{"id":6624,"date":"2010-02-25T05:58:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-25T13:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnshore\/?p=6624"},"modified":"2010-02-25T05:58:08","modified_gmt":"2010-02-25T13:58:08","slug":"christian-teens-and-gay-teens-its-in-the-cards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnshore\/2010\/02\/christian-teens-and-gay-teens-its-in-the-cards\/","title":{"rendered":"Christian Teens and Gay Teens: It’s in the Cards"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Yesterday I received an email from Dr. Warren Throckmorton,<\/a> a fellow blogger on the Christian website Crosswalk.com<\/a>. Last year Dr. Throckmorton founded an initiative called \u201cThe Golden Rule Pledge<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

This April 16th, students in middle schools through colleges across the country will be participating in the 14th annual Day of Silence<\/a>, wherein they will not only stop talking for the day, but will also be handing out cards reading:<\/p>\n

Please understand my reasons for not speaking today. I am participating in the Day of Silence (DOS), a national youth movement bringing attention to the silence faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people and their allies. My deliberate silence echoes that silence,\u00a0 which is caused by anti-LGBT bullying, name-calling and harassment. I believe that ending the silence is the \ufb01rst step toward building\u00a0 awareness and making a commitment to address these injustices. Think about the voices you are not hearing today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Many conservative Christian parents will respond to the DOS by keeping their teens home from school.<\/p>\n

Instead of staying home, Dr. Throckmorton would like Christian teens to attend\u00a0school, and, when handed one of the DOS cards, hand back a card he has made, the \u201cGolden Rule Pledge\u201d card, upon which is printed this:<\/p>\n

This is what I\u2019m doing. The Golden Rule.<\/strong> I pledge to treat others the way I want to be treated. \u201cDo unto others as you would have them do to you.\u201d (Luke 6:31)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Dr. Throckmorton wrote me to ask if I would recommend to my readers his GRP card and initiative. In response I emailed him this:<\/p>\n

Hi, Warren. I certainly appreciate you asking me about this, but I\u2019m afraid that [handing out your GRP card] is just not something that I personally would recommend. The (too blunt, I\u2019m afraid: forgive me!) truth is, if I were gay, that card would piss me off, insofar as I would understand it as both condescending and a lie. I would know that the Christian offering it to me does not, in fact, extend to me the same respect he certainly wants for himself (making it a lie), and that without question he feels that he is morally superior to me [making it condescending]. If I were gay, I would much rather have a Christian classmate of mine stay home than hand me one of those cards. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible for those cards to do anything but further divide gays and Christians. But \u2026 no offense to you personally! I certainly appreciate what you\u2019re trying to do.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I then sent him a follow-up email to say that, if he\u2019d liked, I\u2019d post our brief exchange here on my blog,\u00a0as a means of presenting the matter to my four or five readers, and perhaps thereby discover their thoughts on it. (\u201cI think a lot of them probably would<\/em> like the idea,\u201d I wrote.) If you have anything to say about the DOS, or his proposed response to it, Dr. Throckmorton is listening.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Day of Silence, meant to bring attention to LGBT bullying, should Christian students hand out cards of their own?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1528,"featured_media":6622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[551,552,554,555,335,556,557,1502,558,559],"class_list":["post-6624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christianissues","tag-bible-and-gays","tag-christian-lesbians","tag-christianity-and-glbt","tag-christianity-and-homosexuality","tag-christians-and-gays","tag-christians-and-homosexuals","tag-christians-and-lesbians","tag-day-of-silence-2010","tag-gay-christians","tag-god-and-gays"],"yoast_head":"\nChristian Teens and Gay Teens: It's in the Cards<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On the Day of Silence, meant to bring attention to LGBT bullying, should Christian students hand out cards of 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