Exodus: Live Out Loud

The Day of Silence

Tomorrow is the Day of Silence. Many high school students across the nation will experience the silent demonstration by their peers all day, and possibly receive materials produced by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) through their local GSA club. It's quite possible that many school administrators and teachers will also partake in the demonstration, lecturing students about GLBT issues.

It's important that GLSEN, for the most part, be opposed and not allowed to take free reign with the educational system. I'm not talking about opposing the goal of safer schools—but that isn't GLSEN's only goal, or even their primary one.

GLSEN is all about promoting the mistaken belief that homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderism are innate, unchangeable, and should be unconditionally celebrated by all. Furthermore, they encourage young people to make unhealthy and often dangerous lifestyle choices. It's all over their programs and materials.

For instance, take a look at their "recommended reading" for 7^th through 12^th graders: books like Rainbow Boys, a fictional narrative in which a teen boy has an anonymous sexual encounter with an older man. Or Revolutionary Voices, which calls prostitution an "empowering experience." The book Free Your Mind urges young people to leave their churches and cut family members out of their lives if they aren't gay-affirming, telling them they can make more "meaningful relationships" via gay and lesbian chat rooms.

Massachusetts parents were outraged when GLSEN, using state funds, hosted a workshop for hundreds of students in which they promoted dangerous sexual activities that I can't even describe to you without this being an X-rated post. Despite the fall-out from the first time this happened, the workshop returned the next year, minus a few endorsements.    

GLSEN knows its real agenda is extremely controversial, which is why they work so hard to bar other points of view from the school system, create hostility against opposing beliefs, and keep parents out of the loop.

But your average student participating in the Day of Silence has no idea what GLSEN is all about. This organization works hard to make its image all about tolerance, safer schools, ending harassment, etc. These are admirable goals, and that's what draws students to buy into their events and programs.   

While the Day of Silence is part of an agenda that's nothing like real tolerance, for most of the speechless students you'll encounter on Wednesday, it is just about creating a safe environment. Which makes their goal and yours pretty similar.

The Day of Truth isn't about politically defeating gay-identified people, and it certainly isn't about defending bullying or true bigotry. We're proclaiming the fact that God has created us with a beautiful design, and that those who struggle with their sexuality and don't want to be gay (and there's lots of them) don't have to be. And we are saying that true tolerance means we can get along even when we disagree.

Day of Truth events from coast to coast, tomorrow night:

Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Tulare, CA

School Allows Day of Truth - After Legal Pressure

A Danbury, CT high school, which fully endorsed the pro-gay Day of Silence, initially refused one student's right to express her own beliefs through the Day of Truth. That's when Alliance Defense Fund stepped in. From Inside Tennessee:

After receiving a letter from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, the principal of Danbury High School agreed Wednesday to allow a student to promote and participate in the Day of Truth after first having prohibited the student from doing so.  The school officially endorses the Day of Silence, an event promoting the homosexual agenda, but had thwarted student Rosemary Shakro’s attempts to promote the Day of Truth by inviting a speaker to a club meeting and posting signs announcing the event.

“Christian students should be allowed to express their viewpoint just like any other student,” said ADF Legal Counsel Matt Bowman.  “The Day of Truth is an opportunity for Christian students to respectfully present a different viewpoint than students participating in the Day of Silence.  Allowing students to have a Day of Silence without allowing students to have a Day of Truth limits free speech and the free exchange of ideas.”

“We are pleased that we had the opportunity to explain the law so that the school could do the right thing and respect the First Amendment rights of this student and any other students that wish to observe the Day of Truth.  We hope other schools will follow this example for their students,” Bowman added.

Shakro wished to invite a guest speaker to her “Youth Alive” after-school club meeting this Thursday as part of activities leading up to the Day of Truth.  The school has allowed other clubs, such as the Gay-Straight Alliance, to have outside guests speak at school assemblies and club meetings.  However, the school’s principal, who prohibited a speaker for last year’s Day of Truth, prohibited this year’s speaker as well, saying that the Day of Truth is too “controversial” and “counteractive.”  The principal had also claimed that “anti-homosexual” speech is prohibited at the school and that the presentation could cause contention among students.

“In addition, the principal had prohibited the posting of signs in school hallways announcing the club meeting, nonsensically suggesting that the ‘All are welcome’ message on the sign was an invitation to the general public to trespass on school property,” Bowman noted.

Bowman sent a letter to the principal explaining the law, and the school now says that Shakro will be allowed to invite the speaker and to post signs announcing the meeting.

“According to the law, a school cannot allow students to promote one viewpoint and then prohibit promotion of another viewpoint.  School officials also cannot ban speech just because they think it’s unpopular or controversial.  We are very pleased that Rosemary’s constitutional rights will be respected,” said Bowman.

A copy of the letter sent to Danbury High School is  available at www.telladf.org/UserDocs/ShakroLetter.pdf. 

NEA Shuts Out Advocate for Change

Courtesy of AgapePress:

A conservative educator from Pennsylvania received a chilly response while addressing delegates to the National Education Association's annual convention held in New Orleans earlier this month.

Sissy Jochmann, a second grade teacher from Pennsylvania and chair of the Conservative Educators Caucus, delivered a two-minute speech in which she urged the NEA to support students in their right to choose not to engage in homosexual behavior. But Jochmann says delegates booed and shouted angrily at her while she spoke.

Jochmann's speech called on the NEA to provide "a full range of information and support resources available on homosexuality" and to be more tolerant of people on all sides of the issue. But the audience met Jochmann's proposal with antagonistic heckling and jeers.

"At one point -- the representative assembly -- I was speaking to over 9,400 people. It was a thunderous roar -- they didn't even want to consider debating it," she says.

Apparently the powerful educators' union is less tolerant than it purports to be -- and Jochmann is not the first to call attention to the organization's double standards.

In an editorial written for the organization Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, Dr. Warren Throckmorton revealed that the NEA convention for the past two years has denied exhibit space to PFOX. Last year, convention organizers told PFOX, an organization that supports homosexuals' right to choose to change their sexual orientation, that no space was available -- although they continued to sell exhibition space to other groups. This year, the NEA refused even to accept the group's application.

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