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Friday, April 16th will be the National Day of Silence in support of Gay, Lesbian and Transgender students across the United States.
Organized by gay, and straight, educators across the country as a teaching tool, the day of silence urges students to keep silent while at school. If a student is asked a direct question by a teacher they will answer, but otherwise silence.
Since it's inception the Day of Silence has spread to thousands of supportive schools and seen just as many homophobic reactions. Both reactions teach a lesson, and yet the message spreads and receives more support every year. If you're not a student it will be enough to pause and think of those in the trenches fighting for their dignity.
This public service announcement speaks loudly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nusjEONSrB4
[Updated on: Sat, 17 April 2010 12:09]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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Ah Chris? Wrong Date. April 16th-Friday is the actually date of silence.
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Another learning moment passes and from some accounts the National Day of Silence was a success:
http://www.blogher.com/day-silence-2010
It is of course just a terrible thing that such a day even needs to be held. Kids that participated allowed themselves to be targets for further bullying, they are the brave among us.
I can understand the joy Denise feels in her blog, her kids did something wonderful for themselves and others. It was an act of faith that they went to school prepared to face criticism and the taunts of others, that did happen.
Her kids had faith in an ideal, the fairness and equality of treatment LGBT kids ought to have in daily life. They experienced some of the inequality perpetrated by their peers, a lesson far more worthy than any homework passed out by the school.
I have read that some school systems supressed the National Day of Silence lesson plan, while others embraced the event as a teachable moment. In many states the "Christian" response was loud in an attempt to drown out the "immoral attempt by the homosexual agenda to brainwash our kids."
(I won't attribute those comments to the site from which they came, there were a slew of cookies and adware attached to that place)
For those kids who participated in silence I say "Bravo," you have the strength of your convictions to stand upon. The NDS follows a long tradition of protest passed down from such illustrious humans as Ghandi and Martin Luther King.
The actions of the students and teachers who participated spoke louder than the words of the Christian right who objected. Education is our best hope against the bullying of LGBT students. Once their peers understand that this is unaccpetable behavior then change will occur. Until then we will have to fight every year and win the battle in silence.
[Updated on: Sat, 17 April 2010 12:10]
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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... Legislated solutions seldom have long-term, and enduring benefits; this being said regardless of whether we're discussing discrimination based upon gender, race, religion, politics, age, whatever.
Yes, it is fitting to enshrine basic expectations of behaviour that should conform to societal mores as they prevail with the times. Typically these codes of conduct, such as the Human Rights Code as applied in many jurisdictions of competent authority, are intended to map-out, or chart, expected society norms of acceptable conduct and behaviour; they are not intended to be, nor should they be structured to be, "all-inclusive", because therein lies the capacity to then perpetrate a greater injustice by missing one faction or another in its' very inclusiveness.
An example, if you will:
Mid-to-late 1960's Canada; some 3 Millions square miles of largely underpopulated, or not populated at all, territory; predominately Caucasian, Christian and "First World" or European in origin; under tremendous pressure from the Commonwealth and the United Nations, to take in and shelter many of the "Third World's" disaffected, disenfranchised and otherwise lesser desirable candidates for re-settlement.
What to do:
Multiculturalism, is what; embrace it for all it's worth, and educate the hell out of all naysayers; resist (at all cost) any attempt to legislate tolerance and acceptance; and, wait three successive generations to reap the benefits.
Today, Canada, is no-longer a bastion of that self-same Caucasian, Christian and "First World" or European society; in truth, that demographic likely accounts for less than 50% of the society that today survives and prevails. This is not to say racism is dead; that religious intolerance doesn't rear its' ugly head every now and then; nor, that gender, age and sexual equality reigns supreme; because it does, and it doesn't.
1960's Canadians were dragged kicking and screaming into the realm of the new "Multiculturalism" and they didn't like it one bit; but, it had been mandated that it would happen; that it would become the society norm, and that we were going to like it whether we like it or not; and there was no lumping about it. We were told the Courts were to be (and would prove to be) the adjudicators of what would be deemed fair, right and just; and so they have been.
As I've spoken before, today I look out, from my fifteenth floor bedroom windows, upon a City of some 4 millions, and a "vibrant", and thriving local community where several Mosques, Hindi and Buddist Temples, a couple of Synagogues, numerous Christian places of Worship of all stripes, retail enterprise encompassing goods (and services), and a pot-pourri of faces seen, and tongues spoken that would have unheard of (let alone even fantasized about) 50-years ago; a community where my person represents only one segment (faction if you will) in the daily societal ebb and flow. Would I have believed this to be possible those so many years ago; not on your life; and frankly, I wouldn't have it any other way.
My father was perhaps the most racist, and generally bigoted sum-bitch, I would likely in mine, or his lifetime encounter; but, he was a visionary in his own way. Starting well into my youngest years, he would not tolerate his own behaviour in that of his two son's. He encouraged both my brother and I to welcome, and bring into our home, our firends regardless of their ethnicity, religion, politics and gender. He made no apologies for his own views. You could cut the tension in the air with a knife, it was at times so palpable; but, welcome our friends he did, with fortitude, grace and magnanimity.
Was he successful in his endeavour? Largely yes; In me more so than my brother; but in my brother's children, very much so, with both my nieces having dated a disparate group of potential suitors over the years, and each currently cohabiting with another of different religion and race; this would have not been possible in father's generation at all; extremely unlikely in my own; and is not just a given, but a certainty, in theirs.
Legislated solutions would not have made this probable, let alone possible; only education will, and does.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Updated on: Sat, 17 April 2010 16:03]
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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... or failure of what I detail in the aforementioned post lies here:
I said "1960's Canadians were dragged kicking and screaming into the realm of the new "Multiculturalism" and they didn't like it one bit; but, it had been mandated that it would happen; that it would become the society norm, and that we were going to like it whether we like it or not; and there was no lumping about it. We were told the Courts were to be (and would prove to be) the adjudicators of what would be deemed fair, right and just; and so they have been."
The Courts today, not Parliamentarians (although the latter have made necessity and suitable amendments to warranted Statues as they have applied) speak for Canadians in matters of "Societal Mores and Norms", having amended, and in some cases, enacted Law, respecting those mores and norms.
Forgetting for the moment all political and other agendas, as they might have existed then, as opposed to now, it has been The Courts throughout the intervening 50-years in Canada since Multiculturalism (and in truth, the respect for the Dignity and Sanctity of all Human Persons, and their lives), who have decried Spousal Abuse, and Abuses regardless of it's origin against the Person, and all but ridden our society of its' acceptance that behaviour of this stripe is to be admired, let alone tolerated; effected change, and ultimately the acceptance of shifting societal mores and norms, respecting Gender association and Sexuality, laying suitable groundwork for its' landmark decisions respecting Same-sex Marriage and Gender and Sexuality Equality. Granted the "Framework", upon which they based their rulings pre-existed, thanks to those self-same Legislated codes of conduct; but, The Courts would have lacked the "wiggle-room", to fairly, and wisely it now transpires, adjudicate these matters respecting those shifting societal mores and norms had those codes been too inclusive by their specificity. The "carrot and the big stick" approach works best; with education being its' greatest tool, and champion.
Warren C. E. Austin
The Gay Deceiver
Toronto, Canada
[Updated on: Sat, 17 April 2010 15:14]
"... comme recherché qu'un délice callipygian"
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More positive re-enforcement of the National Day of Silence:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126043165
If you do read the article, be sure to see the final paragraph. I think those in the American Family Association did pull kids out of school. Good, there's an unexcused absense, a few more of those and the kid will flunk out for the semester. Good parenting? I think not.
Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read. (Sir Francis Bacon 1561-1626)
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Will you join the silence? April 16, 2010 
Re: Will you join the silence? April 16, 2010 
