Anti-Gay "Day of Dialogue" Promotes Shame and Hate

Tomorrow, April 20, 2012, is the National Day of Silence and true to form the Christianist hate merchants are foaming at the mouth and seething that many schools are participating in the day of Silence which seeks to end anti-gay bullying. Sadly, Christianists believe they have the special right to abuse and bully anyone who fails to embrace their fear and hate based perverted form of Christianity. Their solution? Promote a "Day of Dialogue" today where little Bible beaters are encouraged to accost, shame and abuse LGBT students and their allies. To me, the Day of Dialogue underscores just how cruel and self-centered the Christianists have become. It's but one example of why I choose to not claim the Christian moniker. A piece at Think Progress looks at the sick and foul agenda of the Day of Dialogue. Here are highlights:

On Friday, LGBT students and their allies will participate in the GLSEN-organized Day of Silence as a form of protest for the anti-gay and anti-trans bullying abuse that takes place in schools every day. Tomorrow [April 19th], however, is the conservative Christian response, Focus on the Family’s ironically-named Day of Dialogue (formerly “Day of Truth”), which encourages students to express God’s condemnation of homosexuality to their gay peers. Over the past week, various anti-gay groups have promoted the Day of Dialogue’s harmful message while decrying the Day of Silence as anti-Christian intolerance that children shouldn’t be exposed to. Here are some examples:

• A coalition of anti-gay groups promote a Day of Silence Walk Out because “homosexuality and cross-dressing are immoral.”
• The Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins said the Day of Silence should be banned because it’s a “cover for the promotion of homosexuality.”
• The Liberty Counsel encourages parents to remove their students from school on the Day of Silence, and the group’s chairman, Mathew Staver, described the day as “a radical and forced agenda of homosexuality.”
• The American Family Association sent out an alert to its subscribers, encouraging parents to pull their students from school because GLSEN promotes “controversial, unproven, and destructive theories on the nature and morality of homosexuality.”
• Truth in Action Ministries described GLSEN’s efforts as using bullying to “promote and essentially indoctrinate children” into the “deadly lifestyle” of homosexuality.
• Barb Anderson (Minnesota Family Council), Peter LaBarbera (Americans for Truth About Homosexuality), and Laurie Higgins (Illinois Family Institute) condemned the Day of Silence as”evil propaganda,” “brainwashing,” and “child abuse” comparable to the Nazi Party and slavery.
• Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) is encouraging students to hand out fliers encouraging students to believe their homosexuality can —and should — change.

And this is what passes for "Christian love"nowadays among the Kool-Aid drinkers. Frankly, if there is anything evil going on and any brainwashing occurring, it's being done by the Christianists. I have long maintained that raising a child in a Christianist household - especially an LGBT - child is a form of child abuse. The Day of Dialogue seeks to expand the damage. The Think Progress piece describes it well:

[A]ll of Focus on the Family’s materials on the Day of Dialogue encourage students to use the Bible to condemn homosexuality as “broken” and promote ex-gay therapy that is known to be traumatic and ineffective. Given the overt antipathy encouraged against any LGBT-inclusive information, the day is perhaps better described as a Day of Monologue. This is a concerted effort to paint blatant in-school evangelism as welcome free speech and the stark silence of LGBT awareness as indoctrination, intolerance, and an unprotected disruption to school activities.

The Day of Dialogue is nothing short of encouragement to bully. Even if DoD participants do not attack or harass their targets, the stigma they encourage through condemning homosexuality helps maintain an unsafe climate for students with consequences that can last a lifetime.

The Day of Dialogue is a direct attack on our nation’s youth, a campaign to impose not just religion in schools, but harassment, shame, and a lifetime of consequences. Not only do social conservatives oppose visible day of silence, they don’t want there to be a place in our schools for LGBT students at all.