Are two different anti-gay activist law groups using school children as pawns in a war over dominance, message, or contributions?
For several years the Gay Lesbian and Straight Education Network, in alliance with the United States Student Association, has sponsored the Day of Silence.
The Day of Silence®, a project of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN®) in collaboration with the United States Student Association (USSA), is a student-led day of action where those who support making anti-LGBT bullying and harassment unacceptable in schools take part in activities to recognize and protest the discrimination and harassment – in effect, the silencing – experienced by LGBT students and their allies.
In recognition of the silencing of gay people, student remain silent for all or part of a school day. This year’s Day of Silence on April 26, 2006 is expected to involve over 500,000 student in 4,000 schools.
To counter this powerful message, the Alliance Defense Fund, established its Day of Truth.
The Day of Truth was established to counter the promotion of the homosexual agenda and express an opposing viewpoint from a Christian perspective.
Last year ADF reports that 1,100 students in 350 schools participated. Participants wear T-shirts and pass out cards on the day after the Day of Silence saying that “I am speaking the Truth to break the silence.”
However, this month PFOX has joined with Liberty Counsel to propose the Change is Possible campaign.
On the eve of the “Day of Silence” — a nationwide pro-homosexual observance scheduled for April 26 — the Orlando, Florida-based legal group Liberty Counsel and the national advocacy group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) are conducting a joint effort called the “Change is Possible Campaign.” This outreach focuses on public schools, which the two groups believe have been targeted by homosexual activists eager to promote their lifestyle to school children.
Alliance Defense Fund is an organization that was “founded for a unique purpose: to aggressively defend religious liberty by empowering our allies, recognizing that together, we can accomplish far more than we can alone.” Liberty Counsel is “a nonprofit litigation, education and policy organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom, the sanctity of human life and the traditional family.” Both groups are very active in fighting equality for gay people.
Why then are two different anti-gay “religious freedom” legal groups each targeting the Day of Silence with competing programs and competing messages?
WOW….1100 participants in 350 schools…that averages out to what..about 3 people per school? Bwahahahahaha. . .and you can bet the church or the parents offered those kids some kind of perk to embarass themselves that day. . .
As for the competing “legal” services – they have nothing to offer but frivolous nonsense and bullying tactics. Since Exodus claims to receive 400,000 inquiries a year, one would think there would be tens of thousands of religious crazies ready to pounce on the opportunity to flood the schools with evangelical nonsense. . .oh, that’s right – they’ve really never shown anyone this big list of the trillions of people they’ve liberated from homosexuality.
The ADF is far more evil, IME; they actually take children away from lgbt parents. They are the legal arm of Focus on the Family, for all intents and purposes, and actively involved in the effort to criminalize lgbt status as an ultimate goal.
“Day of Truth (with a capital T, no less)” /SNORT
How typically arrogant to claim exclusive branding of truth ™.
They are promoting their culture war. A culture war is actually a necessary element of the promoting a conservative agenda in this country.
The two competing systems of morality in this country can both be viewed as metaphors for family.
The system of morality that most progressives/liberals have is a “nurturant parent” morality. In this system of morality, the figures of power an authority help lead those under them to success through giving help when needed and encouraging a reasoned conversation to explain their views. This system of morality is HINDERED by culture war, because war is not a nuturant way of inacting change.
The conservative system is “strict father morality”. Contrary to nurturant parent morality, in this morality information is to be exchanged through the powerful (read: correct) shouting the truth (or Truth, as our unkind “christian” friends would have us think) and threatening punishment to those who don’t agree. This morality leads to anti-gay concepts, because homosexuality implies a family in which there can’t be a single, strong father figure to lead his wife and children to the correct views.
Culure wars help the conservatives, because a shouted exchange of ideas — a refusal to bend in one’s opinions — is a strict father way of dealing with things. If you let a conversation come to blows (or shouting) you’re letting the conservative win, just by the nature of how the information is being shared.
(A good book about these systems of morality, and generally about effective ways to argue liberal cuases, is Don’t Think of an Elephant, by George Lakoff).
Posted by: carnificinafera at April 26, 2006 03:00 PM
Very interesting carnificinafera. I for one hope you’ll be back and make comments regularly.