What if homosexual rights advocates staged a huge promotional event and no one came to see it? That's exactly what a coalition of organizations is proposing for April 25, this year's "Day of Silence," which is sponsored in public schools across the nation.
"It's outrageous that our neighborhood schools would allow homosexual activism to intrude into the classroom," said Buddy Smith of the American Family Association, one of a long list of organizations asking parents to keep their students home from school on that day.
"'Day of Silence' is about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality. It's time for Christian parents to draw the line – if your children will be exposed to this DOS propaganda in their school, then keep them home for the day," he said.
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The "Day of Silence" promotion is intended, ostensibly, to make students "aware" of the "discrimination" suffered by homosexuals in society, by having students remain silent for the day. Such events typically are organized by a school's "Gay-Straight Alliance" group, but the event has been promoted for its previous 11 years by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, an organization with the agenda of establishing homosexual advocacy organizations such as GSAs in all schools in the nation.
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The pro-family coalition said the event "is designed to pressure students to regard homosexual, bisexual, and transgender behavior as normal and worthy." It said the teaching environment is disrupted by the event because some students "and even some teachers" remain silent through the school day.
"Protesters wear T-shirts and hand out 'speaking cards' protesting alleged injustice, harassment, prejudice, and discrimination toward 'LGBT' people and their 'allies,'" the coalition said.
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Linda Harvey, a spokeswoman for Mission America, told WND, "It's incredibly important that parents be very aware because things are quickly getting to a bizarre level."
A parent in Massachusetts was jailed when he objected to his kindergarten son being presented with a public school district book advocating homosexuality, and in California, lawmakers have written a law requiring teachers to present only positive representations of such alternative lifestyle choices.
Such events only "honor" such alternative lifestyles, she said.
"When a parent finds out about this kind of event, they need to take immediate action, join with other parents. They need to go to the school board. They need to be persistent. They will get a cold shoulder from those who say, 'We've never heard this [concern] before.' Those are standard responses. They need to be persistent, and very, very discerning about what's really going on and who's advocating this," she warned.
The harm being done is enormous, she noted.
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"We need to be very, very concerned about the harm, for our own children and all of these children," she said. "[Under such indoctrination,] we are creating barbarians. Parents want something other than barbarians living down the street. They need to care about their own kids. They need to take this seriously. Your kids are learning to respect this behavior."
Besides being morally objectionable, such lifestyles present enormously higher risks for children for HIV and other related health damage, she noted.
"[Parents] need to decide this is real, this is extremely damaging. And it's only going to get worse. In the early 1990s there were a handful of homosexual clubs at schools. Now there are about 3,500-4,000 in high schools and they are increasing. The big trend now is in middle schools. GLSEN has made it a goal to have homosexual clubs in every school K-12. They're going to make it if we don't stand up and be counted," she said.
Matt Barber, a spokesman for Concerned Women for America, said the day "amounts to educational malpractice."
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"“Our schools are supposed to be places of learning, not places of political indoctrination. It is the height of impropriety and cynicism for 'gay' activists and school officials to use children as pawns in their attempt to further a highly controversial and polarizing political agenda," he said.
"Social activism does not belong in the classroom," added Peter LaBarbera of Americans for Truth.
The coalition is suggesting parents ask their school districts about "Day of Silence" plans, especially the date because some school districts vary. Then, the group said, parents should "inform the school of our intention to keep your children home on that date and explain why."
Then parents should talk with their children about the issue and explain homosexual behavior is not an "'innate identity,' it is sinful and unnatural," the coalition suggested. And church and religious leaders should be encouraged to organize opposition to public school promotion of homosexuality.
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"The director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force broke homosexual activists' code of silence on the threat homosexual behavior poses to young people's health when he admitted this month that HIV 'is a gay disease,'" said Gary Glenn of AFA Michigan. "GLSEN should cancel its celebration of that code of silence about the severe public health hazards of homosexual behavior, and any school administrator who continues to stand silent while enabling the promotion of such harmful behavior should be sued for criminal negligence."
Among those in the coalition are:
- Abiding Truth Ministries
- American Family Association
- AFA of MI
- AFA of PA
- Americans for Truth
- Christian Information Service
- Christian Civic League of Maine
- Concerned Women for America
- Culture Campaign
- Defend the Family International
- Exodus Mandate
- Illinois Family Institute
- Indiana Voice for the Family
- Informing Christians
- Liberty Counsel
- MassResistance
- Mission America
- New Generation Christian Center
- Parents' Rights' Coalition
- Right March
- Stephen Bennett Ministries
- Values USA
- and Watchmen on the Walls
Exodus Mandate works full time on its campaign to encourage and help Christian families to leave Pharaoh's school system, and spokesman Chaplain E. Ray Moore warned Christian parents of the costs of letting their children remain in a system that advocates homosexuality.
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"Based on statistics, there is a 70-to-80 percent chance that a [Christian] child will abandon the church and their faith in a public school career," Moore has told WND. The bottom line, then, is Christian parents need to lobby their pastors, pastors need to lobby their denominations and their denominations need to start programs creating and operating private schools, he said.
There's also a new organization in California, called California Exodus and operating with the slogan Rescue Your Child, seeking to remove 600,000 children from California's public schools because of that state's mandatory promotion of homosexuality.
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