For decades homosexual and “trans” activists have used schools to indoctrinate children with the disordered and destructive “LGBTQ” ideology. Thirteen years ago, the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education published an article titled “Trans-Friendly Preschool” by now-ordained Rev. Laurel A. Dykstra, a “bisexual Christian activist” who has twins via a sperm donor. I wrote about her article for IFI in 2008—a decade ago. Here are some of Dykstra’s ideas for training up children in the way they should go:

• She said that the “gender binary system…. is harmful to everyone.”

• She moralized that “It is not enough for classrooms, teachers, and schools to be ‘open’ or ‘non-judgmental’; they need to be actively trans-positive.”

• Dykstra recommended that when talking to preschoolers, teachers should say things like “‘Well, most men have penises, but some don’t,’” and “‘Some girls grow up to be men.’”

• She urged teachers to “Encourage kids to question their assumptions. ‘How do you know that that person is a woman? Could a man wear a dress?’”

• She instructed teachers to “Call children by the name and the pronouns they choose.”

• She recommended accessorizing classrooms with a “Tranny Teddy. Have a non-gendered toy/doll/puppet…. Do not use pronouns and give this creature a variety of gendered clothing, such as a skirt and tie. If asked, say ‘Oh, Binker isn’t a boy or a girl.’”

• She suggested having a “Butch/Femme Day. Why not teach kids language like butch/femme, as an alternative to boy/girl or male/female? You could have dress-up days to play deliberately with gender, like ‘Fabulous and Fearless Day’ or ‘Capable and Campy.’”

• She encouraged teachers to “Invite a drag performer or transsexual person who would be willing to share their story and a photo album.”

• When reading picture books to preschoolers, Dykstra recommended “switching pronouns, avoiding them altogether, or using alternative pronouns.”

• Dykstra rationalized using deceit in the face of parental opposition: “For ‘stealth practitioners’ (i.e., teachers in a transphobic setting), these classroom suggestions can be implemented without fanfare to create a more just and welcoming classroom.”

Remember, these recommendations were made 13 years ago, and we now have drag queen story hours for toddlers in public libraries. This is what happens when we ignore warnings and succumb to peer pressure and cowardice.

The efforts of sanctimonious and arrogant “LGBTQ” activists to “queer” schools are not limited to preschools. Illinois lawmakers captivated by bad ideas in general and in thrall to the “LGBTQ” ideology are pushing a bill that would require teachers to discuss the disordered homosexual and biological-sex-rejecting predilections of anyone who has contributed something noteworthy to culture. This is a tricksy way of transferring the good feelings children and teens have about achievements to homosexuality and opposite-sex impersonation—which is the ultimate goal of LGBTQ activists. Only California has a similar law.

Someone should ask lawmakers why this bill is limited to the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators. Why doesn’t it mandate discussions of the roles and contributions of polyamorists or the “trans-abled”? “Trans-abled” persons identify as disabled persons and wish to bring their bodies into alignment with their subjective, internal, “felt” sense of being disabled. They often want a limb amputated. What about “Minor-Attracted” persons, those who experience “Genetic Sexual Attraction,” and those who experience all manner of paraphilias, like sadomasochists, fetishists, infantilists, and voyeurs. If homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators are entitled to see people who share their experiences represented in curricula, shouldn’t children and teens who experience other powerful, persistent, unchosen feelings see people who share their experiences  represented positively in curricula?

Oh, but that’s not all. Schools also allow activities—including protests—created and promoted by outside “LGBTQ” activist organizations to disrupt instructional time. The queen of all classroom-invading protests, the Day of Silence, takes place this Friday, April 27 in thousands of high schools and middle schools across the country.

The Day of Silence is a protest organized and promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, which urges students to refuse to speak all day on Friday—including during class—in support of all things homosexual and “trans.”

In response to this usurpation of public schools for a partisan political protest, a national coalition of almost 50 pro-family activists and organizations, including the Activist Mommy, American Family Association, Capitol Resource Institute, Minnesota’s Child Protection League, Coalition of African-American Pastors, Dr. Michael Brown’s Coalition of Conscience, Concerned Women for America, Illinois Family Institute, Liberty Counsel, MassResistance, and Mission America are urging parents to keep their children home. The Day of Silence Walkout (which is not technically a Walkout) has been taking place for over a decade.

There are three major reasons to keep your children home on the Day of Silence:

1.)  To remove your children from exposure to yet more corrupt ideas and coercive social pressure.

2.)  To communicate to administrators, faculty, and school board members that if they allow instructional time to be disrupted—and yes, refusal to speak disrupts instructional time—your children will not be present.

3.)  To prevent political protests from metastasizing in government schools.

Efforts like the Day of Silence are not solely or centrally about ending bullying. These efforts are intended to eradicate moral distinctions between right and wrong sexual behavior and to mainstream homosexuality and the “trans” ideology. One can oppose both bullying and the Day of Silence.

Efforts like the Day of Silence, the school sexuality-indoctrination bill, and Dykstra’s recommendations for “transing” preschools are about using public monies and captive audiences of children to transform their moral and political views. That is not the role of government employees. The presupposition on which all of these efforts are based is that homosexual activity and opposite-sex impersonation are moral, which is an arguable belief—not an objective fact.

To find out more about the Day of Silence Walkout and see a complete list of coalition partners, go to the Day of Silence Walkout website.

I will conclude with what I wrote in 2008:

No civil society, let alone those who claim to be followers of Christ, would countenance such evil being perpetrated on our most innocent. The ideas articulated by Dykstra [and GLSEN and the school sexuality-indoctrination bill] constitute not education but unconscionable educational malpractice.

Virtually every cultural institution—from our churches to our courts to our legislatures to our news media to our entertainment industry to our government schools—has been commandeered by homosexuals and those who support their destructive cultural agenda. Those who hold traditional Judeo-Christian values must boldly and tenaciously oppose through word and deed efforts to normalize homosexuality and the “trans” ideology, including in government schools that our taxes subsidize.

If ever there was a time for weeping, it is now. If ever there was a time for righteous indignation, it is now. If ever there was a time for uncompromising courage, it is now.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Queering-Schools-Just-Say-No.mp3

Worldview Conference May 5th

Worldview has never been so important than it is today!  The contemporary culture is shaping the next generation’s understanding of faith far more than their faith is shaping their understanding of culture. The annual IFI Worldview Conference is a phenomenal opportunity to reverse that trend. This year we are featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet on Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

For decades homosexual and “trans” activists have used schools to indoctrinate children with the disordered and destructive “LGBTQ” ideology. Thirteen years ago, the Journal of Gay & Lesbian Issues in Education published an article titled “Trans-Friendly Preschool” by recently ordained Rev. Laurel A. Dykstra a “bisexual Christian activist” who has twins via a sperm donor. I wrote about her article for IFI in 2008—a decade ago. Here are some of Dykstra’s ideas for training up children in the way they should go:

READ MORE

Schools just endured a disruptive, Leftist anti-gun protest, and soon they will have to endure the disruptive, Leftist Day of Silence.

For those who don’t know, the Day of Silence is a purportedly “student-led” political effort sponsored and organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to exploit government schools and captive audiences for the purpose of advancing the “LGBT” sexuality ideology. Instead of walking out of classes like students did last week, GLSEN urges students in middle and high schools to refuse to speak all day—including during class. It’s important to note that the ACLU has said students have no legal right to refuse to speak if asked to by teachers.

This year, GLSEN’s Day of Silence takes place in thousands of schools on Friday April 27, 2018.

For over ten years, a coalition of pro-family activists and organizations from all across the country (see list below) have urged parents to contact their children’s principals and teachers to ask if they will be permitting students to refuse to speak during class on the Day of Silence. If administrators and/or teachers are evasive or say that students may refuse to speak during instructional time, we urge parents to keep their children home. This counter-effort is called the Day of Silence Walkout (DOS Walkout). It’s not technically a walkout. Rather, parents should just keep their kids home.

The DOS Walkout is the only organized effort to oppose the hijacking of public education by “LGBT” activists.

In many school districts, student absences cost districts money. Since most administrators are not persuaded by reasonable requests to keep Leftist political action from disrupting instructional time, perhaps they can be persuaded by loss of funds. Until schools stop allowing “LGBT” activism in the classroom, parents should remove their children from exposure to it.

“LGBT” activism permeates government schools in numerous ways throughout the school year. Here are just some of the ways in which public elementary, middle, and high schools promote Leftists views on the controversial topics of homosexuality and gender confusion, and which make the DOS Walkout necessary:

• Many schools allow gender-confused students to share restrooms and locker rooms with students of the opposite sex, including even elementary schools.

• Many schools allow gender-confused students to participate on opposite-sex athletic teams.

• Teachers are being forced by the government to lie by being compelled to refer to gender-confused students by pronouns that designate the opposite sex.

• Girl students are running for prom king and boy students for prom queens.

• School staff are identifying as the sex they are not.

• California schools are legally required to teach positively about homosexuality and gender confusion in all social studies classes in grades k-12, and all resources that espouse dissenting views are censored.

• Schools normalize homosexuality and gender confusion in bullying prevention curricula; sex ed; social studies, English, and theater classes; and in grade school presentations about “family diversity.”

• Elementary schools make picture books that depict homosexuality and gender confusion positively available to children in their libraries.

• Schools host dances for homosexual students.

• Schools promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion through Spirit Day, Ally Week, National Coming Out Day, “LGBT” History Month, and the queen of all homosexuality-affirming days: the “Day of Silence.”

Just recently, activists in Delaware proposed a school code amendment that, if passed, will permit students at any age to “self-identify” their “race or gender identity” at school without parental knowledge or permission. And just recently, activists in Illinois proposed a school amendment that would require every class from k-12 to include the “roles and contributions” of homosexuals and opposite-sex impersonators as well as the roles and contributions of “LGBT” activists.

Of one thing you can be certain: “LGBT” activists are relentless.

Every year a new crop of students enters middle and high schools whose parents naively believe that public schools value diversity, honor all voices, foster critical thinking, and are committed to creating a “safe” place for all views to be expressed. Those parents and many others whose children are returning students often have no idea the extent of the “LGBT” propaganda that pervades our schools or the degree to which schools censor dissenting views.

And many of those parents have never heard of the “Day of Silence.”

The Day of Silence Walkout offers an easy way for parents to tell school administrators and teachers that they oppose the promotion of non-factual Leftist beliefs about disordered sexuality.

There’s a role too for conservative teachers in this mess. They could be allies of conservative students by prohibiting student silence in class and by refusing to create assignments that accommodate silence. In other words, they should conduct class as if it’s just an ordinary school day.

What too few realize is that many students and teachers detest the Day of Silence. There are teachers—including even liberal teachers—who just want to teach their subject matter. They’re not invested in transforming the moral and political views of other people’s children.

And there are students who dread the controversy. About them, I recently wrote this:

[M]any students do not like divisive political events or discussions on hot button topics at school. Many teens are struggling with all sorts of issues. Their families are experiencing financial struggles, health issues, deaths, divorces, and dysfunction. They have interpersonal issues with peers. They struggle with grades and worry about what comes after high school. They’re exhausted from athletics, academics, part-time jobs, and sleep deprivation. Some struggle with eating disorders, substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and other psychological disorders…. [M]any of these kids do not want to confront controversial issues… at school.

These often emotionally vulnerable kids have peers—some acquaintances, some friends—who hold very different views on controversial issues, and for the sake of friendship and comity, these kids seek to avoid discussions and other kinds of events that bring to the fore issues that may affect their relationships. For these kids, political events like…. Day of Silence only make school more stressful.

What do adults do when forced into contexts (e.g., work or social gatherings) with people who hold very different political views? They stay away from the most contentious issues. And what do we do with teens who are struggling through adolescence—a period of developmental turmoil? We force them to be confronted with these very issues in places from which they cannot escape.

If your children are in public school, please consider keeping them home on the Day of Silence. For more information, please visit the Day of Silence Walk Out website.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Another-Disruptive-Political-Stunt-Coming-to-Schools-in-April-Day-of-Silence.mp3

IFI Worldview Conference May 5th

We have rescheduled our annual Worldview Conference featuring well-know apologist John Stonestreet for Saturday, May 5th at Medinah Baptist Church. Mr. Stonestreet is s a dynamic speaker and the award-winning author of “Making Sense of Your World” and his newest offer: “A Practical Guide to Culture.”

Join us for a wonderful opportunity to take enhance your biblical worldview and equip you to more effectively engage the culture.

Click HERE to learn more or to register!

Schools just endured a disruptive, Leftist anti-gun protest, and soon they will have to endure the disruptive, Leftist Day of Silence.

For those who don’t know, the Day of Silence is a purportedly “student-led” political effort sponsored and organized by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) to exploit government schools and captive audiences for the purpose of advancing the “LGBT” sexuality ideology. Instead of walking out of classes like students did last week, GLSEN urges students in middle and high schools to refuse to speak all day—including during class. It’s important to note that the ACLU has said students have no legal right to refuse to speak if asked to by teachers.

This year, GLSEN’s Day of Silence takes place in thousands of schools on Friday April 27, 2018.

READ MORE

In just six weeks, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will again attempt to ram their sexuality ideology down the throats and into the hearts and minds of other people’s children via the hijacking of government schools for the political protest called the Day of Silence.

On Friday, April 21, 2017 at thousands of middle and high schools around the country, GLSEN will ask students to refuse to speak all day in support of the promotion of Leftist assumptions about homosexuality and gender dysphoria.

GLSEN laughably calls this a “student-led” event while providing 15 resources that direct students into pro-homosexual school activism.

And those resources don’t include the for-profit merchandise GLSEN sells to adorn students on the Day of Silence, Ally Week, and other days. This merchandise includes t-shirts, pins, temporary tattoos, keychains, wristbands, lanyards, socks, sweatshirts, hoodies, and a $500 denim trucker jacket made by “Levi Brand.”

Although technically it is students—often students who belong to the “gay” clubs in schools—who sponsor the Day of Silence, all their activities are directed by the biased, Leftist organization GLSEN. Here are some of GLSEN’s “Jump-Start” documents to help students start “gay” clubs (also known as Gay and Straight Alliances) in their schools:

• “Building and Activating your [Gay Straight Alliance] or Student Club”
• “Strategies for Training Teachers”
• “Understanding Direct Action Organizing”
• “Power, Privilege and Oppression”
• “Your Student Club Trans-Inclusive”

In addition, GLSEN incentivizes participation in the Day of Silence by offering free materials to all participants and extra “free swag” to the “first 3,000 registrants.”

In addition to the Day of Silence, there are numerous trends in public elementary, middle, and high schools regarding the controversial topics of homosexuality and gender dysphoria that make a vigorous public response necessary:

• Increasing numbers of schools are allowing gender-dysphoric students to share restrooms and locker rooms with students of the opposite sex, including even elementary schools, and often with no parental notification.

• Teachers—who are government employees—are being forced by the government to lie by being compelled to refer to gender-dysphoric students by pronouns that designate the opposite sex.

• Girls students are being permitted to run for prom king, and boy students are being permitted to be prom queens.

• Elementary schools are marching in “gay” pride parades.

• California schools are legally required to teach positively about homosexuality and gender dysphoria in all social studies classes in grades 6-12, and all resources that espouse dissenting views are by law censored.

• Schools—including elementary schools—promote Leftist views of homosexuality and gender dysphoria in sex ed curricula, in presentations about “family diversity,” in bullying prevention programs, and via “social and emotional” learning standards.

• Elementary schools make picture books that depict homosexuality positively available to children in their libraries.

• Schools host dances for homosexual students.

• School theater departments mount productions of The Laramie Project; Zanna, Don’t!; and Rent. And English teachers teach Angels in America, The Laramie Project, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

• Film teachers show Brokeback Mountain.

• Schools promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion through Spirit Day, Ally Week, National Coming Out Day, “LGBT” History Month, and the queen of all homosexuality-affirming days: the Day of Silence.

What can parents and teachers do?

While “progressives” in and outside of schools are using countless resources and activities to promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, there is only one organized annual event that allows conservatives to express their opposition to the hijacking of government schools for the pernicious purposes of homosexual activism: the Day of Silence Walkout, which offers several ways the Day of Silence can be opposed:   

1.)  The Day of Silence Walkout is sponsored by a coalition of pro-family organizations that is again urging parents to keep their children home on the Day of Silence if their school administrations permit students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during class time on the Day of Silence. The Day of Silence Walkout Coalition does not object to student silence during passing periods or free periods, but neither teachers nor students should be permitted to refuse to speak during instructional time.

2.)  Parents should insist that their school administrations notify all parents that the Day of Silence political action is taking place on April 21 and insist that their administrations inform all parents about what students will be permitted to do or be prohibited from doing on the Day of Silence.

3.)  Conservative teachers should plan activities that require student participation. The ACLU—which supports the Day of Silence—has issued this statement: “[Students] do NOT have a right to remain silent during class time if a teacher asks you to speak.”

For years, teachers have been either modifying their lesson plans to accommodate student silence, creating lesson plans to reinforce the ideology of GLSEN’s Day of Silence, or participating in the Day of Silence themselves. It’s time for conservative teachers to do something constructive and courageous in the service of removing political hijinks from instructional time.

Every year a new crop of students enters middle and high schools whose parents naively believe that public schools value diversity, honor all voices, foster critical thinking, and are committed to creating a “safe” place for all views to be expressed. Those parents and many others whose children are returning students have no idea the extent of the pro-homosexuality propaganda that pervades their schools. And many have never heard of the Day of Silence.

The Day of Silence Walkout alerts parents to the exploitation of their public schools in the service of transforming the moral and political beliefs of their children.

The Day of Silence is not centrally a day committed to the eradication of bullying—a goal all decent people support. Rather, the Day of Silence organizers, promoters, and participants seek to exploit legitimate anti-bullying sentiment to normalize homosexuality and the “trans” cult. Despite what GLSEN says, it is possible to oppose bullying and oppose GLSEN’s Day of Silence.

The Day of Silence Walkout offers an easy, safe way for parents to express to school administrations, school boards, and their children’s teachers that they oppose the promotion of non-factual Leftist beliefs about disordered sexuality in taxpayer-funded public schools.

Student absences cost many schools money, and often that matters much more to school administrations and school boards than the beliefs and feelings of parents.

For more information on the Day of Silence Walkout and a list of the coalition partners, please visit the Day of Silence Walkout website.

Read more recent articles from Laurie:

Former “Transgenders” Talk About De-“Transitioning”

Beauty and the Beast: A “Gay” Tale for the Kiddies

New Trier High School Needs Accounting, Diversity, and Logic Lessons

The Radical “Trans”-Formation of America

IFI Forums: Climate Change & the Christian

Join us during the last week of April as we have Dr. Calvin Beisner, the founder & national spokesman for The Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation discuss the Christian responsibility to the environment as we learn how to discern truth and myth in the climate change controversy.

April 25th in Rockford
April 26th in Arlington Heights
April 27th in Orland Park
April 28th in Peoria

Click HERE to learn more!

The upcoming National Day of Silence (DOS) On Friday, April 15, organized and promoted by the extreme leftist Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), urges students to refuse to speak for an entire school day including during class. The stated purpose of DOS is to encourage sympathy and support for students involved in homosexual and cross-dressing behaviors whose voices have been allegedly silenced by the disapproval of society. The unstated purpose is to undermine the true belief that homosexuality and cross-dressing (as well as quackish chemical and surgical interventions) are immoral. Parents should no longer passively countenance the political usurpation of public school classrooms through student silence.

Some school administrators assert that DOS merely seeks to promote “acceptance.” They fail to clarify, however, precisely what they want students to accept. While it is legitimate to teach students that there exist diverse opinions on the issues of homosexuality and gender dysphoria, it is not legitimate for an arm of the government to imply that one set of 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 should accept one set of beliefs about homosexuality and gender dysphoria and reject the other. One can accept persons while rejecting their beliefs, desires, and life choices. These important distinctions are never made in public school discussions of “acceptance.”

Another oft-repeated mantra is that the goal of DOS is to keep “LGBTQ” students safe—a goal all decent people share. The 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 understanding of “safety” were to be applied consistently, all statements of disapproval of any behavior would be prohibited.

If conservative parents, teachers, and administrators do not actively oppose the disruption of instructional time by DOS, it will metastasize from our high schools into our middle schools and then into elementary schools. Increasing numbers of students will participate, and increasing numbers of teachers who view themselves as “agents of change” will participate, emboldened by the ignorance and cowardice of colleagues, administrators, school board members, and parents.

Don’t believe me? Well, take a gander at how one middle school in New York—coming up on its fifth year of participation—has been celebrating DOS: Click HERE.

Worse still, some schools devote an entire week to promoting the normalization of homosexuality, culminating on Friday’s Day of Silence. While schools can no longer acknowledge Christmas, they may spend valuable class time celebrating life-destroying homosexuality, all the while misrepresenting it to gullible parents as an bullying-prevention effort.

Unfortunately, not even our private religious schools are exempt from the intrusive efforts of GLSEN. Last year five Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist nuns at Marin Catholic High School near San Francisco walked out of their classes to protest the intrusion of GLSEN through the Day of Silence.

The nuns were uncomfortable that GLSEN materials, which espouse positions that conflict with Catholic teaching, were being distributed to students on school grounds. Those who naively believe DOS is solely about bullying with no connection to conservative moral beliefs should peruse GLSEN resources, one of which identified “a house of worship that teaches homosexuality is a sin” as an example of oppression. In GLSEN’s perverse moral universe, churches are places of oppression, and oppressors are bullies. Eliminating bullying requires eradicating biblical beliefs about homosexuality.

The nuns were also troubled when they learned that “students were feeling pressured to accept and wear stickers” produced and distributed by GLSEN.

Those who oppose the Day of Silence will be maligned with the charge that opposition to the Day of Silence is proof of support for bullying. Of course, the truth is that it’s entirely possible to oppose both bullying and GLSEN’s Day of Silence.

Some dismiss the Day of Silence by claiming that there is only a small group of students who participate in it in their school, or that it’s only a few teachers. But does that matter? Would parents tolerate school administrations permitting a group of students to refuse to speak in class in support of consensual adult incest, promiscuity, polyamory, sadomasochism, or racism as long as the protesters were few in number?

For school administrations to permit student silence in class for DOS necessarily means they have come to prior conclusions about the nature and morality of homoerotic activity and relationships. How do I know this? Well, imagine there were a small group of students who identified as promiscuous or polyamorous and were bullied for their promiscuity or polyamory. Would any school administration permit a DOS during which promiscuity and polyamory were treated exactly as homosexuality and “transgenderism” are treated? Surely, neither school administrators nor teachers want promiscuous or polyamorous students bullied. Surely they want to create a “safe” space for them. So, what’s the difference?

The difference is school administrations know that the DOS doesn’t merely work to curb bullying. They know it has the effect (intended effect) of undermining disapproval of homosexuality and cross-dressing, but that’s okay because they have concluded that homoerotic feelings are 100 percent heritable, immutable in all cases, and that acting on them is intrinsically moral. School administrators have come to different moral conclusions, however, with regard to promiscuity or polyamory, and they realize that a DOS for promiscuity and polyamory would not merely end bullying but undermine moral disapproval of both—which they wouldn’t want to do. They would seek other means to curb bullying of promiscuous and polyamorous students.

Please muster the little courage it takes to email your middle and high school administrators and your children’s teachers to ask the questions below, and if the answers are unsatisfactory, keep your children home on the Day of Silence, Friday, April, 15, 2016:

Questions to ask administrators

• Do you permit students to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Do you permit teachers to refuse to speak during instructional time on the DOS?
• Prior to the DOS, do you notify all parents about it, including sharing complete information about GLSEN’s role in organizing and providing materials for it and informing parents about what will be permitted in the classroom?

Questions to ask teachers

• Do you create classroom assignments or activities that accommodate student-refusal to speak on the DOS?
• Do you teach lessons on oppression, censorship, or bullying in class on the DOS?
• Will you be using any information from GLSEN to shape or inform your activities on the DOS?
• If you accommodate student-refusal to speak and/or shape activities around ideas promoted by GLSEN for the DOS, will you be notifying parents ahead of time?

Cultural change rarely happens through dramatic single events. Rather, it happens through the slow accretion of little events that we dismiss as trivial. Gradual, incremental changes ignored eventually result in titanic cultural shifts. Those parents, teachers, and administrators who have known about the Day of Silence and have said and done nothing should feel ashamed of their acquiescence and cowardice. It is long past time that conservatives cease rationalizing their own passivity. The temporal and eternal lives of children are at risk.

Concerned about Common Core Standards?

Join us on April 8th in Orland Park for yet another IFI Forum, this time exploring The Case Against Common Core with Dr. Duke Pesta.  Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE for a flyer of the event.

The Day of Silence, which is sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), fast approaches. This year it will take place in most public schools on Friday, April 17.

On this day, thousands of public high schools and increasing numbers of middle schools will allow students to remain silent throughout an entire day-even during instructional time-to promote GLSEN’s socio-political goals.

Parents must actively oppose this hijacking of the classroom for political purposes. Please join the national effort to restore to public education a proper understanding of the role of government-subsidized schools.

You can help de-politicize the learning environment by calling your child out of school if your child’s school allows students to remain silent during instructional time 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.

Visit www.doswalkout.net for complete information on opposing the Day of Silence.

TAKE ACTION

1. Call your local schools and ask whether they permit students or teachers to remain silent in the classroom on “Day of Silence.” IMPORTANT: Do not ask any administrator, school board member, or teacher if the school sponsors, endorses, or supports DOS. Schools do not technically sponsor the Day of Silence. Technically, it is students, often students in the gay-straight alliance, who sponsor it. Many administrators will tell you that they do not sponsor the DOS when, in fact, they do permit students and sometimes even teachers to remain silent during instructional time. Also ask administrators whether they permit teachers to create lesson plans to accommodate student silence.

2. Find out what date the event is planned for your school. (The national date in 2015 is Friday, April 17, 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.

This alert was originally posted at the American Family Association website.

Written by Linda Harvey

On a day when the truth is suppressed and sin exalted, why let our children participate?

A broad coalition of pro-family groups recommends that students stay away from school on Friday, April 17, 2015 the national “Day of Silence,” if the school is officially recognizing and/or encouraging students to observe this event during instructional time by a silent protest. High schools and even some middle schools are now the focus of this event.

The Day of Silence goal is not, as I am told frequently by outraged emails from misinformed students, to “help end all bullying.” The real goal is to exploit the tender sympathies of kids to promote 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 concerns 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 and possibly even teachers and staff should refuse to honor this event by school attendance:

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?

2. Any explicit or implicit message encouraging teens and even younger students to experiment freely with homosexual behavior is not “social justice” or “tolerance,“ but actually, 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-censoring their First Amendment rights.

4. The Day of Silence encourages students to nurture prejudiced, hostile and bigoted attitudes against Christians and others with traditional moral beliefs, and to spread inaccurate and harmful information.

5. Using legitimate concerns about bullying and teen suicide to advance the promotion 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 embrace homosexuality or gender confusion in order to prevent bullying, but GLSEN routinely takes this deceitful position.

6. Teachers know harassment when they see it. They can simply say, “Cut it out!” But GLSEN and the Day of Silence pressures teachers to amend this to, “Cut it out, because you are only permitted to say good things about homosexuality!” When did we all sign up to become public relations agents for the good reputation of homosexuality? This viewpoint discrimination forces an untruthful and ungodly agenda on staff members, when stopping verbal harassment can be accomplished without becoming champions of “gay” behavior.

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 agenda and portray homosexuals as perennial victims, while disguising the harmfulness and risk.

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 to tell students about her “gay” support and even disclosed to students that she was a lesbian, without prior notice to parents 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.

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. Stay home that day, and choose to witness on another, where perhaps you will have a fair chance of being heard.

For more information about the DOS Walkout, go HERE.

Originally posted at MissionAmerica.com.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) seeks again to exploit captive audiences and disrupt instructional time in public schools for the purposes of transforming the moral and political views of other people’s children through the Day of Silence (DOS). Parents, however, do not have to sit by and passively accept this political action in the class. On the DOS, they can keep their children home.

GLSEN promotes the DOS as a bullying-prevention program. If that were its true goal, IFI and every one of the organizations who are urging parents to keep their children home would support the DOS.

Unfortunately, the ultimate goal of GLSEN and those who promote the DOS is to eradicate conservative moral beliefs. And they are using public schools to achieve that end, thus transforming education into indoctrination.  

Every year middle and high schools see a new crop of students whose parents naively believe that public schools value diversity, honor all voices, foster critical thinking, and remain neutral on controversial social issues. Many parents have no idea the extent to which pro-homosexuality propaganda pervades our schools. And many have never heard of the Day of Silence.

Here are just some of the ways public elementary, middle, and high schools are treating the controversial topics of homosexuality and gender confusion:

• Increasing numbers of schools are allowing gender-confused students to share restrooms with students of the opposite sex, including even elementary schools.
• Teachers—who are, of course, government employees—are being forced by the government to lie by being compelled to refer to gender-confused students by pronouns that designate the opposite sex.
• Girls are being permitted to run for prom king, and boys are being permitted run for prom queen.
• Elementary schools are marching in “gay” pride parades.
• California schools are legally required to teach positively about homosexuality and gender confusion in all social studies classes in grades 6-12, and all resources that espouse dissenting views are by law prohibited.
• Schools—including elementary schools—promote Leftist views of homosexuality and gender confusion in sex ed curricula and in presentations about “family diversity.”    
• Elementary schools make picture books that depict homosexuality positively available to children in their libraries.
• Schools host dances for homosexual students.
• Teachers actively promote the legal recognition of same-sex pseudo-marriages.
• School theater departments mount productions of The Laramie Project, Zanna, Don’t!, and Rent, and English teachers teach Angels in America, The Laramie Project, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
• Film teachers show Brokeback Mountain.
• Schools promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion through Spirit Day, Ally Week, National Coming Out Day, “LGBT” History Month, “LGBT” Pride Month, and the queen of all homosexuality-affirming days: the Day of Silence.

And what do conservatives do in response? Virtually nothing. There is, however, something easy they can do. If their children’s schools permit students to refuse to speak on the DOS, they can keep their children home.  

Keeping their children home on the Day of Silence is an easy, safe way for parents to express to school administrations, faculty, and school boards that they—parents—oppose the promotion of non-factual Leftist beliefs about disordered sexuality in their schools to their children.

Every student absence costs schools money, and that matters much more to school administrators and school boards than the beliefs and feelings of conservative parents.

Parents: Contact the principals of your children’s middle and high schools and ask this specific question: “Do you permit students to refuse to speak during class on the Day of Silence?” If your principal says students will be permitted to refuse to speak in class, keep your child/children home. You might also inform your principal that teachers have a legal right to require students to speak in class and that students have no legal right to refuse to speak if called on to answer a question, give a speech, or participate in a debate, group project, or other activity.

We recommend sending an email to your administrators, your child’s teachers, and school board members explaining why you’re keeping your child home. A sample downloadable letter is available on the Stay Home on the Day of Silence website along with answers to frequently asked questions.

Conservative Teachers: You too have a role in opposing this GLSEN-sponsored political action. You should plan activities that require students to participate verbally. There is far too much cowardice and acquiescence among conservative teachers to homosexuality-affirming activities. Both parents and teachers have an obligation to resist inappropriate curricula and activities in schools.

Here’s something else parents don’t know: Many teachers—including even some on the political Left—dislike the Day of Silence because it disrupts the school day and requires them to create or revise plans to accommodate student silence. And conservative students, many of whom have friends who identify as homosexual, dislike the Day of Silence because they know it implicitly condemns their moral, religious, and/or political beliefs. They know that the Day of Silence is not centrally about eradicating bullying, but rather about eradicating moral disapproval of homosexual acts.

Here is a list of the organizations that are urging parents to keep their children home on the Day of Silence:

 For further information, including parental instructions and the sample calling out letter, visit http://www.doswalkout.net/

Click HERE to support the work and ministry of Illinois Family Institute.

From Liberty Counsel

On Friday, April 20, the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) will encourage students to remain silent for an entire school day in solidarity with the radical lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT) agenda. 

While “peaceful” in name, schools face harsh pressure from the radical LGBT movement to support and promote the Day of Silence. Despite the huge push on schools and teachers from GLSEN to advance the LGBT agenda through this event, no one can be legally forced to participate or condone the Day of Silence. 

Last year, some parents chose to withdraw their children from school on that day. Parents are encouraged to call the schools and tell them the reason their children will not be attending. School administrators usually listen, because the school loses money for each absence. 

School teachers should be aware that students do not have the right to remain silent when they are called upon by teachers. Conduct on the part of a student that causes a substantial disruption or material interference with school activities is not protected under the First Amendment. Students cannot learn if they refuse to participate in class, and they harm other students’ experience by not contributing to a dialogue of learning. 

School administrators do not have to promote the Day of Silence. In those states that require abstinence instruction, schools do not have to recognize clubs that promote sexual activities. 

Mathew Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel, said, “The Day of Silence is not about tolerance or bullying. It is about pushing a sexual agenda. Students and staff who disagree with a radical sexualized agenda are demonized and made to feel like outsiders. Children should be afforded a rigorous education opportunity and not be forced to accept a radical sexualized agenda subsidized with tax dollars. Parents and lawmakers should take the time to learn about the extreme views of GLSEN and the intolerance promoted by the Day of Silence.”

While many conservatives call for a forfeit — I mean, truce — on the social issues, the other side gleefully forges ahead using our money to indoctrinate our kids in public schools. Conservatives used to be asleep at the wheel, but now we’re just asleep. We forfeited the wheel decades ago.

It’s true that public education is public in the sense that whatever it is that goes on in our schools is paid for by the public, but, at least on sexuality issues, there is no education going on. “Progressive” agents of change are unabashedly engaging in censorship in the service of promoting their social and political interests. Their motto: “Critical thinking and intellectual diversity be damned.”

Here is a just a sampling of the “educational” activities, events, projects, and resources that our agents of change and their ideological compeers from the world of homosexual activism have introduced to our public schools during the “truce”:

• Changing the Game: the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) new sports project “is an education and advocacy initiative focused on addressing [lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender] issues in K-12 school-based athletic and physical education programs” (emphasis added).
  
  
• Ally Week (GLSEN)
  
  
• GLSEN Elementary Toolkit (Read more HERE.)
  
  
• Welcoming Schools (Human Rights Campaign): “Welcoming Schools” provides “tools, lessons, and resources,” including activities and consultants to administrators and teachers that seek to normalize and affirm homosexuality, bisexuality, and gender confusion in elementary schools.
  
  
• Spirit Day (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation)
  
  
• Transgender Day of Remembrance
  
  
• National Coming Out Day (Human Rights Campaign)
  
  
• OK4U2BGAY, created by the organization H8SUX (Read more HERE.)

• National Sexuality Education Standards (GLSEN, Planned Parenthood, SIECUS et al) (Read more HERE.)
  
  
• “Do Something!” Transforming Critiques of Gender Stereotypes Into Activism” (Southern Poverty Law Center’s Educational Project, Teaching Tolerance): This series of lessons on gender confusion is intended for children in pre-school through grade 5 who, according to Teaching Tolerance, will “benefit from participating in activism because it helps them understand the socially constructed nature of gender” and “overcome the damage done by internalized gender stereotypes.”
  
  
• And last, but not least, the queen of public school political protests: the Day of Silence

The Day of Silence, which is promoted by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, takes place in middle and high schools all around the country this Friday April 20. GLSEN asks students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence, which, of course, disrupts the normal course of a school day. Imagine if multiple groups were permitted to engage in this kind of political protest during the year.

GLSEN provides cards to students to give to teachers explaining the reason for their refusal to speak. In 2002, this is what the card said:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence?

A few observations on this card:

• GLSEN itself called it a protest.
• GLSEN suggests that homosexuals are “silenced,” which is ironic in light of the of the primacy of homosexuality-affirmation in public education, the mainstream news media, and the arts, and the concomitant censorship of dissenting voices in most of those contexts. It is often noted that even FOX News has become increasingly silent on (if not downright supportive of) the homosexuality-affirming movement, with numerous “conservative” FOX contributors displaying an overt hostility and condescension to conservative positions on issues related to homosexuality.
• This 2002 Day of Silence card given by students to teachers challenges teachers to “do” something to “end the silence,” which, translated into plain English, means teachers are supposed to do something to eradicate moral disapproval of homosexuality.

The 2012 card now says this:

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward building awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices.

Think about the voices you ARE NOT hearing today.

A few observations about this newer card:

• GLSEN hopes to distance the Day of Silence from the notion of “protesting.” Instead, they’re  merely “bringing attention” to an issue.
• They have added the always useful language about “bullying,” and “name-calling.” This language shift enhances GLSEN’s ability to promote the lie that opposition to the Day of Silence constitutes support for bullying.
• They removed the presumptuous suggestion that others have a moral obligation to fight for the eradication of conservative moral beliefs—which is the ultimate end game of GLSEN.

It’s not just parents who should be opposing the Day of Silence. Every conservative taxpayer, every conservative teacher, and every conservative administrator should be coming alongside parents and working to restore integrity to public education.

First, it’s a stewardship issue. Our taxes are being used for illegitimate political purposes.

Second, students in school today are the culture-makers of tomorrow. We have a vested interest in the soundness of their education.

Third, this isn’t one isolated event. It’s one part of a large, ominous picture that includes curricular resources and activities in theater, English, and social studies classes; sex ed classes that promote liberal assumptions about homosexuality; anti-bullying programs; and countless activities created and promoted by homosexual activist organizations. Re-examine the list above and note the cacophonous sounds of “silence.”

Fourth, the rarely told truth is that many students and teachers on both the political right and left dislike intensely the Day of Silence. They hate the dissension that the Day of Silence brings to their school day. Not all liberal teachers use the classroom for political purposes. Many just want to teach their subject matter. Many teachers resent having to modify lesson plans or expectations to accommodate student silence but feel if they don’t, they will be viewed as bigots and bully-enablers.

Administrators:

Tell teachers they have no legal obligation to allow students to refuse to speak in class and that they should not permit political protests in the classroom. Communicate to parents and students that students have no legal right to refuse to speak in class and that classes will take place as usual.

Teachers:

Plan activities that involve student verbal participation and follow all normal disciplinary procedures that would apply to students who refuse to obey instructions.

Community members without students in the school:

Contact your local middle and high school administrators. Ask them if teachers are permitted to allow students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence. If they permit this political protest, tell them you object to public school teachers who are subsidized by your taxes allowing instructional time to be used to promote controversial moral and political views in the classroom. Send a letter to your local press and read a prepared statement at the next school board meeting expressing the same ideas.

Parents:

Call your children’s middle and high schools today. Ask if the school is permitting teachers to allow students to refuse to speak in class on the Day of Silence. If the school says “no,” ask them how and when this will be communicated to parents, teachers, and students. It should be communicated at least several days before the Day of Silence.

If your administration does not communicate this expectation to parents, teachers, and students, call your child out of school, because it means the administration is ignoring the issue and tacitly permitting teachers to allow the silent protest to take place.

If your school administration says that teachers may permit students to refuse to speak during class, call your child out of school. Tell your administration and school board that since they are permitting instructional time to be exploited for a political protest, your child will not be in school. This will remove your child from an environment that fosters controversy, and your child’s absence will cost the district money.

Then go to your next school board meeting and lodge an unequivocal complaint.

While homosexual activism has infiltrated public schools in countless ways, the Day of Silence Walkout is is virtually the only organized effort available to parents to express their opposition to such activism. And it’s one that takes very little courage. If we continue to do and say nothing, the pro-homosexual activism increases and the children who are targets of such indoctrination become ever younger.

For more information, click here: Day of Silence Walkout.

Perhaps some remember the loathsome and vulgar campaign that has young children using the F-word in a video series to promote affirmation of homosexuality. Well, they have a new campaign and the creator, Luke Montgomery, sent IFI an email about it, saying, “Hello, I thought you might find this of interest…” 

Below is the press release he thought would interest us and which provides another reason to call your kids out of school on the Day of Silence. The more cowardly we are, the more brazen homosexual activists become in their efforts to promote acceptance — not tolerance — but acceptance of homosexuality via government-subsidized public schools: 

Gay Activists Recruit Kids to Fight Homophobia in Schools by Giving Away Thousands of Free “OK4U2BGAY” T-Shirts to Teens 

Activists Launch H8SUX.com, Use Slick “Glee-Inspired” Viral Video to Promote Acceptance of Homosexuality and Fight Bullying and Suicide 

San Francisco – March 14, 2012 – H8SUX.com, a gay activist and T-shirt website, launched today and released its first viral video campaign targeting school kids with an offer of a free “OK4U2BGAY” T-shirt. The free pro-gay shirt will be shipped to any teen who simply makes a special YouTube video pledge to speak out against homophobia at school and support gay marriage. Inspired by the hit show “Glee,” the organization released a slickly-produced musical commercial showcasing a same-sex teen kiss and kids dancing in front of hot-pink school lockers while singing a catchy pro-gay song.

Organizers say the teen-targeted campaign is in response to who they call, “ballot box bullies” – politicians who directly inspire a climate for schoolyard bullies to torment LGBT kids. They cite initiatives to ban gay marriage in North Carolina and Minnesota, “Don’t Say Gay” Bills in Utah and Tennessee, and Rick Santorum’s promise to “force-divorce” thousands of legally married gay and lesbian couples as motivation for their pro-gay message to kids.

“We are recruiting kids to the cause of promoting the acceptance of homosexuality in schools,” said Luke Montgomery, director of the H8SUX.com video. “In a world full of bullies, suicide and hate, thousands of school kids wearing a pro-gay message in classrooms can be lifesaving and great. Kids are born gay, lesbian, bi and trans – and when I came out at 15, I was brutally beaten and left unconscious and bloody in a ditch. In 2012, kids should not be bullied and attacked just for being who they are. This free T-shirt will be a pro-gay billboard plastered on the chests of thousands of kids in classrooms across the nation. Our agenda is simple: to tell kids that it’s “OK4U2BGAY.” H8SUX.com is all about giving kids, gay and straight, the power to speak out against hate – and get a cool free T-shirt while doing it. Everyone says ‘it gets better’ – this makes it better.”

Featuring T-shirts with slogans such as “Legalize Love” and “Bullies Suck,” the H8SUX.com website is also making an appeal to adults using a model like the successful “One for One” charitable efforts of the TOMS shoe company. For every hoodie, tank to or tee sold on H8SUX.com, the organization will give a teen an “OK4U2BGAY” tee for free.

Video Sound Byte: “It’s OK to be gay. It’s great if you’re straight. But I ain’t down with this homo-hate!”

The H8SUX.com campaign also plans a national “Pink School Bus Tour” of T-shirt & wristband giveaways at schools in “homophobia hot-spots.” Using funds received through branded product sales, including T-shirts, bumper stickers, and wristbands, the company will continue to produce creative video campaigns targeting kids designed to be spread by teens and adults alike on YouTube, Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.

The company will be holding frequent T-shirt and wristband giveaways via Facebook and Twitter to grow the online           movement of teens and to promote acceptance of homosexuality in classrooms across the nation. (emphasis added)

I will shortly post my email response to Mr. Montgomery.

Make sure your Illinois friends & neighbors see the IFI Voter Guide 
before they go to the polls on Tuesday!

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) problematic annual exploitation of public schools through the Day of Silence takes place on April 15, 2011. In light of how successful GLSEN and every other homosexuality-affirming organization and blogger have been in exploiting recent tragic teen suicides, it is even more imperative that conservatives take a stand against the use of public education to normalize homosexuality.

A national coalition of conservative leaders and organizations are again sponsoring the Day of Silence Walkout. We are asking parents to find out if their children’s schools are permitting students and/or teachers to refuse to speak in class during the Day of Silence. If they will be permitting student or teacher silence during instructional time, we are urging parents to call their children out of school to protest the use of the classroom for the purpose of promoting controversial moral and political views.

Other than the Day of Silence Walkout, there are virtually no organized public efforts designed to tell school administrators, board members, and faculty that many parents do not want their children exposed to homosexuality-affirming activities, resources, or events. We are hoping and praying that parents and guardians across the country will participate in the Day of Silence Walkout which is sponsored by a national coalition of pro-family organizations and leaders.

Over the past few years, the number of homosexuality-affirming events that take place in public schools has increased, at least in part because of the ignorance, cowardice, and acquiescence of conservative parents. In addition to the Day of Silence, we now have No Name-Calling Week sponsored by GLSEN; Ally Week sponsored by GLSEN; Spirit Day sponsored by Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD); National Coming Out Day sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign (HRC); and the Transgender Day of Remembrance sponsored by the HRC.

Ten states have now passed “enumerated” anti-bullying policies, which require that schools specifically address homosexuality, bisexuality, and “transgenderism” in their anti-bullying policies and programs.

And if that’s not enough, both a House and Senate version of the Safe Schools Improvement Act have been proposed which, if passed, would prohibit schools from receiving funding to combat drugs and violence unless they also address homosexuality and Gender Identity Disorder (or what schools euphemistically refer to as “transgenderism”) in their anti-bullying policies and programs.

The ultimate goal of all homosexuality-affirming organizations is not to end bullying. The ultimate goal is either the eradication of the belief that homosexual acts are immoral or the creation of a social and legal climate that make it impossible for conservative beliefs to be expressed. Homosexual activists and their ideological allies exploit legitimate anti-bullying sentiment to implement programs and institutionalize events like the Day of Silence in order to transform the moral beliefs of the nation’s youth.

If we don’t actively oppose the presence of homosexuality-affirming activities, programs, and resources, they will very soon appear in every elementary school in the country. Homosexual activists and their allies understand that it’s easier to capture the hearts and minds of 16-year-olds than 26-year-olds and easier still to capture the hearts and minds of 6-year-olds.

Far too few parents are aware that some school boards and courts have decided that when homosexuality-affirming resources are embedded in anti-bullying curricula or activities, parents have no right to be notified ahead of time and no right to opt out. In most places, however, parents still have the legal right to oppose in word and deed the exploitation of government schools for the purposes of undermining parental values and advancing unproven moral, political, and philosophical beliefs. And parents will always retain the moral right to do so.

If we hope to limit the damage done to individuals, society, speech rights, parental rights, and religious liberty, we must act with courage now. If we don’t, we cede a vital battlefield on which the Left will be able to train and multiply new generations of homosexuality-affirming disciples using public funds. Because of our fear and inertia, we will bequeath to our children and grandchildren a corrosive educational environment, diminished rights, and unthinkable cultural oppression. In addition, we will teach our children by example to be cowardly conformists.

From experience, we have learned that public school administrations respond to only three things:

• Bad PR
• A huge community outcry, which rarely happens because courageous conservatives who are willing to suffer for truth are tragically few
• Loss of funds.

The Day of Silence Walkout will result in at least the loss of funds. Every student absence costs schools between $30-80 per day.

How evil do the ideas to which our children are exposed have to become and how young the children to whom these evil ideas are presented before the conservative community will say “No more.” The Day of Silence is not centrally about ending bullying. It’s centrally about eradicating true beliefs about homosexuality.

The Bible repeatedly warns that Christians will be persecuted, mocked, reviled, scorned, and hated for the cause of Christ’s Kingdom. When will we demonstrate our willingness to endure such suffering for Christ, our children, our freedom, and truth?

A dog barks when his master is attacked.
I would be a coward if I saw that God’s truth is attacked and yet would remain silent.
~John Calvin

Read more: Click HERE to get more details about the Walkout.

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