Gay, Lesbian Straight Educational Network Day of Silence - April 11th

[Kamaduck]

You are wrong in saying that it was not a big deal. It is a big deal. You took part in a gay rights activity.

Just commenting on your statement.

I’m sure the people that organized the day of silence promote some other things that we wouldn’t agree with, but I think we should note that gay students do have the right to be safe in a school environment. We are not anti protecting gay people’s basic rights, and safety from physical harm is a pretty basic right.

If I understand correctly, the point of the day of silence is to make the environment safer for gay students by raising awareness of bullying. We may disagree with the method or the other beliefs that go along with it, but that is in and of itself a positive goal.

 

[powerofk]

That’s what I was just thinking. If we wouldn’t call students “disruptive” for participating in the day of silence for the unborn, I don’t see how we can call the same actions “disruptive” if the point is bringing attention to the bullying that gay students face.

Odd that you should mention this. To tell the truth, it’s just as often (if not more often) the reverse - many schools promote, even encourage, participation in the “Day of Silence” for standing against the bullying faced by homosexual students, but consider participation in a “Day of Silence” for the unborn to be “too controversial”, “disruptive”, and the like. Oppression of speech on either side is wrong, yet schools (both K-12 and higher education) regularly attempt to oppress speech that the leadership at the school disagrees with. I don’t necessarily agree with the “Day of Silence” for gay rights (primarily because I see it as saying that only bullying against homosexual students is wrong, and treats it as if no one needs to worry about any other type of bullying), but I accept the right of students to protest in this manner. At the same time, I don’t agree with the Westboro Baptist Church with their tasteless protests at soldiers’ funerals, but I accept their right to do so. The problem is that it seems that we’ve forgotten in the US that the right to free speech is not restricted to the speech of the majority - the speech of the majority needs no protection. It is designed to protect the speech of the minority - which, often, is reviled by the majority. Without this protection, a democratic society becomes a mobocracy or an autocracy.

 

[Kamaduck]

Odd that you should mention this. To tell the truth, it’s just as often (if not more often) the reverse - many schools promote, even encourage, participation in the “Day of Silence” for standing against the bullying faced by homosexual students, but consider participation in a “Day of Silence” for the unborn to be “too controversial”, “disruptive”, and the like. Oppression of speech on either side is wrong, yet schools (both K-12 and higher education) regularly attempt to oppress speech that the leadership at the school disagrees with. I don’t necessarily agree with the “Day of Silence” for gay rights (primarily because I see it as saying that only bullying against homosexual students is wrong, and treats it as if no one needs to worry about any other type of bullying), but I accept the right of students to protest in this manner. At the same time, I don’t agree with the Westboro Baptist Church with their tasteless protests at soldiers’ funerals, but I accept their right to do so. The problem is that it seems that we’ve forgotten in the US that the right to free speech is not restricted to the speech of the majority - the speech of the majority needs no protection. It is designed to protect the speech of the minority - which, often, is reviled by the majority. Without this protection, a democratic society becomes a mobocracy or an autocracy.

I agree. I figured we were talking about Catholic schools here, but the principle works the same way in the other direction- public schools should not prevent students from making peaceful statements by participating in the day of silence for the unborn, regardless of whether they agree with the statement the students are making.

“I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” -Evelyn Beatrice Hall.

 

[gam197]

I’m sure the people that organized the day of silence promote some other things that we wouldn’t agree with, but I think we should note that gay students do have the right to be safe in a school environment. We are not anti protecting gay people’s basic rights, and safety from physical harm is a pretty basic right.

If I understand correctly, the point of the day of silence is to make the environment safer for gay students by raising awareness of bullying. We may disagree with the method or the other beliefs that go along with it, but that is in and of itself a positive goal.

Agree, but no one should be bullying anyone in the school system! All should feel safe!

To single out one particular group and make it only about them is about activism not bullying.

 

[epan]

So because catholics are more in touch with justice, they don’t take part in lesbian or gay issues?

I am having trouble making that connection.

Oops. How could this be?

 

[gam197]

Oops. How could this be?

No Oops.

I was referring to the fact that many people feel that catholics should not even be discussing issues about gay relations. Some feel it is uncharitable.

 

[Kamaduck]

Agree, but no one should be bullying anyone in the school system! All should feel safe!

To single out one particular group and make it only about them is about activism not bullying.

Technically, all anti-bullying campaigns are an attempt at activism. And while I see your point (nobody should be bullied), I wouldn’t say that we shouldn’t talk about the particular ways that people with SSA are bullied. I don’t think it’s bad to make a statement to the effect of “bullying gay kids is wrong”, any more than it’s sinful to say “bullying overweight kids is wrong” or “bullying autistic kids is wrong”. We’ve had days to combat both bullying based on appearance/weight and bullying based on neurological conditions at my school. They were faculty-led and not very effective, but hey. They tried, and I don’t see anything wrong with trying.

 

[gam197]

Technically, all anti-bullying campaigns are an attempt at activism. And while I see your point (nobody should be bullied), I wouldn’t say that we shouldn’t talk about the particular ways that people with SSA are bullied. I don’t think it’s bad to make a statement to the effect of “bullying gay kids is wrong”, any more than it’s sinful to say “bullying overweight kids is wrong” or “bullying autistic kids is wrong”. We’ve had days to combat both bullying based on appearance/weight and bullying based on neurological conditions at my school. They were faculty-led and not very effective, but hey. They tried, and I don’t see anything wrong with trying.

Bullying any kid is not just wrong, it is terribly wrong and should be zero tolerance and I mean zero tolerance at any school. I don’t see the need to single out and make a day for one group.

I see this singularly out as pure activism. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

 

[Kamaduck]

Bullying any kid is not just wrong, it is terribly wrong and should be zero tolerance and I mean zero tolerance at any school. I don’t see the need to single out and make a day for one group.

I see this singularly out as pure activism. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

I’m not sure how any school can stop bullying if they’re not willing to acknowledge the things that people get bullied for. Not all bullying is blatantly obvious, and it’s rarely just a single kid bullying another.

For instance. We had a general anti-bullying assembly one day. At the end of the assembly we were supposed to listen quietly and respectfully as several students made on-the-spot thank you speeches to people who had influenced them positively. One of the kids who stood up and started a sincere thank-you speech was a kid who has Aspergers. He bared his soul to us, but because the things that were bothering him were really odd, and because his speech lasted several minutes longer than the speeches were supposed to, several members of the audience started laughing at him. Not loudly, but there was muffled laughter coming from basically the entire student body, and people talked about him behind his back for about two days, talking about how ridiculous they thought his speech was.

This is how people normally treat him. Luckily, he seems to be rather resilient, and is blissfully unaware of what people think of him. But if he weren’t, what do you think the administration should do in that situation? Yell at the whole student body? They were literally in an anti-bullying assembly at the time- they knew what they were doing. Punish all of them? How?

Maybe that kind of thing is why we had an assembly about people on the autistic spectrum.

YES, bullying is terrible. But sometimes it’s not enough to know that. Sometimes it’s hard to accept that people are different, especially if you don’t have any personal connection to them. Ideally we would all be kind to everyone whether we understood their struggles or not, but we don’t live in an ideal world. If awareness of other people’s struggles can help us understand and respect them, then I think it’s a positive thing. You can call it “activism”, and I respond that there’s nothing wrong with activism when it pursues a good end. Activism is just campaigning to change things, either politically or socially. Decreasing bullying is a change I would like to see happen, so I welcome activism that pursues that change, provided it isn’t destructive in other ways.

 

[SMGS127]

Bullying any kid is not just wrong, it is terribly wrong and should be zero tolerance and I mean zero tolerance at any school. I don’t see the need to single out and make a day for one group.

I see this singularly out as pure activism. I guess we will have to agree to disagree.

The problem is that other victims of bullying are rarely at the same risk of being killed in the process of said bullying as LGBT victims are. The purpose of the Day of Silence isn’t just to protest bullying, it’s also to show the school what it would be like if every LGBT kid at the school didn’t exist anymore, if they were killed. The statement is much more profound than a simple anti-bullying speech, which could be given through an assembly and need not be specific to LGBT concerns.

While there are many things I regret doing in my past now that I am Catholic, participating in the Day of Silence at my undergraduate university is not one of them.

 

[gam197]

The problem is that other victims of bullying are rarely at the same risk of being killed in the process of said bullying as LGBT victims are. The purpose of the Day of Silence isn’t just to protest bullying, it’s also to show the school what it would be like if every LGBT kid at the school didn’t exist anymore, if they were killed. The statement is much more profound than a simple anti-bullying speech, which could be given through an assembly and need not be specific to LGBT concerns.

While there are many things I regret doing in my past now that I am Catholic, participating in the Day of Silence at my undergraduate university is not one of them.

I doubt LGBT victims are in more dangers than the girls that are being cyber bullying and committing suicide on a regular basis.

I don’t believe in bullying at all and that is why the school needs zero toleration policy.

I don’t see singularly students helping anything, No it is all about activism and acceptance on the gay lifestyle. That it has succeeded in but still the problem of bullying is there.

 

[SMGS127]

I doubt LGBT victims are in more dangers than the girls that are being cyber bullying and committing suicide on a regular basis.

I don’t believe in bullying at all and that is why the school needs zero toleration policy.

I don’t see singularly students helping anything, No it is all about activism and acceptance on the gay lifestyle. That it has succeeded in but still the problem of bullying is there.

Well first of all, there’s no such thing as a “gay lifestyle.”

But secondly, I said “being killed.” Not “killing themselves.” If you want to talk about anti-suicide prevention, that’s great, and while there are certainly anti-suicide campaigns aimed at LGBT individuals (such as the Trevor Project), I would be more understanding of needing a broader outlook. But the Day of Silence doesn’t solely focus on suicide; it also focuses on the violence in bullying that can lead and has led ultimately to murders of LGBT kids in schools in the US. A girl who gets bullied for her weight is most certainly being mistreated, but she also most certainly will not be murdered over it. The same can not be said about LGBT kids.

 

[gam197]

Well first of all, there’s no such thing as a “gay lifestyle.”

But secondly, I said “being killed.” Not “killing themselves.” If you want to talk about anti-suicide prevention, that’s great, and while there are certainly anti-suicide campaigns aimed at LGBT individuals (such as the Trevor Project), I would be more understanding of needing a broader outlook. But the Day of Silence doesn’t solely focus on suicide; it also focuses on the violence in bullying that can lead and has led ultimately to murders of LGBT kids in schools in the US. A girl who gets bullied for her weight is most certainly being mistreated, but she also most certainly will not be murdered over it. The same can not be said about LGBT kids.

Maybe you are not watching the news. Suicide after suicide of girls is from cyberbullying. I don’t know if it has anything to do with weight so I don’t know why you brought that up. Most pictures of the girls I saw were thin.

No one should be killing kids in any school including kids who knife or shoot up kids. Bullying is just that. Fighting bullying is a major problem in schools but it applies to all students not just a one. group. If I thought this was honestly about bullying, I can see their concern. It is not. It is about trying to normalize homosexuality in the school system so that students accept homosexual type of sex as normal. They have succeeded in that. We can see it by the number of young people who see no problem with homosexual behavior.

 

[abian]

Brave students against Day of Silence freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3143754/posts

 

[signit]

Odd that you should mention this. To tell the truth, it’s just as often (if not more often) the reverse - many schools promote, even encourage, participation in the “Day of Silence” for standing against the bullying faced by homosexual students, but consider participation in a “Day of Silence” for the unborn to be “too controversial”, “disruptive”, and the like. Oppression of speech on either side is wrong, yet schools (both K-12 and higher education) regularly attempt to oppress speech that the leadership at the school disagrees with. I don’t necessarily agree with the “Day of Silence” for gay rights (primarily because I see it as saying that only bullying against homosexual students is wrong, and treats it as if no one needs to worry about any other type of bullying), but I accept the right of students to protest in this manner. At the same time, I don’t agree with the Westboro Baptist Church with their tasteless protests at soldiers’ funerals, but I accept their right to do so. The problem is that it seems that we’ve forgotten in the US that the right to free speech is not restricted to the speech of the majority - the speech of the majority needs no protection. It is designed to protect the speech of the minority - which, often, is reviled by the majority. Without this protection, a democratic society becomes a mobocracy or an autocracy.

Let’s note, too, that the “Day of Silence” is a student initiative, and as such it’s protected by freedom of speech just like any other student initiative. We had a thread before on the status of the law - because of some federal law, if you have one student-led club, you have to allow any of them, and it seems this would apply here.

So, it seems, if you had students initiating a “Day of Silence” for the “unborn,” that would get the same measure of protection.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I doubt LGBT victims are in more dangers than the girls that are being cyber bullying and committing suicide on a regular basis.

I don’t believe in bullying at all and that is why the school needs zero toleration policy.

I don’t see singularly students helping anything, No it is all about activism and acceptance on the gay lifestyle. That it has succeeded in but still the problem of bullying is there.

So just to clarify you think that if we can’t help everyone we should help no one?

When I’m hearing about cyberbulling I hear cases from all over the US, AUS & NZ which makes it seem much more often. On the other hand I’ve read in my local paper of local (within 50 miles) murders and attempted murders of LGBT people.

 

[BlueEyedLady]

I doubt LGBT victims are in more dangers than the girls that are being cyber bullying and committing suicide on a regular basis.

I don’t believe in bullying at all and that is why the school needs zero toleration policy.

I don’t see singularly students helping anything, No it is all about activism and acceptance on the gay lifestyle. That it has succeeded in but still the problem of bullying is there.

Can’t you both be right?

Kids like standing up for causes they believe in and this is a national youth project. Kids can’t implement zero tolerance policies, but they can engage in an awareness raising demonstration. Likewise, administrators can’t do this, but they set the policies.

This does not at all take away from the need for strong anti bullying policies.

When this happened at my school it was because a new girl knew about it and told me and other students she thought would be interested. We went to the principal to tell him our plans and what the purpose was, he recommended that we find a faculty advisor and he stressed that we could not refuse to speak to teachers. We organized, spread the word, and the day went off well. It had nothing to do with policy.

I will say that the numbers don’t back up your assertion. Gay and lesbian youth do kill themselves at a disproportionately high rate. I guess I just don’t see anything wrong with tackling the bullying problem as a whole, and then putting a little more effort into trouble spots. At my school, gays got it the worst. Hands down, gay people were the most targeted and tormented, so we focused on that. At the school my sister in law taught at, it was Latino kids that were targeted the most, so they put extra efforts into reducing that specific problem. Later, she taught at an inner city school with serious racial tensions. Guess where they targeted some of their anti bullying efforts and resources? The fact is, if your school has a problem with specific bullying of a group, then it is good to seek to help those students, rather than to pretend that they don’t have it worse. It’s a better use of resources and serves the students better.

 

[powerofk]

Let’s note, too, that the “Day of Silence” is a student initiative, and as such it’s protected by freedom of speech just like any other student initiative. We had a thread before on the status of the law - because of some federal law, if you have one student-led club, you have to allow any of them, and it seems this would apply here.

So, it seems, if you had students initiating a “Day of Silence” for the “unborn,” that would get the same measure of protection.

They do get the same measure of protection - but that doesn’t stop administrations from trying to censor them anyway, simply because the administrators don’t agree with the message.

 

[SMGS127]

Maybe you are not watching the news. Suicide after suicide of girls is from cyberbullying. I don’t know if it has anything to do with weight so I don’t know why you brought that up. Most pictures of the girls I saw were thin.

No one should be killing kids in any school including kids who knife or shoot up kids. Bullying is just that. Fighting bullying is a major problem in schools but it applies to all students not just a one. group. If I thought this was honestly about bullying, I can see their concern. It is not. It is about trying to normalize homosexuality in the school system so that students accept homosexual type of sex as normal. They have succeeded in that. We can see it by the number of young people who see no problem with homosexual behavior.

You misunderstood my post; I was agreeing with you that, if the Day of Silence were just about suicide, you would have a point, even though LGBT suicides still, by percentage, heavily outweigh any other group, especially transgender suicides. But it’s about death in general. LGBT people (again, especially transgender individuals) are at a much higher risk for suicide, murder, or at the very least, violence against their person. It makes sense to have a day dedicated to what life would be like if they were all killed to make a point against violence.

Happy Easter by the way .

 

[gam197]

You misunderstood my post; I was agreeing with you that, if the Day of Silence were just about suicide, you would have a point, even though LGBT suicides still, by percentage, heavily outweigh any other group, especially transgender suicides. But it’s about death in general. LGBT people (again, especially transgender individuals) are at a much higher risk for suicide, murder, or at the very least, violence against their person. It makes sense to have a day dedicated to what life would be like if they were all killed to make a point against violence.

Happy Easter by the way .

I think that you may be correct in that transgenders have a high sucide rate yet the majority of population 95% are heterosexuals. That alone makes the rate of suicide highest among, I would say heterosexual girls. This cyber bullying in really out of control.

Yet little is done. We focus a whole day on a very small percentage of students when the majority(95%) get little or no help.

This day should be about all bullying- no one in particular. If they want to do private counseling for gay students, then maybe that is the way to go.

The way it is done is just activism, hoping that they can persuade the students that being gay is just another healthy life.No matter how many people think that it is OK, doesn’t matter because I think internally at a gut level, the gay students don’t feel that way.

Activism is working in that young people don’t care but that still has not solved the issue.
In fact, it may have aggravated it.