Golden Rule Pledge 2009

Soon (April 17), the Day of Silence will be observed around the country and some conservative groups are not happy about it. A coalition featuring the American Family Association and the Concerned Women for America is suggesting students walkout of school to protest the disruption of silence by same-sex attracted students. Not a hint irony there, I tell you.
Again this year, I suggest an alternative to a walkout. Go on over to the Golden Rule Pledge and check out the plan there.
If you are on Facebook, you can join the initiative there as well. I will have more through the next several days, but I wanted to get the word out here today…

4 thoughts on “Golden Rule Pledge 2009”

  1. By allowing our children in school on the Day of Silence, we may – and I emphasise may be seen as giving some kind of approval to homosexuality.
    But by keeping them away, we will definitely be seen as approving of bullying in school, as long as it ‘straightens the gay kids out”. Even if they’re not actually gay, and even if some of them die as the result.

    “Two days after the worst day of her life, when she found her 11-year-old son had committed suicide by hanging himself, Sirdeaner L. Walker said on Wednesday she wants the bullying to stop. She found Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover hanging by an extension cord on the second floor of their 124 Northampton Ave. home Monday night after he had endured another day of taunting at New Leadership Charter School, where he was a sixth-grader, she said…She phoned the school repeatedly since Carl began attending in September but the bullying continued, she said. Other students made him a target, daily calling him gay, making fun of how he dressed and threatening him, she said”

    Here is what one commentator wrote;

    You caused this. You killed this boy.
    He didn’t identify as gay. He may have been. But he may not have been. What difference does it make? He was attacked by those who thought he might have been gay. And enjoyed taunting him.
    You killed him, and you enjoyed it.
    You and all those heartless, criminal promoters of “family values” who fought so furiously against legal protections for this child and all those young people who endure the daily taunts and physical attacks.
    You killed another child. You are guilty. All of you who ever railed against anti-bullying legislation, who ever dismissed as PC or big government or whatever the need to protect people on the basis of real or perceived sexual orientation or gender identity or expression.
    You who hid behind some mythical superstition and ancient writings that say that killing or disparaging gay people is OK; you who sat idly by as your religious leaders, your elders, your relatives, or your friends made jokes, encouraged the attacks, denigrated people and shouted for more.
    Your ignorance killed him. Your religion killed him. Your hatred killed him.
    You killed him.

    I urge everyone to examine their consciences. To what extent are these accusations true? How many who kept their children away did so because they secretly approve of such social sanction, if it will “save some souls’? How many see Homosexuality as so inherently evil that no amount of cruelty, and no number of dead children, is too high a price to pay to prevent it? And if so, to what extent is that justified by scripture, and to what extent it is merely a consequence of lack of charity and even hatred “in God’s name”?

    NARTH Scientific Advisory Committee member Joseph Berger said on a blog in reaction to a San Francisco Chronicle article on gender identity issues, “I suggest, indeed, letting children who wish go to school in clothes of the opposite sex – but not counselling other children to not tease them or hurt their feelings.
    “On the contrary, don’t interfere, and let the other children ridicule the child who has lost that clear boundary between play-acting at home and the reality needs of the outside world.
    “Maybe, in this way, the child will re-establish that necessary boundary.”

    And how many like this commentator will look at the Church, and see that those most sanctimonious in professing their Faith are like the tree that bears evil fruit. “By their fruits shall ye know them”. How many will turn away from God as the result? How many will get such a terribly distorted view of the Church, a view that the evidence supports?
    I am no Christian, but even I can see just how completely wrong this commentator is in blaming religion, and the Church. I cannot bring myself to condemn their views though, as there is an uncomfortable amount of truth in the accusations.
    Please look into your hearts, examine your consciences, and pray. Whether for guidance, or for forgiveness. For myself, I could do with a lot of both. More so than most, I fear.

  2. Yeah, I just don’t understand why the need to protest. Everyone deserves to be treated with respect even when you disagree.

  3. Why protest the “day of silence?” I don’t understand this. Even if you don’t agree with homosexuality, don’t you agree that kids should not be bullied or harassed no matter what?
    I would join the day of silence as a christian. It’s the right thing to do.

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