I don’t get the connection of being silent.

  26. Silly the stunt but be, but indoctrination it’s not.

    Dan,

    I’m glad we agree that the stunt is silly, but I’m curious, what exactly do you think indoctrination is? Where are schools allowing contrary messages to be presented? There is certainly anecdotal evidence that they disallow contrary messages while this is a highly disruptive demonstration that has the full endorsement of most schools.

    (I wonder how many students participate just so they wont have to answer the teacher’s questions in class?)

    When someone consistently presents a point of view, and only one point of view, while disallowing contrary messages… that’s pretty much the definition of indoctrination, particularly when done by an institution of authority such as a school.

    And if I were a religious parent who believed homosexuality sinful, I would be INCENSED that the school is undermining my values.

    Meanwhile, American students are increasingly mathematically, scientifically, historically and otherwise illiterate.

    But aside from the fact that they are failing at the one job they are charged with doing, schools still have no business teaching or promoting any social agenda over others.

  27. OK, I will climb up on the pillaring post with a “St8” view. Being a gay teen is not the problem. Being a teen is the problem. Fat, nerdy, pimply, klutzy, obtuse, inept, etc. is reason enough for teens to claw at one another.

    Watch the kids in the cafeteria choose their table mates. You will find the jock table, the hefty table, the band table, the gay table, the black table, the brain table, the nerd table, and so on. What kind of fool thinks there is progress to be made by rearranging the chairs? (Of course, if there is a table where they say “grace” we must stop it at all costs.)

    If there is a message to be learned from being silent, it escapes me. Shouldn’t the demonstrator (of is it demonstr8or?) have a little piece of paper that says: “I am silent today, because this is the Day of Silence which represents the silencing of LGBTQ students and their supporters” which he gives to everyone who tries to communicate with him? Perhaps he can run down the hall and hand them out to passing students who did not notice he was being silent.

    I am not implying that being a gay teen is easy duty. But I am saying that the teen who is gay has to fit in first and be gay farther down the list. Teenagers are a tough crowd when it comes to picky preferences and bold bigotry. I am sure that this is true in the gay teen subset, as well.

  30. I’m really not sure why a silent protest is anymore of a stunt than holding signs and dressing up like you are on “Let’s Make a Deal” as was the case at so many of the Tea Parties.

    And please heliotrope, tell me what you mean by fitting in first. This young person is surrounded everyday by exploding straight hormones. It’s a little hard to find your niche in such an environment.

    I have to ask the question, “What fantasy world do most of you live in?”

  31. Most stunt protests come off as silly. Teabagging tops the list. LOL

    What’s wrong is not that people don’t have legitimate issues to discuss, but it seems to me that more time goes into the dramatic presentation of the event than goes into articulating a clear agenda that the protesters want to accomplish.

  32. Is acceptance of others’ differences part of education? Yep. But should social education supersede academics? No. Forcing a teacher to have to read answers from a silent student or some other such nonsense detracts from the education of all and should be forbidden.

    I really hate that victimization has turned into an arms race. However, many children do suffer in school. Instead of a day set aside specifically for gay students and their erstwhile supporters, schools should take one day each month and discuss acceptance of differences of all kinds. However, there are a number of people who appear to exist just for this kind of attention and offering a program for better understanding of all students would be seen as a dilution of the importance of their victimization and of themselves. They would never accept giving up the day they’ve seized because for some gays (the most vocal), the very attention they seek (often through flamboyant or at least non-socially neutral behavior) is one of the reasons they are victimized and their raison d’etre insists they and the victimization continue because they are one and the same. For someone who derives tremendous emotional satisfaction attacking provincial attitudes, getting rid of the reason for such self-righteousness is the last thing they want because that would leave them contemplating an empty void. They have become the tormentors.

  33. These gay days can work in a nice suburban school. Don’t even go there in an urban High School. My son only came out to his fellow nerdy magnet friends at the end of his senior year. The other 98% of the kids were your average LA Hispanic or other minority kids. Last thing they cared about was the feelings of a handful of gays. Advantage of being in Los Angeles? He had no problem finding supportive friends in other venues. Though one of them escaped a lovely progressive Jewish school for a public performing arts school, because be was being harassed by students and ignored by the administration.

  34. I went to high school in South Dakota in the late 70s and early 80s. My friends dressed as David Bowie in one of his many stages. Guys I knew wore make-up to school. On a band trip, I slept next to one of the most well-known gays in school. One gay kid I knew was elected Homecoming King. There was no oppression, nada, nothing. Gay victimization is a pure myth. It’s like Fundamentalist Christ-an victimation–they claim that people are attacking them for their faith in Chri-t, but they’re really being attacked because they’re annoying.

  36. CR,

    A girl in Cincinnati killed herself over ‘sexting’ should we have a day of silence for that?

    I had a classmate kill herself because of family issues, should we have a day of silence over that?

    I’m pretty sure we can find 365 reasons to have a day of silence. Every one as silly as this

  38. Crank 2 is the most homo-positive movie of the year. While probably not going to be a critic’s fave (suffering mainly from a inexplicable lack of shirtlessness), the gay minor characters are presented positively. It’s interesting that in this macho/guys movie, the gays are presented, not as victims, but as co-warriors. Also, a gay character from the first movie is tenderly remembered and avenged. While this movie is a cartoon violence fantasy with a poor-man’s Tarantino script, it still shows that real masculinity doesn’t care about homosexuality–gays create their own victimhood.

  39. Livewire at 36: Nope and, as I said, I’m not sure we should even have a day of silence for this. I think there are more effective ways to get the point across, but I do think Dan dismissing it as a “silly stunt” is in a bit of poor taste. JMO.

  40. Wouldn’t it just be easier to encourage students to come out and live their lives openly and telling them to be unafraid to report any harassment by their peers?

    That’s what the National Coming Out Day is about dumbass. The Day of Silence is an event for raising awareness of homophobia among students that can’t defend themselves. If you consider this event that’s been going on for 15 years, then what do you consider those so-caled tea parties? Talk about living under a rock.

  41. Wouldn’t it just be easier to encourage students to come out and live their lives openly and telling them to be unafraid to report any harassment by their peers?

    That’s what the National Coming Out Day is about. The Day of Silence is an event for raising awareness of homophobia among students that can’t defend themselves. If you consider this event that’s been going on for 15 years a pointless stunt, then what do you consider those so-caled tea parties? Talk about living under a rock.

  42. Shouldn’t kids be focusing on their schoolwork rather than obsessing over who likes them or not? How many of us went to school or to our jobs just to be liked?

  44. Gillie,

    You have just proven that you dont read this blog, but that you only come here to try to prove something (someone please tell me if they ever figure out what) in the comments.

    Dan posted the video you are trying to shock us all with in the original post.

  45. I wouldn´t call it a stunt but I would rather see an open dialogue with a trained counselor as a facilitator. Let the students express how they feel about gay and lesbian students. One of the questions to be asked, ïf you discover that you are gay or lesbian, would you come out to your best friend? If you are straight and your best friend reveals that he or she is gay or lesbian, will you continue that friendship.

    I read the article that CR #7 referenced. and CR#5 said he was in the 6yhj grade. The article said the boy was 17 and in high school. He was either a junior or senior. The article mentioned several other suicides. One in particular, Megan Meier in St. Louis hung herself in her bedroom agter receiving cyber messages that world would be better without her. This sounded like an episode on Law & Order. The common thread was not whether they were gay but rather that they didn´t fit in with the ¨in¨ crowd. They succumed to suggestions from their to commit suicide. It appears that the victims suffered from low self esteem. Maybe the schools should bring in motivators like Tony Robbins to teach the kids to take charge of their lives and not allow their peers to devalue them. I believe it was the Eleanor Roosevelt who said, ¨nobody can make you feel inferior unless you give them permission to make you feel inferior.

  46. The Day of Silence is an event for raising awareness of homophobia among students that can’t defend themselves.

    That’s odd; they seem to grow up just fine and go around wishing death on others quite readily.

    When GLSEN decides that it supports public pillorying of gays who tell others to commit suicide and who engage in abusive behavior, then I might be interested — mainly because at that point, GLSEN would be demonstrating that it’s actually against bullying and insults, and not just making political stunts.

  47. #41: “The Day of Silence is an event for raising awareness of homophobia among students that can’t defend themselves.”

    Rob, I can’t think of a better way to raise awareness about homophobia than 15 years of annually reminding school children that gays can’t defend themselves. Who knows, maybe after another 15 years of moments of silence in honor of those helpless sissies (who throw like girls, by the way), we can finally put an end to homophobia.

  49. That’s odd; they seem to grow up just fine and go around wishing death on others quite readily.

    NDT, do you know for a fact that the exact same people who were bullied in high school are the ones who wished death on Mary Cheney and her daughter?

    Unfortunately, it can’t be the student in Massachusetts or others who killed themselves after being constantly bullied.

    If the GLSEN is actively engaging in telling others they should kill themselves, I’ll agree with you.

    Otherwise, why lump GLSEN into the despicable behavior against Cheney and others that you described?

    Rob, I can’t think of a better way to raise awareness about homophobia than 15 years of annually reminding school children that gays can’t defend themselves. Who knows, maybe after another 15 years of moments of silence in honor of those helpless sissies (who throw like girls, by the way), we can finally put an end to homophobia.

    Sean A, I honestly don’t know if the Day of Silence is effective either. Obviously, plenty of gay teens figured out how to survive, and even thrive in high school. Even Ashpenaz spoke how in his SD high school how gays could be free and open about their sexuality and even wear makeup in 1980 and not be harassed. But that’s obviously not true for every gay teen.

    While I would encourage those in high school to be aware of the environment and try to act in a way that keeps them from being taunted, and defend themselves when necessary (since that’s the environment that many are stuck with), not all can do that. Perhaps a more effective way would be to teach gay persons to not be sissies and throw like girls, but what if that can’t happen for some teens? They should be bullied and harassed. We kind of have it backwards. The emphasis shouldn’t be on telling gay people, the nerds, the fat kids, etc., how to stand up to, or how to kiss up to the bullies the right way, but to stop and punish the thugs from bullying in the first place.

  50. Otherwise, why lump GLSEN into the despicable behavior against Cheney and others that you described?

    Because, in theory, GLSEN should be speaking out against that “despicable behavior” — if they are actually interested in stopping and punishing thugs who bully others. Indeed, doesn’t their silence and refusal to act indicate they support it, according to their own logic?

  51. #41 Sean A.

    The fact that the socons are having a hysterical fit about this event shows that it is indeed working to raise awareness. I’m all for empowerment, but let us not kid ourselves that all gay teens, or sissies as you would crudely put it, aren’t vulnurable to their school environments, nor do they lack self-esteem and confidence. This is an excellent event, and it compliments the National Coming Out Day. Is that another “stunt” Gay Patriot will denounce in October?

    Also, the fact that commentators like #42 here seem to advocate that gay teens should remain in the closet during school and do nothing about the matter is rather appalling; talk about submission and sissyness!

    P.S I wont bother replying to NDT’s inductive fallacy.

  52. Because, in theory, GLSEN should be speaking out against that “despicable behavior” — if they are actually interested in stopping and punishing thugs who bully others. Indeed, doesn’t their silence and refusal to act indicate they support it, according to their own logic?

    NDT, the focus of this group is the bullying of gay teens in school. Unless this group has said that they support the threats by blog commenters against Mary Cheney and others, that would be another thing. Heck, who knows if this group even knows that Cheney received these threats. I didn’t know it, and perhaps would not have even heard about it, if you hadn’t linked it from other blogs that I do not read.

    But it seems like, following your logic, that Cheney and others who received threats from reprehensible anonymous blog commenters should not be supported against these persons until they publicly speak out against bullying in high schools. Because if they don’t, we should assume that Cheney supports the bullies in high school. But I don’t think it’s fair to make that assumption. As such, I unequivocally condemned those who made such comments against Cheney.

  53. Reading this article, I thought to myself, “Who is this, uncaring, insensitive jerk who sounds like a old, grumpy guy who’s still afraid to come out of the closet?”
    The Day of Silence is a nationally recognized holiday that not only students participate in. It’s a very easy way to make a statement because, especially during school, you can attract a lot of attention to yourself and then have the opportunity to raise community awareness via index cards or a note of some sort.
    Just like coming out day, this event is something everyone can very easily participate in, making it a fun learning experience for everyone involved.
    Please try thinking outside the box every once in a while, it’s what keeps this great world moving forward.
    Thank you.