Exodus Abandons "Day of Truth"; Focus on the Family Still On-Board

[Trigger warning for homophobia and suicide.]

Every spring, in schools across the world, students mark a Day of Silence during which the discrimination and harassment—in effect, the silencing—of LGBTQI students and their allies is protested with silence.

And every year, the pray-the-gay-away Christian conversion program participates in a "Day of Truth" on the same day, admonishing conservative Christian kids to "counter the promotion of homosexual behavior" by wearing anti-gay t-shirts and handing out anti-gay literature, i.e. engaging in precisely the homophobic bullying that the Day of Silence was created to protest.

Well. It only took a well-publicized cluster of teen suicides directly attributable to homophobic bullying for Exodus to decide that maybe they shouldn't sponsor the "Day of Truth" anymore.

"All the recent attention to bullying helped us realize that we need to equip kids to live out biblical tolerance and grace while treating their neighbors as they'd like to be treated, whether they agree with them or not," said Alan Chambers, President of Exodus International, the group that sponsored the event this year.

..."I don't think it's necessary anymore," Chambers said of the event on Wednesday. "We want to help the church to be respectful of all its neighbors, to help those who want help and to be compassionate toward people who may hold a different worldview from us."

The absolute rage I feel at these assholes is indescribable. Just because the news inexplicably decided to finally bring attention to the well-documented issue of LGBTQI teen suicide doesn't excuse having ignored those easily accessible statistics, not to mention the stats on homophobic and transphobic hate crimes, for years. *rage*seethe*boil*

And yet at least Exodus International has the decency to do the right thing, which is more than I can say for James Dobson's despicable outfit, Focus on the Family:

At least one major Christian group, Focus on the Family, stood by the Day of Truth on Wednesday.

"Without question, Day of Truth is a loving and redemptive way students of faith can express their views positively in response to GLSEN's Day of Silence which only presents one point of view," Candi Cushman, education analyst for Focus on the Family, said in a statement.

"In contrast to the whole idea of 'silence,' Day of Truth has encouraged students to exercise their free speech rights and have an open dialogue while respectfully listening to others," Cushman said.

I am literally shaking with fury.

It's not that I'm surprised that a group of horrible, heinous bullies would talk about an anti-bullying protest as "presenting one point of view," and mendaciously suggesting that advocating decency toward LGBTQI peers is equivalent to promulgating a Radical Gay Agenda, but I will never be able to wrap my head around that kind of hatred, nor understand the profundity of antipathy that allows someone to dress it up in some Orwellian message of tolerance and dialogue.

I despise those hatemongering fuckers to their rotten goddamn cores. And if my sneering contempt makes me a terrible person, so be it. But at least I'm honest about it.