The annual GLSEN’s Day of Silence is approaching and religious right groups are just chomping at the bit to disrupt it.
To the uninitiated, the Day of Silence is an annual event in which students across the country vow to take a form of silence to call attention to the silencing effect of anti-LGBT bullying and harassment in schools.
Since this event and the organization behind it, GLSEN (the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network) deals with the plight of LGBT students, they both have been in the cross hairs of religious right groups who claim that Day of Silence is simply another way to supposedly “indoctrinate” students into homosexuality.
Every year, we can always count on religious right groups and spokespeople pushing hysterically false tales of alleged “homosexual indoctrination. And unfortunately, this year will be no different.
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The Family Research Council (FRC) has recently published the following:
. . for Connecticut Pastor James Loomer, protecting students wasn’t on his school district’s agenda. This week, at a meeting of the Milford School Board, members denied his request to stop the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network’s (GLSEN) national “Day of Silence.”
At past events, GLSEN was caught distributing pamphlets that promote everything from child sex to pornography. “If parents [knew] the inappropriateness of the materials, they’d be enraged,” Pastor Loomer said. Still, the Board wouldn’t budge. They insist on moving forward with the event on April 20 in the name of “tolerance.”
For the record, GLSEN has never been caught distributing pamphlets promoting child sex or pornography because GLSEN has never distributed any pamphlets promoting these things.
And if anyone should be aware of this, it is the Family Research Council.
Last year, the Family Research Council pushed a video falsely accusing GLSEN of distributing an explicit safe-sex guide to children. GLSEN, through its lawyers, sent a cease-and-desist letter demanding that FRC remove the video. Subsequently the Family Research Council was forced to change the video to this:
Although FRC did not acknowledge that it had to make changes, the conclusion that the organization had pushed a false claim against GLSEN and then was forced to retreat with its tail between its legs was abundantly clear.
And yet it seems that FRC has not learned a thing from last year’s humiliation because the organization is obviously looking to be embarrassed again.
This year’s Day of Silence is Friday, April 20.
FRC itching to be humiliated again as ‘Day of Silence’ approaches