What My Participation in Day of Silence Taught Me

“You’ll never last all day.” I heard this comment in different forms through out the day on Friday. It got old, really fast.

“Are you sure you didn’t talk Friday?” I heard this comment in different forms through out today. It too got old.

But the line that got old the quickest was this one: “But you’re Catholic. Catholics HATE gays.” I got this comment both today and last Friday.

Last Friday was Day of Silence (or DOS), which I happily partook in. Of course, nobody believed I could last, considering the fact I am quite the chatterbox. It bothered me that nobody thought I could stand up for something I believed in.

What bothered me more though was the ignorance some people displayed and their refusal to try and understand my reasoning for why I supported the cause. Most hid behind their excuse of “It’s a sin” or “It’s unnatural, God doesn’t like it.” When I tired to point out that allowing abuse to continue or that just plain abuse in general was a sin and God doesn’t like it, they would just completely disregard the statement. It was as if they knew I was right but couldn’t stand giving up their position. They acted like I was asking them to “turn” gay or that I was forcing them to participate in DOS. One person told me that homosexuality was wrong because the Bible said so. I told him that the Bible says we should love one another and that I wouldn’t consider abuse and oppression as love. His reply: “We don’t want their kind of love.” I was tempted to pull up Ediblewoman’s “A Gay in the Life” blog and show him “their kind of love” but I decided it wasn’t worth it. If he was going to be that closed minded, I wasn’t going to try and change his mind.

These reactions really disappointed me but so many other people ended up making up for it. The halls really were a lot quieter Friday. All of the teachers allowed the students partaking in DOS to remain silent and didn’t force them to speak. I had a few friends who decided to go silent when they heard from me what the day was about. We supported each other during the teasing and remarks that we received, but we knew it was worth it if we could generate awareness.

DOS helped me realize that even though there isn’t much abuse at my school, ignorance and close-mindedness do exist and with a strong force. But when you have enough people who are willing to band together and say “Hey this is wrong” and are able to support each other, it makes things a lot easier. I don’t think we’ll ever get the abuse and the ignorance gone, but if we have enough people supporting and willing to work for the cause, we can make it so that it isn’t a regular occurrence.