{"id":699,"date":"2007-04-23T20:19:29","date_gmt":"2007-04-24T01:19:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/699"},"modified":"2007-04-23T20:50:52","modified_gmt":"2007-04-24T01:50:52","slug":"enforcing-silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/699","title":{"rendered":"Enforcing Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/archives\/1993\/\">How much you want to bet they&#8217;d do this to a kid who organized a &quot;Day Of Truth&quot;<\/a>&#8230;?<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>OK&hellip; Thanks to a blog reader and supporter over in Tennessee, I&rsquo;ve gotten copies of the articles (which were never online) concerning David Crockett High School senior Curtis Walsh, who was dismissed from school for a day after organizing the Day of Silence at his school.<\/p>\n<p>The Day of Silence is a national event in which middle, high school and college-aged students take a vow to silence, symbolically representing the silence that is forced upon LGBT people every day by our society.<\/p>\n<p>The articles (which can be viewed as photos: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/info\/curtiswalshsuspended1.jpg\">Page 1<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/info\/curtiswalshsuspended2.jpg\">Page 2<\/a>) state, in part:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Senior Curtis Walsh said he was dismissed for the day early Wednesday morning by David Crockett High School principal Henry Marable for his own safety.<\/p>\n<p>&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I showed up at school and within two minutes (Marable) called me and three others into his office. After first period I was dismissed for the day.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>Marable as well as Director of Schools Grant Rowland said they had no comment on anything pertaining to the student of the &ldquo;Day of Silence,&rdquo; in which several students reportedly left school early.<\/p>\n<p>However, Rowland was quoted by a local television station later in the day:<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;One student and one reporter caused one heck of a mess to be stirred up for no reason,&rdquo; said Rowland in regard to the article on the &ldquo;Day of Silence&rdquo; that appeared in Wednesday&rsquo;s edition of the Johnson City Press.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This principal has apparently kept Curtis out of his school ever since the Day of Silence&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Zina Owens, the mother of Tennessee high school senior <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/archives\/1993\/\">Curtis Walsh, who was dismissed from school after organizing the Day of Silence<\/a>, gives us <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/archives\/1992\/#comment-38496\">an update<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>As it seems, Curtis was kept out of school not only on the Day of Silence (Wednesday, April 18th) but also on Thursday, April 19th and Friday, April 20th.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Just wanted to give you an update on Curtis Walsh, the Tennessee senior who was dismissed for supporting the day of silence. I am Curtis&rsquo; mother. On Wednesday, he was sent home as the newspaper article said, but we were given NO REASON (the paper said for his own safety). On Wednesday afternoon about 4:00, I received a phone call from Marable, the principal, and he said that Curtis did not need to come to school on Thursday. I asked if he had been threatened (Curtis) or if it was a punishment. He replied, &ldquo;It don&rsquo;t matter, He just don&rsquo;t need to be here.&rdquo; On Thursday afternoon my husband, Curtis&rsquo; STEP-FATHER, NOT HIS MOTHER, received a call from Marable saying that Curtis did not need to be in school on Friday. As you may guess, this fight is NOT over.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>This story hasn&rsquo;t really gotten all that much attention yet&hellip; but I hope it will. What is happening to Curtis is beyond unacceptable.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Gotta love it&#8230; <em>&ldquo;It don&rsquo;t matter, He just don&rsquo;t need to be here.&rdquo;<\/em>&nbsp; Right.&nbsp; Anyone who agitates on behalf of the dignity of gay kids let alone their safety, doesn&#8217;t need to be in <a href=\"mailto:MARABLEH@WCDE.ORG\">Henry Marable<\/a>&#8216;s school.&nbsp; Sorta gives you a flavor for what life is like for gay kids that have to walk those halls doesn&#8217;t it?&nbsp; Meanwhile Pat Robertson&#8217;s legal sharks are threatening any school that refuses to support their &quot;Day Of Truth&quot; with litigation.<\/p>\n<p>Contact info for David Crocket High School in&nbsp;Jonesborough, Tennessee can be found, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.k-12.state.tn.us\/SDE\/DetailSchool.asp?bu_id=4600\">Here<\/a>.&nbsp; More info on another kid who was punished for organizing a Day Of Silence, and a school in Indiana that was put into a lockdown over threats of violence during the Day Of Silence, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.interstateq.com\/archives\/1992\/\">Here<\/a>.&nbsp; You can suppose that Jay Sekulow won&#8217;t be stepping up to defend the rights of <em>those<\/em> students&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;or This Teacher who allowed <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fortwayne.com\/mld\/newssentinel\/news\/local\/17119411.htm\">this student editoral<\/a>  calling for tolerance toward gay students to be published.&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.boxturtlebulletin.com\/2007\/04\/23\/313\">She stands to loose her job now<\/a> , for allowing these highly controversial words to be published in the student newspaper, and read by impressionable young minds&#8230;<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Would it be so hard to just accept them as human beings who have feelings just like everyone else? Being homosexual doesn&#8217;t make a person inhuman, it makes them just a little bit different than the rest of the world. And for living in a society that tells you to always be yourself, it&#8217;s a hard price to pay.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Well we wouldn&#8217;t want our kids taking any of that shit seriously now would we?<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><em>You&#8217;ve got to be taught<br \/>\nTo hate and fear,<br \/>\nYou&#8217;ve got to be taught<br \/>\nFrom year to year,<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s got to be drummed<br \/>\nIn your dear little ear<br \/>\nYou&#8217;ve got to be carefully taught.<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">(Rodgers &amp; Hammerstein, <em>South Pacific)<\/em><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How much you want to bet they&#8217;d do this to a kid who organized a &quot;Day Of Truth&quot;&#8230;? OK&hellip; Thanks to a blog reader and supporter over in Tennessee, I&rsquo;ve gotten copies of the articles (which were never online) concerning David Crockett High School senior Curtis Walsh, who was dismissed from school for a day [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[14,34,18,26,46,12],"class_list":["post-699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gay-youth","tag-george-bushs-america","tag-gratuitous-anti-gay-hate","tag-the-bully-mindset","tag-the-kultar-kampf","tag-the-struggle-for-our-lives"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brucegarrett.com\/brucelog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}