Day of Silence

I follow a web story that updates on Friday. Sometimes early but most of the time it's late afternoon for me. Imagine how happy I was to log on early on the 25th to see the update already there. I didn't read down farther to find out why, I just considered it a happy day and went from there. This week I read down farther on the opening page and found out that he had posted on the 24 in order to observe a Day of Silence.

What is a day of silence? Basically, to bring awareness the bullying and harassment in schools of the LGBT community. Here's what the website says:

The National Day of Silence brings attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in schools. This year’s event was held in memory of Lawrence King, a California 8th-grader who was shot and killed Feb. 12 by a classmate because of his sexual orientation and gender expression. Hundreds of thousands of students came together on April 25 to encourage schools and classmates to address the problem of anti-LGBT behavior.

An eighth grader?! Have we taught our children to be so unbending that anyone who is different doesn't deserve to live? How can our thinking be so rigid? Just because someone is different then you (fat, gay, two-left-feet, etc...) doesn't make one of you better, it just makes you different from each other. Just because you don't agree on something, doesn't make one of you wrong!

This day is as much about tolerance as anything else but they're not "hiding behind the word, we're gay and we're not changing the name".

Next year's date has been picked: April 19. Oh, man, I hope there aren't any Earth Day celebrations that day - that would so suck.

You've got some time; what do you plan on doing to bring to light the bullying of gays? How can you bring tolerance of those that are different then you?

Another site to visit is GLSEN Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network. Check out what some of the teachers did when it was unavoidable to lecture.

Sad to say but there will ALWAYS be someone/group that thinks it okay to bully/harrass/beat-up/kill someone else - if only because they got looked at funny. Let us do our part to make them the minority. We all live here, let's make it a safe place.

Speaking of safe places...don't even get me started on Megan's Law or foster care....I don't have the time or calmness needed to discuss these right now