by Kevin Sparrow
In school, there are some days when you just don’t want to talk at all. You hunker down in the back of class, hoping the teacher doesn’t call on you or praying that your class presentation gets delayed. For LGBT students, this common experience is multiplied by a feeling of insecurity about their identity, a need to keep quiet to avoid harassment. The annual Day of Silence is designed to encourage these students across the country to confront and acknowledge the oppression and secrecy they face. However, this event to bring some perspective to the experiences of LGBT people is being attacked by family rights groups.
The Illinois Family Institute has requested parents remove their children from schools on that day if they disagree with homosexual and transgender equality. Their claims to “love the sinner, hate the sin” is more clearly dishonest as they cannot accept that homosexuality exists; in their manifesto for the importance of this “walkout,” the IFI claims, “The implicit purpose is to undermine the belief that homosexuality and cross-dressing is immoral. Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.” For LGBT and allied students, this day is not about a political agenda: marriage, DADT or other culture war issues are not the goal for discussion. What is important is having people recognize that everyone identifies differently and understanding that we can thrive in the same space even with diverse beliefs.
Which is too much for far-right rights groups to conceive. Instead they hope to utilize their children and leverage a struggling education system to suit their ends of keeping gays and lesbians in the closet and man and woman as non-fluid gender identities. The IFI makes this exact statement themselves in multiple instances: “… 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… One reason this is effective is that most school districts lose money for each student absence.” This is a despicable rationale, more than the lessons they claim the LGBT community teaches their children about accepting what they find morally questionable. It is a direct depiction of child exploitation, and one that should be condemned by the very people who are suggesting it.
It is one thing to disagree with a point of view or belief; this can lead to healthy discourse on a contentious subject and lead people to at least tolerate each other. It is another to shield people from learning and actively continue their ignorance so that their only reactions to what they disagree with are fear and dismissal. The perpetuation of this system demonizing acceptance needs to be put to an end, and school districts and other community members need to respond and call out when these groups are doing harm to their own children. It is the only response to allow silent voices to finally be heard.










