10 Reasons to Walk Out on the Day of Silence
Written by Linda Harvey of Mission America
A broad coalition of pro-family groups recommends that students stay away from school on Friday, April 20, 2012, the national “Day of Silence,” if the school is officially recognizing and/or allowing students and teachers to observe this event during instructional time by a silent protest. High schools and even some middle schools are now the targets of this event.
The Day of Silence is supposedly led by students, but actually led by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which describes itself as “championing LGBT issues in K-12 education since 1990.” Did you catch that– “K through 12”? Younger and younger students are the target of this group. The younger, the better because they are easier to manipulate.
The Day of Silence goal is not, as I am told frequently by outraged emails from misinformed students, to help end all bullying. The goal is to exploit the tender sympathies of kids to promote approval of homosexuality and gender confusion. The agenda is everything; Judeo-Christian morality is the enemy; and sadly, kids are the tools.
GLSEN teaches students that homosexuals and gender-confused people are “silenced” and under persecution by those who object to this behavior, and that traditional moral beliefs cause bullying. No hard, objective data exists to support this contention, and the event itself causes hostility, confusion, and division.
Here are ten reasons I believe Christian students in particular should refuse to honor this event by school attendance and why Christian teachers should plan activities that require students to verbally participate:
1. A silent protest in support of immoral, God-dishonoring behavior is in itself profoundly deceptive. All sexual behavior outside man/woman marriage is sinful in God’s eyes. Why should Christian students and teachers be in the position of accommodating this flagrant violation of their principles? Teachers would not want polyamorous students to be bullied, but would schools permit students to participate in a classroom protest in support of polyamory?
2. Any explicit or implicit message encouraging teens and even younger students to view homosexual acts as normative or moral is not “social justice” or “tolerance,” but, in reality, child corruption.
3. Allowing classroom silence to honor the Day of Silence unleashes tremendous peer pressure for students and even teachers to endorse sexual immorality, or be considered “enemies” of those peers and teachers proudly involved in homosexuality. This puts people of faith in the position of violating Christian doctrine through tacit approval (Romans 16:17-18; Ephesians 5:11). They are also intimidated into self-censorship, which undermines both fundamental First Amendment and educational principles.
4. The Day of Silence fosters hostile and bigoted attitudes toward Christians and others with traditional moral beliefs; spreads inaccurate and harmful information; and promotes unproven, non-factual Leftist moral beliefs as objective truths.
5. Using legitimate concerns about bullying and teen suicide to promote approval of homosexuality in schools is educational malpractice. It’s totally unnecessary to stop bullying and prevent harm to students, and Christians should not be a party to this gross distortion of a genuine problem. No one needs to affirm homosexuality or gender-confusion in order to prevent bullying, but GLSEN routinely takes this deceitful position.
6. Teachers know real bullying when they see it, and most teachers address it. But GLSEN and the Day of Silence pressure teachers not merely to address bullying behavior but to affirm Leftist moral and political beliefs. Since when did it become the job of government employees to become public relations agents for Leftist moral propositions or the good reputation of homosexuality? Stopping bullying can be accomplished without becoming champions of the non-factual assumptions of the homosexuality-affirming movement.
7. There are legitimate lessons students should learn about prejudice and bias. But Day of Silence promoters deceptively link moral objections about homosexuality to racial discrimination or anti-Semitism in an attempt to legitimize the pro-homosexual ideology and portray homosexuals as perennial victims, while censoring through social pressure all dissenting views.
8. Teachers have used the DOS to inappropriately become classroom advocates and models of this deviant behavior. In one Ohio school, a teacher used a Power Point presentation to tell students about her “gay” support and even disclosed to students that she was a lesbian, without prior parental notification or permission from her principal.
9. The health and lifestyle risks of homosexuality are virtually never shared on the Day of Silence. Instead, students are given the deceitful impression that homosexuality is just as safe and worthy an identity as heterosexual dating and marriage. The notion that same-sex attraction and volitional acts constitute an identity worthy of affirmation is not a fact, and government employees have no right, either explicitly or implicitly, to promote it to other people’s children.
10. The DOS message inhibits Christians from witnessing to their peers caught up in homosexuality or gender confusion. There is salvation through Jesus Christ and the hope of leaving this sin behind. Calling homosexuality a sin on the Day of Silence would be considered “hateful,” when it is actually God-honoring and respectful to the hearer. It may lead them to an eternal home with God. But that won’t happen if the truth is suppressed, which it always is on the Day of Silence. Parents, keep your children home that day. If your children have the courage to witness, they can do it on another day when perhaps they will have a fair chance of being heard.
Linda Harvey founded Mission:America in 1995, a Christian pro-family organization tracking current cultural issues. The organization’s flagship website is www.missionamerica.com, with weekly e-newsletters transmitted to a national audience. As a former advertising executive, Mrs. Harvey specialized in creating new communications’ vehicles. She has started more than twenty-five publications and overseen multi-million dollar advertising campaigns, primarily in the health care field. She was formerly Director of Marketing Communications at Ohio State University Hospitals.
Mrs. Harvey has spoken on Capitol Hill and testified numerous times before state legislative committees. She serves on the National Pro-Family Forum and the Ohio Pro-Family Forum.
Linda Harvey holds a B.A. in English from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, and has done graduate work at both Miami and Ohio State University. She is the wife of Tom Harvey and the mother of two children. They live in Columbus, Ohio.