DIES IRAE: This was supposed to be a blogwatch, but then I kept talking.

College Jay on the Day of Silence against bullying of students perceived to be lgbt.

I think silence is basically the exact opposite of what you should do to combat this stuff, but… that might be because I spent my high school days getting yelled at for being an idiot by the left-wing administration of my private HS (who thought gay kids were fine as long as we didn’t make a big deal about it). I’M SORRY I WAS TEN YEARS AHEAD OF YOUR SORRY ASS. And… every memory of talking with the administration is a reminder of privilege. Maybe sometimes silence is the best anyone can do.

But I hope not. More soon.

And btw, I think Jay’s response to the whole, “Why not just a day against bullying in general?”, thing is right.

And also, more importantly, I don’t really think a lot of straight Christians get how important this stuff is. You can be a straight Christian and be sweet and awesome, and love your neighbor, and grow up in an atmosphere where you very rarely see anti-gay bullying–especially if you’re female–and so this horror, where your actual parents wake you up and tell you to get dressed and go get beaten and humiliated, never needs to be real to you. And so it’s really hard to even imagine that this is as pervasive as it is.

It isn’t everybody’s experience, obviously. It wasn’t mine. I got taunted a little bit but no more for being gay than for being generally kind of a hilarious weirdo. But it’s really hard, I think, to be gay in America and like other gay people and not know stories which would make your hair curl.