COLUMN: Day of Silence a day for understanding
In anticipation for the National Day of Silence next week I thought I’d make some noise, gay noise in fact. For those of you who might be unfamiliar with the event it is an annual national youth event protesting the silence and harassment faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies.
Aside from encouraging your participation in this event I’d like to dispel a few myths and notions people hold about homosexuality or homosexual persons.
There is no overwhelming consensus among gays. There are gay Republicans, those that believe they chose to be gay, the ex-gays (those that believe they are no longer gay) and the subsequent ex-ex-gays. Gay people who believe that homosexuality is a choice are hard to come by but do exist. There are a great number of gay Mormon missionaries, both serving and returned. Many also have been married, divorced or have children.
For the record, while some do believe that they were not born that way (very few I might add) the evidence supporting the “born-that-way” argument is mounting. Homosexuality is well documented in hundreds of animal species in the wild. Our understanding of it becomes more and more complete as the time passes. We don’t know yet why homosexuality, bisexuality or transexuality exist. We only know that they do exist and that all of the convenient explanations for it (sin, mental illness, or what have you) don’t hold up to scrutiny.
Homosexuals are moral individuals. If you believe that they are immoral simply because of cherry picked verses from the Old Testament you are certainly entitled to believe so. But if you feel that God’s word is eternal and unchanging you should certainly follow all of the Mosaic Law and stone those homosexuals along side the shrimp eaters and disobedient children. And if your definition of morality lies entirely upon premarital sex then there really isn’t anything I can say to change your mind because they can’t marry, therefore anything they do to express their love is condemned.
The ‘queer’ identity confuses a lot of people. You might be gay but why does something like that play such a huge role in your life. The simple answer is because other people make it important. If it was a non-issue like left-handedness then its importance as an identity would diminish significantly. In fact the need for a tight knit community is something of a foreign concept to contemporary gay youth, back in the day when only other gay people would accept you. Now with greater understanding and improved civil rights for these individuals the need for a strong gay identity or community will lesson, and it already has.
And when they do meet Mr. or Mrs. Right they are going to invariably “flaunt” their sexuality in the same way you “flaunt” yours every moment of your life. You know what I am talking about: the telephone conversations with that special someone, the picture of your family on your desk, to holding hands with that special someone on a date. It doesn’t bother me, why should it bother you? Just imagine if someone asked you to quit flaunting your political views, religion or anything else because they decided it was lewd or made them uncomfortable. That person would be incredibly out of line, but gay people hear such things quite regularly, I am afraid.
And that’s what the National Day of Silence is all about. Understanding homosexuals, bisexuals and the trans-gendered community through enlightened and compassionate eyes. All too often in high school, even college, their voices are drowned out if not by hate, then by unintentional injury or ignorance. It’s time for the silence to be deafening; it’s time to shout back.
Class dismissed.
Matthew Blackham is a junior in sociology. Comments can be sent to matblackham@cc.usu.edu.