Courant Promotes “Day of Silence”
April 17th, 2007 by Peter
A story on the front page of today’s Life section reports uncritically on an event–ostensibly to prevent anti-gay bullying–occuring in the nation’s schools tomorrow. Courant staff writer Joann Klimkiewicz’s article does not quote a single critic of the event, makes no mention of the controversy in Danbury and even promotes the event’s website.
Some schools will have information booths during lunch breaks to talk about hate speech and discrimination. Many hold “breaking the silence” events at the end of the day to watch educational films, talk about school safety and personal experiences during the day.
While the effort began on college campuses, it has spread over the years to middle and high schools where teen struggles with sexual identity and harassment first surface. Organizers say they aim to catch young minds and hearts at this early, delicate stage of the game, when they can spark student discourse and foster compassion and acceptance across all differences…
At least 60 Connecticut schools have registered to participate, though some have already held their event, as many public schools in the state are closed for vacation this week…
The silent protest, says Byard, is also meant to encourage schools to support creation of student-led gay-straight alliances, to adopt policies that come down harshly on discrimination and harassment, and to educate staff to properly enforce those rules.
On April 9th FIC Blog quoted from a Pray Connecticut item describing how it took a letter from attorneys “to let Christian students [at Danbury High School] present an alternate viewpoint to the pro-homosexual Day of Silence”:
After receiving a letter from attorneys with the Alliance Defense Fund, the principal of Danbury High School agreed Wednesday to allow a student to promote and participate in the Day of Truth after first having prohibited the student from doing so. The school officially endorses the Day of Silence, an event promoting the homosexual agenda, but had thwarted student Rosemary Shakro’s attempts to promote the Day of Truth by inviting a speaker to a club meeting and posting signs announcing the event.
This turn of events sparked two interesting editorials in Fairfield County. One, in the Fairfield Weekly, complained that Shakro had “tattled to her parents” when the school denied her speaker and pretended that the principal backed down only “because she understands that religious types have free speech rights too.”
Slightly more in touch with reality was the Danbury News-Times, which ran an editorial subtitled “Decisions should not be based on threat of lawsuit.” Pray Connecticut’s Nick Uva agrees:
The problem is that this is not what happened. The subtitle would have better read, “Public schools need to stop violating the First Amendment rights of citizens and stop forcing them to run to Federal court to have their rights upheld, especially when the law is so clear.”
Anyone in Connecticut with children in a public high school needs to ask their children about the amount of time that is spent on activities such as Peace Weeks, Days of Silence, and various skits, plays, films and other similar vehicles designed to bring about the politicization of youth rather than their education, and the quasi-criminalization of alternate viewpoints.
Talk about “media bias” ! Here it is once again. The courant is using it’s print to further it’s political agenda rather then reporting the news. The idea that homosexuals are a persecuted class is largerly a giant myth. I don’t think that statisticaly there is any reliable proof of this phenomenon.
My opinion is that if the courant and public school administrators were actually concerned about the welfare of children they would be educating children about the many health dangers and shorter lifespan that homosexuals have.
“In Denmark, the country with the longest history of gay marriage, for 1990-2002, married heterosexual men died at a median age of 74yrs., while the 561 partnered gays died at an average age of 51.
In Norway, married heterosexual men died at an average age of 77 and the 31 gays at 52 yrs. In Denmark, married women died at an average age of 78 yrs. compared to 56 yrs. for the 91 lesbians. In Norway, women married to men died at an average age of 81. v. 56 for the 6 lesbians.”
I believe this shows that statistically homosexuals have shorter life spans then cigarette smokers. Why are so many promoting a lifestyle to children that is inherently unhealthy ?
For homosexual men the health problems are much bigger. The risk of anal cancer soars for those engaging in anal intercourse. Studies show that the occurance rises by an astounding 4000%, and doubles again for those who are HIV positive.
As far as I know, there is no other group of people in the United States that dies of infectious diseases in their mid-forties except practicing homosexuals.
I know that many people don’t want to look at the “facts” but here are a few more show how inheritently unhealthy this life style is.
“Diseases to which active homosexuals are vulnerable can be classified as follows:
Classical sexually transmitted diseases (gonorrhea, infections with Chlamydia trachomatis, syphilis, herpes simplex infections, genital warts, pubic lice, scabies);
Enteric diseases (infections with Shigella species, Campylobacter jejuni, Entamoeba histolytica, Giardia lamblia, [”gay bowel disease”], Hepatitis A, B, C, D, and cytomegalovirus); Trauma (related to and/or resulting in fecal incontinence, hemorroids, anal fissure, foreign bodies lodged in the rectum, rectosigmoid tears, allergic proctitis, penile edema, chemical sinusitis, inhaled nitrite burns, and sexual assault of the male patient);
And the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).”
This is actually a public health issue but is not being approached from that perspective.
Paul, you say: “The idea that homosexuals are a persecuted class is largely a giant myth.”
I beg to differ. Try walking through a high school’s hallways, sometime, and count the number of times you hear an anti-homosexual slur. Then imagine what it would be like to be a gay kid in that hallway.
Also, read your own post. Imagine being gay and reading stuff like that all the time.
G.C. , Reading what ? Medical facts. Are you being persecuted because I am giving out medical facts that the homosexual community doesn’t want to hear? Are you upset because the medical facts show that homosexuality (especially male with anal intercourse ) is extremely unhealthy. You can’t abuse your body like that with out consequences. Do you think “fisting” is healthy ? I am not making this stuff up. Find some body who works in a Hospital ( especially the E.R.) and find out for yourself.
The government ( throught the public education system) has a responsibility to protect the public health. Promoting homosexuality is promoting an unhealthy lifestyle. Statisticaly, more unhealthy then smoking cigarettes. Now, the public school system is not telling students about all the dangers of heterosexual sexual promiscuity either. All of the STd’s that students are contracting which are viral, and incureable. I doubt if the schools tell about all the young women having cervical cancer, or all the middle aged gay men dying of AIDS. But I guess that’s another story. I would counsel any young person to seriously study all of the risks, physical and emotional that go along with illicit sexual contact of any kind. Really, don’t believe a lie and throw away your whole future due to ignorance of a lifestyle choice.
And why don’t you provide a link – from the part you quoted, the methodology looks a little wacky… Whats the margin of error when you look at 6 lesbians?
Paul, as I understand it, schools are not “promoting homosexuality” through the day of silence; rather, they’re promoting tolerance and understanding of members of their community. That said, I agree that schools choosing to participate in the day of silence should also entertain any proposal by a student to hold a day of truth, and they should commit to making sure that students are respectful of each other’s views on both days.
Your assertion that gays “are a persecuted class is [largely] a giant myth” is just ridiculous. If that’s true, how do you explain the panoply of sexual orientation discrimination laws? They can’t ALL be the result of extreme leftism liberal bias. They were put in place to address real discrimination, sometimes in the form of violence (ever heard of Matthew Shepard?), not mythical concerns.
Paul-
There is, unfortunately, no kind of sexual act that can be done between two gay men or two lesbians that can’t also be done between two heterosexual partners.
Anal sex? Oral sex? Even fisting? Yes sir. Straight couples do plenty of all of the above (well, probably not so much fisting, but I don’t think the practice is especially prevalent among gay couples either.)
Though the direction of your argument is intriguing to me: from a pure public health perspective, there’s an extremely good case to be made for women to consider being lesbians: no pregnancy, extremely low transmission of STDs, sex-related yeast infections are practically unheard of, and of course one’s physical virginity is also protected should that be a concern.
And with so many insecure men running around describing oral sex as part of an unhealthy lifestyle, well you have to admit that it’s an attractive option for young women to consider. Paul, let’s bring your medical facts on tour — they start sex ed in gender-segregated classes in 4th and 5th grade as I recall — and promote the public health benefits of lesbianism starting in the next school year.
…I tease, of course: for all the squawking about “promoting homosexuality” and “the gay agenda” I hear from the FIC and other similar groups, that’s an obviously crazy notion even to someone who fully supports civil rights for gay individuals and couples. Kids should be able to grow up and find their own interests free from lobbying towards one lifestyle or another.
And as a CT-educated public school kid, let me tell you that the health warnings regarding anal sex and fisting are made perfectly clear around the tenth grade. FYI.
Gabe , How many lesbian “married” couple do you think there are in Norway? I believe that Scandanavia is only place where you could get stats on “married” gay’s. Also I have seen health stats on Homosexual males in Vancover B.C. and it’s frightening. I don’t know how to post links but you can look up these studies on the internet.
Gems, I do think that this idea that there is a lot of homosexual persecution has been pushed by the radical Homosexual agenda. We are talking about persecution as a group not isolated incidents. If some one was violently attacked ,for example, that is already covered by law. I don’t see that “sexual orientation” needs to be a seperate class. Also what exactly is defined by “persecution”? What is hate? If I disagree with someones life style and say so is that hate?
If I don’t want kids in the public school taught that homosexuality is fine( when for most of this countries history it was illegal) Does that make me a hater. If there are “reliable” stats to prove me wrong I would listen. However I don’t think it’s a proper topic for school’s. But I do agree with you that if there is a “day of Silence” in schools there should also be a “Day of Truth” allowed. Unfortunately the Danbury Ct. High ‘ school Principle (along with other schools) has done her best to censor students and kill their first amendment rights. It would seem to me that the Danbury High school student was being persecuted for her “faith” which as the courts have decided is a violation of the first amendment. Personally I think that students should be taught “sexual abstinance” which is really the best route. Sexual activity is not age appropriate for teens. It’s like putting a young child behind the wheel of a race car…they are only going to get hurt,and many of them are. It’s sad kid’s are getting out of high school knowing how to use a condom but not knowing U.S. History. Did you know that U.S. high school grads rank Very low compared to much of the world. Western Europe, Japan and much of Asia does a much better job of educating teens then we do.
I don’t care how many married lesbian couples there are in Norway (lucky for me that I wasn’t using that figure to support my argument).
I know one person named David Smith who died when he was 20 (he fell from a bridge). From that could I extrapolate that the David Smiths in the the world are more likely to die young because of their lifestyle?
Yes, actually.
If you’re asking yourself “Hmm, is this bigotry? Am I a hater?” you might try replacing the word “homosexuality” with “Christianity” and see if your attitude towards the sentence doesn’t shift somewhat.
That requires empathy, which has become verboten amongst ideological conservatives for reasons I don’t quite understand, but it’s a necessary skill if you want to be self-reflexive about things.
Paul, the “study” to which you refer to about the shortened life spans of homosexuals is a work of monumental distortion produced by Paul Cameron. He takes the work of someone else and picks and chooses what he would like said. He has been doing this for decades and their isn’t a rational person on Earth who would believe what he says. Using anything written by him to attempt to prove a point shows only that you have little interest in the truth. Another “fact” you quote (without crediting the source) is “gay bowel disease”, something that ONLY exists in the publications and hallucinations of the “christian” right. That whole section of your post is clearly lifted directly from one of the organizations that exists for ONE purpose – to spread as much misinformation about LGBT people as possible in order to justify their hatred.
My favorite part of your note is:
“As far as I know, there is no other group of people in the United States that dies of infectious diseases in their mid-forties except practicing homosexuals.”
If what you “know” is based on the nonsense you quote here then you don’t know very much but have no problem using that “knowledge” to attack an innocent group of people. The FACT is that their are no facts to support your beliefs about us. And bringing them into a discussion about an even which has nothing to do with sex is dishonest.
I invite you to track down the people I know who have been beaten and/or killed by queer haters fueled by the ideas that YOU endorse and then tell me that anti-gay violence is “largely a giant myth.”
An earlier article on here discussed the rules of posting. Your comments in your first note break most of them. Apparently the”rules” don’t apply to those who are attacking the LGBT communites, only those who support us.
Who is it exctly that has the agenda?