On April 25, antigay activists — among them, Exodus and Focus on the Family — sought to disrupt antiviolence vigils in schools across the country. They sponsored walkouts and demonstrations in which religious activists, parents, and bullies sought to change the topic of the day from stopping violence in schools to venting prejudices and hostility toward gay youths. They followed up their efforts to shout down antiviolence vigils with a religious-right “Day of (Un)Truth” in schools on April 28; that day was dedicated exclusively to broadcasting religious rightists’ antigay prejudices and arrogant religious judgmentalism in public schools during school hours.
Because of antigay authorities’ refusal to stop antigay violence in schools, support for Days of Silence continues to grow. Plans are afoot for Days of Silence are afoot in Russia, Poland and Slovenia — regions where U.S. antigay pastor and Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson has fueled antigay violence through his co-leadership of the Slavic hate group called Watchmen on the Walls. (Read More)
The April 25 national Day Of Silence unites students in a silent vigil against violence in schools, and in commemoration of the lives of Lawrence King and thousands of other youths who have been killed or assaulted because of their sexual orientation or gender expression.
The April 28 Day of Truth is something entirely different:
It is a pernicious effort by Exodus, the antigay Alliance Defense Fund, Focus on the Family, ex-gay activist Scott Lively, ex-gay activist Stephen Bennett, Mission: America, and other pro-bigotry organizations to divert public attention from school violence in order to discuss their fixation with homosexual sex on public-school property during school hours.
Teach The Facts, a group of Montgomery County, Maryland, parents and educators, offers a run-down on PFOX ex-gay literature that was distributed last week to local high-school students. TTF’s main points:
The PFOX literature falsely claims that PFOX promotes tolerance, but PFOX’s web site is loaded with literature opposing tolerance.
The PFOX literature illogically asserts that ex-gay self-denial, self-deception, and failure serve as proof that GLBT youth can and should seek help from unlicensed ex-gay therapists and political groups.
The PFOX literature falsely insinuates that ex-gay activists who seek to silence and suppress gay students support self-determination, while advocates for academic freedom, tolerance, learning, and nonviolence oppose self-determination and happiness.
At least two antifamily, pro-harassment organizations — Mission: America and the American “Family” Association — continued to lobby antigay parents today to shield their teen-agers from anti-bullying messages by keeping them home from school on April 25, which has been designated an annual Day of Silence by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network.
The Day of Silence commemorates GLBT youths who were victims of school violence and murder, by reminding classmates that violence and harassment silence GLBT youths and their families.
The boycott against freedom of speech and nonviolence in schools is co-sponsored by the ex-gay Abiding Truth Ministries, American Family Association, Americans for Truth, Concerned Women for America, Exodus Mandate, Illinois Family Institute, Indiana Voice for the Family, Liberty Counsel, Mass Resistance, Mission: America, Parents’ Rights Coalition, the ex-gay Stephen Bennett Ministries, and Exodus conference speaker Ken Hutcherson’s pro-violence group Watchmen on the Walls.
In inland California, anti-tolerance organizations hope the boycott will prove financially costly to public schools and taxpayers, as school funding is said to be determined in part by attendance. A pro-discrimination group, Capitol Research Institute, has organized a counter-event euphemistically called a “Day of Learning” for antigay parents and students that participate in the pro-harassment boycott. What exactly will participants “learn”? According to The Press-Enterprise, they will learn how to gather signatures “to repeal a state law that prevents discrimination in schools based on sexual orientation.” Meanwhile, the antigay Alliance Defense Fund has declared April 28 to be an annual day when antigay students verbally harangue gay classmates with defamatory, egotistical, and hypocritical religious messages.
GLSEN has released the following ad featuring Lance Bass to counter pro-harassment, pro-silence propaganda that is being fed to students by antigay political organizations:
Meanwhile, pro-exgay pundit Warren Throckmorton continues his campaign against the anti-bullying day. Throckmorton’s proposal creates an artificial division between the Golden Rule and explicit opposition to antigay violence and harassment. Throckmorton may view his own campaign to supply students with misinformation as a lesser evil than that of the boycotters. But, in pandering to the worst elements of the pseudo-Christian religious right, Throckmorton trivializes both Christian values and the growing problem of antigay violence and harassment in schools.
Portland Fellowship, an Exodus affiliate program in Portland, Oregon, has launched a web site to recruit churches to the ex-gay cause. Supporters are asked to pick a church, write a recruitment letter, and send $25 per church. The $25 apparently buys each church an ex-gay CD-ROM and a Starbucks $5 gift card. One critic noted that Starbucks is among the top gay-inclusive companies, according to Human Rights Campaign. Obvious question: Were the cards purchased by the Fellowship or donated by Starbucks?
Randall Harp is a supporter of the antihomosexual agenda — that is, an agenda that opposes the supposed gay agenda (whatever that is). Harp attempts to separate gay people from their agenda their freedom by appealing to fear and strawman arguments.
A middle-aged British woman asks whether she has become ex-straight.
Box Turtle Bulletin fact-checks ex-gay propaganda that was provided by Exodus and NARTH (a reparative-therapy advocacy group) and recently marketed to the American Fork High School PTSA in Utah.
Beyond Ex-Gay, a support group for survivors of ex-gay programs, celebrates its first anniversary. Congratulations!
Addendum: Portland Fellowship confirmed to TWO that Starbucks gift cards are purchased with the $25-per-church contribution. Starbucks was chosen for its availability.
Police continue to investigate multiple death threats against Montgomery County, Maryland, council member Duchy Trachtenberg.
Trachtenberg has been threatened because of her support of a bill opposing discrimination against transgender county residents. Letters to her have allegedly varied in tone, from outright threats to profane language to haughty messages parroting ex-gay and antigay memes unrelated to transgender issues.
One of those letter-writers is Sharon Kass of Silver Spring, Md., an increasingly prolific enemy of civility in public discourse about gay and transgender equality. (Read More)
Prof. Warren Throckmorton, a prominent pro-exgay pundit, has proposed an antigay Golden Rule campaign to compete with local antiviolence advocates’ Day of Silence in various U.S. schools, scheduled for April 25. The ex-gay network Exodus subsequently provided marketing support for the campaign this week through its Exodus Youth “Voice” newsletter.
In the National Day of Silence, students pledge to remain silent for a day at school. Some may carry a card briefly calling upon classmates to actively oppose antigay bullying and thus end the silence.
Antigay industry leaders including the American Family Association have rallied antigay parents to keep their students home from school, in defense of gay-specific intolerance and in opposition to antiviolence programs which explicitly recognize gay and gender-variant victims of violence.
Throckmorton proposes what he considers a fine line that navigates between antiviolence advocates and paranoid parents. Specifically, he advises conservative Christian students to pass out cards in school that quote the Bible:
I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated.
Will you join me in this pledge?
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” (Luke 6:31)
But a serious analysis of Throckmorton’s campaign finds little substance: It trivializes the Golden Rule while doing nothing to stop bullying: (Read More)
Update:‘Repent America’ Leader Guilty: Michael Marcavage, whose Philadelphia-area band of followers uses megaphones to shout down public events, was found guilty of disorderly conduct for shouting down a Halloween festival last year in Salem, Mass. Previously, Exodus officially defended Repent America’s megaphone raid against a Philadelphia gay event as a matter of religious expression. (American Family Association) (More: The Salem News)
Focus on the Family Undermines Couples to ‘Save’ Marriage: Focus on the Family says that states must keep traditional families intact. How? By discriminating against all other families. Focus is upset at a same-sex couple that is suing the University of Hawaii after being excluded from married student housing on campus. Focus accuses the couple of “attacking marriage” by seeking respect as a couple and by honoring marital commitment. (Focus) (Update.)
Protest Planned against Ex-Gay Charlene Cothran: Chicago-based Gay Liberation Network will protest on March 13 against “ex-gay” Venus magazine publisher Charlene Cothran, who is developing an inflammatory new project: a speech entitled “How Homosexuality Destroys Families, Not Just Values.” (Queerty)
Hutcherson and the Legacy of MLK: On the Wallbuilders Live radio program, Exodus speaker Ken Hutcherson expands his campaign against his daughter’s school to include attempts to shut down the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and end the school’s participation in The Day of Silence. Hutcherson warns that the school faculty should be glad he’s not still committing acts of violence against whites, but adds: “If they don’t fire these teachers, I’m going to sue ‘em and I’m going to ask them for their dreams. And then they’re going to mess around and laugh and I’m going to take their tongue out.” So much for Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of nonviolent social unity and equal opportunity. (Right Wing Watch)
Lighter Side: Who cares what overpaid, over-blowdried anchors think? Anderson Cooper doesn’t — and doesn’t think the public should, either. (Romenesko)
Fearing that facts may undermine stigmas and stereotypes, Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council have spoken out against Just The Facts, an educational resource guide that was developed by a 13-member coalition that includes the American Academy of Pediatrics, the National Education Association and the American Association of School Administrators.
According to The Washington Blade, the factbook was sent to 12,000 high-school administrators on Feb. 8, advising that schools should refrain from subjecting students to potential harm by promoting various unproven or discredited “ex-gay” conversion “therapies.”
Two gay U.S. teenagers have been brutally killed since Feb. 12, apparently because of their sexual orientation or gender variance.
Exodus Youth — a Florida-based ex-gay project that claims to uphold the welfare of sexually struggling youths — has responded to the killings, thus far, with official silence. But in the meantime, an Exodus Youth staffer and Exodus executive have, on a personal blog, given their nod to legislation that would prevent public schools from acknowledging that gay youths even exist. And in Maryland, the ex-gay political group Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays responded to the killings with silence while continuing to support a battle against local transgender-tolerance legislation.
Simmie Williams Jr., 17, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was shot and killed early on Feb. 22 in a location that is said to be a popular hang-out for transgender persons; the killers are being sought, their motives as-yet unknown. Williams was openly gay and was dressed in feminine clothing at the time of the shooting.
Previously, Lawrence King, 15, of Oxnard, Calif., was shot in the head in a classroom by an alleged bully Feb. 12 after reported altercations over King’s sexual orientation and gender-variant clothing. He was declared brain-dead two days later and his organs were harvested for donation. In the wake of that killing, pro-tolerance and anti-violence vigils were held locally and nationally.
Police are treating both incidents as possible hate crimes.
In the 
Simmie Williams Jr., 17, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., was 
