Day of Silence
 

Now I actually believe the day of silence was on Friday this year, however, highschools in our area had testing so it was moved to today. The day of Silence (since many of you may not know since it's a rather new highschool event) is a day when supporting students stay silent to honor those that were silenced because of their choice of sexual orientation, or in many peoples (including mine) opinions, the orientation they were born with. While I am straight, I support the day because I believe no only in freedom of choice and that kind of thing, but also in the fact that people should not be hurt or killed over anything like this. It's most basic premise is to discourage bullying of gay teens in school.

Also up for grabs is the day of truth. I wasn't entirely sure what it was until just now when I looked it up, but apparently it is a day set up immediatly after the DoS, to advocate non-GLBT stuff. Basically, they are encouraging bullying in my opinion.

Note, to clear up (and hopefully get rid of a shitload of bans) these things I will state them CLEARLY NOW, so listen up.
The day of silence is a push against violence, not a gay-recruiting day. I know most of understand that but you would be surprised how many can't quite fathom that. If you want to point out your opinion that I am wrong, fine, but dont go on a 8 paragraph rant on how the day of silence is a BS day where we go around and hand off BE GAY WITH US cards.
And second, if you want to insert your opinion on how you think gay-rights are a distraction from more important issues, fine, all I or anyone can do is agree or disagree. That is what discussion is for. BUT, that does NOT mean you have are allowed to come in and let us know that we are a bunch of jerks that are distracting us from important discussions and bleh, bleh, bleh...
Finally, just so we can all understand, here is a list of statistics showing that gays do infact get bullied more in school. Don't even start argueing that factor until you get your own statistics, got it?

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Originally Posted by 2001-2002 California Student Survey Nearly one-fourth of students from elementary through high school have reported that they have been harassed or bullied on school property because of their race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or disability.

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Originally Posted by Gay Lesbian Straight Educator’s Network Students hear anti-gay epithets 25 times a day, and teachers fail to respond to these comments 97% of the time.

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Originally Posted by Report to the Secretary's Task Force on Youth Suicide Gay and lesbian youth are two to three times more likely to commit suicide than other youths, and 30 percent of all completed youth suicides are related to the issue of sexual identity.

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Originally Posted by National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, 1984 Students who describe themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered are five times more likely to miss school because of feeling unsafe. 28% are forced to drop out.

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Originally Posted by Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth: Report of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, 1993 85% of teachers oppose integrating lesbian, gay and bisexual themes in their curricula.

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Originally Posted by GLSEN 2003 National School Climate Survey More than 91 percent of LGBT students say they hear homophobic slurs or expressions frequently or often.

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Originally Posted by GLSEN 2003 National School Climate Survey Nearly 58 percent of LGBT students have had property stolen or deliberately damaged at school.

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Originally Posted by GLSEN 2003 National School Climate Survey More than 64 percent of LGBT students say they feel unsafe at school because of their sexual orientation.

Now, as hopefully you guys know, I try not to be a rules lawyer KAWCOUGHKAWFFIFTHCOUGHFIENDKAWF.. But this subject can be extra touchy with alot of people and sometimes gets explosive in mixed groups so hey warning you while I can.

Anywho, lets have a nice quality discussion on this type of school event, what your school did/does, back in the day, ect.

I've done it for the the past three years.

It's really good. It was pretty effective in our school at least. A lot lot LOT of people did it, and everyone was wondering what it was, and we even had an event after school, and a surprising number of people showed up.

I really support this, considering well...I mean...Yeah. haha.

I support gay rights fully, now some people might take my typing in pink as a sign of something...It's not, I just like the damn color :D One reason I support gay marriage is as follows, it doesn't affect me in the slightest. I have a girlfriend and we both think that the gay couples around the world should have just as much of a right to get married as straight couples. I also find that following the seperation of church and state, the only argument against gay marriage is that it's a "Sacred" bond. The only basses of that really is in the Bible, which is a religious document (Don't tell the religious people this, but Jesus kicked those rules to the curb).
Edit:

Well, as is common with homosexuality threads, I ask that we leave the religion factor at the door as much as possible. That's actually a problem with those threads since we're essentially removing half of the debate right away, but the last time we tried and have religion talk in Discussion it didn't work out at all well.

Point taken. Would you like me to go edit my first post and take that part out?

i for one have a bit of a mixing feeling on stuff like that... but it's a bit more coutry-related for me... you see, i atually do like those types of events. as much like evrythng, there are people pro and against with twisted and ''silly'' views... thats ok, that's normal.

but it just goes a little bit beyond me, you know? because i cant see sexual orientation as anything more than a choice. some people like pickles, some dont... easy as that.

Dont see anything at all wrong with being gay, also dont see it as anything special either.... but i did get my fair share of people who act as being gay was special, just like i got quite a nice share of gay people who though gays should have have their own laws (which as the same as regular laws, but more severe for those who act against gays) instead of battling to ensure that the alreay existing law worked for all as equals (10x harder, i know.. but still the right thing to do).

And a similar story for bar, restaurants, department stores......

so, at least around my everyday world, there is a group who just want to live like they want to live, and another group who want to live like they were special because they like rubbing their gender bits with others who think the same...

thakfully i consider myself to be educated enough to know one from the other, so i dont get biased against it. hell , if you asked me my sexual orientation i would probably tell you i'm bisexual just because i fell it to be less of hassle like that

i've never showed interest for another man (i find that we're ugly as fuck and cant be trusted) and i dont intend to... but i dont see anythig wrong or "emotional wrecking' if in 5-10-20 years if im single if i meet a guy and like the fella... why not? i'm not ''keeping my options open'' ... i just have a personal logic that ''i can... nothing wrong about that''.

So, events like these are A-ok with me, i just wished that little by little people would see gay rights as common rights, and that straigth AND gay people didnt saw gay people as a ''faction'' of human kind

I agree with you so far.
The problem here is that 1) often people who attack minorities have an extra criminal intent; they didn't just aim to attack people, but to attack those people, and society deems that as extra harmful too (though, yes, it can be abused; while I know minorities have been mistreated for ages, the expression "playing the race card" isn't 100% based in hate of minorities by those who can't attack them with impunity anymore.), *gasp* Aaaand, 2) often, though not always, not having that extra law means the regular law doesn't apply, and the extra one isn't there. Case in point, according to at least one conservative (Orson Scott Card) gays/lesbians already have the right to marry. To members of the opposite sex, but yeah. And, well, he's technically right, but that's not what they're asking for. Nevertheless, your argument sounds eerily like his.

That said, I agree that our justice systems should be mature enough to take any defendant equally. Just as they should be mature enough to tell the difference between a genuine hate crime and a crime that happened to target a minority. And just like our society should quit making such a big deal about what people do behind their closed doors, so long as they aren't hurting others and continue to contribute to society. And I could go on. And it's a crying shame that they aren't.

I'd actually never heard of a minority doing that, not in reality. I mean, supposedly Jews control banks, if that's what you meant, and I know in the past in the US businesses like amusement parks would have "Colored Day" for blacks to go to the otherwise White Only parks, if that's what you meant. Problem is, one is a lie and the other was an imposition on the minorities. I don't know what the situation is like where you're at (Brazil, if I recall correctly?). I know here in Ecuador gay rights are practically non-existent, but the gay rights movement is equally non-existent. So...

Haha, ironically your right and your wrong with that in my opinion :p .
Mmk, GENERALLY (unless it's your crazy little sister who doesn't make any sense), If someone has tried a pickle, then they know if they like the pic... :gonk: I'm sorry, I have to replace this metaphore with strawberry icecream, you know, for normal images to pop into my head. So if someone tries the icecream then they know if they like it or not, depending on your tastebuds and brain arrangement, not necessarilly your choice. Alot of people will be, like Anti-strawberry ice cream peoples will tell you "NO! Do not try the strawberry ice cream! Nothing is as good as Chocolate icecream!" and even your friends and peers are saying, "Oh, you know that Dean? Ya? He's so f***ing strawberry icecream." So you don't try strawberry ice cream, even if you hate chocolate ice cream, cause sometimes, well, chocolate icecream is a real bitch.

PS: in this metaphor, trying strawberry ice cream means considering feelings

Is this a new thing because we didn't have it(as far as I am aware) back when I was in school? Also how do schools feel about it? I once tried to fast from speaking for a day and when I went to the principal to get it approved I was told it would disrupt the teaching process and so I wasn't allowed.