What's more disruptive?

A group of students being silent in class, or a group of children skipping class?

April 25 is National Day of Silence, a day during which students remain silent to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying, and harrassment by representing those who no longer have a voice. Students hand out cards to others to explain why they aren't speaking. When I was in high school my SADD club held a similar day. Every eight minutes a student was tapped on the shoulder and thus "killed" by a drunk driver. This student left class, dressed in black, "killed" another student, and went back to their day completely silent. Nobody protested this event, and it was very effective.

Binghamton High School participates in the Day of Silence, which, like the SADD day, is a very effective in nonintrusive way to raise awareness, a day with aims to stop bullying of all kinds and protect students of all orientations. However, the kind and loving and Christlike groups Mission:America and the American Family Association think participation in this group will ruin the world. Yes, I was dumb enough to read an article in my local paper titled "Day of Silence at BHS Draws Protest." (I highly suggest that, if you believe in anything good and holy, you avoid the reader comments if you dare to read this article at all.)

Apparently, these two unfortunantly enormous national groups feel the need to speak out against the Binghamton High School gay-straight alliance, which has a whopping 20 members. They want Binghamton parents to write the school and threaten to keep their children home from school on April 25 if the administration allows student to be--huh!--silent. Day of Silence disrupts learning, they argue. But keeping your child home from school entirely doesn't.

It's not really the silence they are protesting, but the reason for silence. (The argument that the day is "disruptive" is grasping at straws.) In their well-practiced way, these conservative "Christian" groups are playing the victim. According to Buddy, yes Buddy, Smith of the American Family Association, "'Day of Silence' is about coercing students to repudiate traditional morality." Founder and Chairman of American Family Association's ActionAlerts Donald E. Wildmon says "DOS is a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools."

I don't mean to give venue to these men's ridiculous and hate-filled exaggerations, but I wanted to put up their definitions of Day of Silence versus the official Day of Silence purpose: to bring attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying, and harrassment, as I said previously. These "Christian" groups have taken the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network's request that LGBT students not be harrassed and have twisted it into being an attack on straight people, a recruitment to the "gay lifestyle." Protesting Day of Silence is supporting hate and bullying, it's as simple as that.

Wherever you stand on the "gay issue" (which I can't believe is still an "issue"), decent human beings in general don't want to see kids harrassed and in some cases killed simply because they are gay. Even if you don't "believe" in the "gay agenda," do you really want to go on record as telling a gay youth he/she deserves to bullied? Maybe you do, but I like to think most people don't. Go about expressing your beliefs in a different way, and aim your views at adults, not children.

No person straight or gay should be bullied or harrassed, but Day of Silence is to bring attention to the constant use of the words "dyke" and "fag," the constant teasing and bullying of those who appear gay (both straight and gay), and the commonplace and accepted violence against LGBT individuals, especially in schools. Please don't make the argument that LGBT individuals shouldn't have "special" protection from hate crimes; it makes you sound dumb. LGBT individuals need special protection because they receive special hate. There are plenty of laws for everyone else. The punishment for assaulting an LGBT individual is the same punishment for assualting a non-LGBT individual; specific laws need to be on the books to PREVENT such violence. It's not about the punishment.

By protecting LGBT students from bullying, it protects all students from bullying. Please Mission:America and American Family Association and similar groups, please use all of your money and organization for actions that are really Christlike, that promote love, that help the poor, that represent the minority. I can give you a list of ideas if you'd like. Your resources could be much better used than attacking 20 students at Binghamton High School.