Day of Silence/Day of Hate

Thank you. I teach at a high school and the Gay/Straight Alliance is participating in this Day of Silence. In case people are curious here is the e-mail that was sent to the staff.

"The members of the Gay/Straight Alliance will be participating in a national student-led action to protest the discrimination, harassment and abuse - in effect, the silencing - faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and their allies. On the Day of Silence, rather than speaking, participants hand out "speaking cards" explaining their reasons for remaining silent throughout the day. At the end of the Day, the Gay/Straight Alliance will have a meeting to debrief the event and talk about how it felt to be silent, how other people in the school responded to their silence, and how they felt it went overall.

The event will be taking place on Friday, April 25th. All faculty will receive a list of students who will be participating as the date approaches. Please respect your students' decision to remain silent on this day. Students will still be expected to participate in their classroom activities, but will NOT be speaking. There are numerous ways in which Day of Silence participants can meet their responsibilities without speaking. With your support, students could take part in a "silent lesson" or complete a written assignment.

This event began in 1996 and participation continues to grow in numbers every year. Currently there are approximately 4,000 schools across the nation that participate. The reason why this day is important is because statistics indicate that 4 out of 5 LGBT students report verbal, sexual or physical harassment at school and more than 30% report missing school out of fear for their personal safety (GLSEN 2003 National School Climate Survey). The Day of Silence brings national attention to the need to make anti-LGBT bullying, harassment and name-calling unacceptable in America's schools.

The speaking cards that students will have to show people will say the following:

"Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence, a national youth movement protesting the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence, which is caused by harassment, prejudice, and discrimination. I believe that ending the silence is the first step toward fighting these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today. What are you going to do to end the silence."

There is nothing in this about promoting a homosexual agenda. These students are are merely trying to "make their voices heard" (as it were). They are using the same peaceful protest tactics of Ghandi and the civil rights movement. Instead of rushing to fight them, shouldn't we be rushing to support them. Hate the sin, not the sinner (after all... we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God)!

Never once has my friend forwarded me an urgent call to action to share the gospel with a co-worker or care for widows, orphans, and those in prison... None of his dispatches have called me to love my neighbor. What a refreshing change that would be!

Hear, hear! If I weren't so morally opposed to spam, I think I would design just an email of this sort. Jesus loved confounding people with silence... I think perhaps I may join him.

Thank you for writing this. I know Jesus called us to love gays as much as anyone else.

There is a group of Christians on Facebook supporting the day:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=9133428179

I feel your pain.
On the one hand, I am supposed to speak the truth, in love and love my enemies. On the other, I want to take these activist 'christians' and make a "whip out of cords, and dr(i)ve all from the temple" (Mark 11:15-18; John 2:13-23).
Maybe if my righteousness were the same as Yeshua's, I would do the latter. But since it is not, I am limited to agreeing with your asessment of the present situation, in front of these other readers, and calling for those leaders (Dobson, Seculo, etc.) who would attack the understandable actions of the lost, to re-examine their motives as I pray for God to open their eyes as to their true motivation (1Cor. 4:5). That same zeal of Christ's (Psalm 69:9) is also in me for God's temple, which is the church and it drives me to want to take action in a sort of righteous anger.
Christ never attacked the sinner, but He sure gave it to the hypocritical religious leaders (Matthew 3:7).
I find an ever-increasing need to discontinue the use of the word 'christian' in today's context of evangelism as those I am trying to evengelize see the hateful actions and speech from my so-called brothers.
At Imago Dei church, 'Christ follower' is more widely used, although that, too, could become susceptable to "cause the name of Christ to be blasphemed among the heathen" Rom. 2:24.

I'm with you on this one.

Yes. One thinks of the story of the Good Samaritan and Jesus question to the man about who was the neighbor. The one who showed compassion and cared for him. I almost wonder if Jesus would have been there on the Day of Silence supporting the proper treatment of gay/bi/transgendered and questioning youth. The good neighbor would support proper treatment of others, seek to abolish the ill treatment in schools of others. Make our schools safer.

I am in full support of the Day of Silence.

I am not gay, however, I am a christian. I have been trying to read the things that Jesus tells in the bible through his actions. I am finding that there is much that we have misinterpreted, and much that our churches practice and teach us that is more traditional than biblical. It is imperative that we start reading things through a cultural-time frame lens. Women no longer only wear long hair or cover their heads, why is it that we pick and choose what is comfortable for us to abide by?

I know many gay and lesbian people who are active christians, people who are meeting the needs of the widows and orphans, the poor and the marginalized. Though, they too, are marginalized within the christian community.

I truly believe that if Jesus saw homosexuality as a sin that he would have talked about it as much as he talked about living in solidarity with the poor.

I for one will participate in the Day of Silence, despite not being silent on this issue.

Everybody seems so self-righteous...like you are doing something so brave by joining this group. I think the media and corporate america stand up for the rights of the GLBT community enough for everbody.

Stand-up for the unborn and see how you are treated.

"Go and Sin no more..."

Thanks Bryan for your article. I appreciate the genuine struggle I sense in your writing to love Christ and His truth and exhibit that to the world in the form of unconditional love, yet not dilute or compromise a Christians stand against sin. I think this is the true struggle that demands character and courage.
You see I have found that tolerance is really quite easy and at it's core generally a cowardly approach. To equate accepting everything about a person and not lovingly challenging them as being Christlike is not
virtuous or loving. To me it seems both extrmemes are the easy roads. Either I go overboard and attack the sinner based on their lifestyle and lose the right to be heard or I embrace them so thoroughly that I eliminate the line between truly loving them yet holding them accountable and accepting their sin by omission.
I think the true challenge that takes courage is risky....that is truly loving them and accepting them because of their inherent value before God to the point where you earn the entrance to speak the truth....but make no mistake, at some point we are called to speak the truth, and truth by definition is dogmatic and unbending and demands response. I believe it is at this point that we are either given grace by them to continue the dialogue, we gain a brother or sister, or they turn away in denial or anger or whatever emotion is generated by conviction.
It concerns me when I read people write phrases like "Christian gays" or "Christian Lesbians". I do not want to make homesexuality any worse a sin or better a sin that others but I do not think you will read about "Christian adulters" or "Christian liars, murderers, swindlers, rapist " etc;. I am not talking about people that come to Christ and genuinely struggle and yet hate their sin.....but I have read of people that still embrace their homosexuality and have no desire to forsake it yet say they are Christians. I would lovingly challenge that as deception and heresy.
I have a dear friend...probably my best friend if I am going to rank them...he has struggled with same sex attraction for years yet has never gone down that road. He has been to counselling, sought prayer and quietly and courageously walked that out before God and his friends. He is a hero of the faith to me...to walk through something so stigmatized and overwelming yet to cling to Christ for victory. He still struggles. I am honored he calls me a friend.
I love the quote that Deitrich Bonhoeffer penned: "When Christ calls a man...He bids him come..and die". The Cross has the same claim on all of us...if we embrace Christ.

Thanks again Bryan for the thought provoking words.

Conversations about the perceived ethics of homosexuality and issues concerning the GLBT community seem to be all-pervasive in Christian conversation these days, and there are many different perspectives.

Entering this conversation I'd like to begin with something I've learned about the so-called "anti-gay" passages in the bible:
Homosexuality as we know it in today's society did not exist in biblical times. People did not have the luxury of entering into monogamous long-term same-sex relationships. As a result, homosexuality during the time of Sodom and also during the time of Paul was generally expressed through adultery and pagan worship. The man who performed a sexual act with someone of the same sex would have done so at a pagan temple, with a prostitute. The homosexual of Paul's time would have been an adulterer- promiscuous and unfaithful. No wonder homosexuality is so harshly condemned by Paul!

To compare monogamous homosexuality as we know it today to expressions of homosexuality from biblical times is simply anachronistic.

To deal with the question of the morality of homosexuality, we have to go beyond our first impressions of those texts which so usually are the end-alls, and really delve into the spirit of Jesus's message and of the biblical story.

Comparatively, before the civil war, someone may have pointed to a passage that condoned biblical slavery as an indefinite answer to the question. We can now see that this was a problematic approach to scripture, knowing what we do about the difference between biblical slavery and American slavery.

Certain things have to be taken into account when applying the bible to our lives, like genre, assumed cultural knowledge, the writer's intent, translation, etc. etc. etc. The Bible is the word of God and inspired, but it didn't just fall from the sky! God allowed it to move through humanity.

We can't just start with the assumption that expressions of homosexuality are sinful or that homosexuality is some kind of wrong choice. Indeed, we can't begin by assuming that it is a choice at all.

I have come to believe that marriage between two people of the same sex is not wrong and that it bears no contradiction to the gospel.

What bothers me is not a life-long commitment between two people who love God and each other but the the quickness of my brothers and sisters in Christ to condemn, to ostracize, to oppress.

Which do you think bothers Jesus more?

Last year during Lent, I joined the gay club on my campus. I was the only Christian in the group, to my knowledge. Now I am an officer and I will most certainly be helping to put together Day of Silence at my school.

I used to believe homosexuality was wrong too. Then God put a face on the issue for me, by calling me to become personally involved in the lives of the people I condemned.

Did you know that 30% of gay teenagers commit suicide? Did you know that this is much higher than the rate of straight teen suicide?

My gay Christian friend used to turn up the heat of his shower in the morning when he was a little boy, making the water as scalding hot as he could stand, because he wanted to prepare himself for the fire of hell he thought he was headed for.

The Church has effectively told the gay community to stay away- that Jesus doesn't love them, doesn't want them, and that they have no place among Christians.

In gay circles, there are no Christians. In Christian circles, there are no gays.

This subject requires a lot of prayer and a lot of love.

You are right on.