Today is a nationally recognized Day of Silence, part of a larger month-long event seeking to raise awareness about gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals. Especially now, at a time when gay individuals' rights are being legislated away, people need to understand that discrimination toward gays is something that continues and something that needs to stop. However, the Day of Silence is ineffective in practice, especially in a society where it is all right to be overtly and outspokenly hateful and homophobic.
The Day of Silence encourages a number of students to spend the entire day not speaking. This is the logical extension of the feeling in the gay community that they are silenced from fully expressing their lifestyle. This movement gained prominence in high schools where an obvious vacuum was created-there was a significant loss when a portion of the class wouldn't speak, and people began to think about gay issues on a very personal level.
The extension of this practice to university campuses is where the day of silence begins to lose its potency, especially when many other practices could be much more effective. In a large lecture hall, those choosing to be silent will not be distinguishable from any other student. Walking down the street, in bars and in almost every other facet of university life today, it will be nearly impossible to recognize the fact that a significant number of students are choosing to be silent.
The effectiveness of this program in high school relied on the notion that people would react in surprise at how much of a difference silencing 10 percent of the population would be. Instead, the only effectiveness derived from silencing 10 percent of a university population is the actual announcement that, although you won't notice it, people are being silent.
The issue of granting equal rights to gays and ending discrimination is far too important to be holding such an ineffective, purely symbolic event. We have a president who is vocally opposed to granting certain citizens equal rights and senators like U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, R-Pa., who are openly hateful toward gays.
In high school, it was fine to hold events that would raise awareness for an issue toward which many were largely ignorant. This is not high school. There are people openly waging a war against a way of life that many Americans openly practice. Events like the parade last Saturday are the kind of substantive action that this campus needs to raise awareness. The Day of Silence, while a nice idea in spirit, is ineffective in practice.
Nathan Arnold is a sophomore majoring in political science and journalism. He is the incoming opinion editor at The Daily Cardinal next year.
