Silence and Stories Told

Today we have something of a compound entry, addressing two different news stories that have a lot to say to one another.


Yesterday was the National Day of Silence, a nationwide grassroots effort by students in middle school and up to bring attention to anti-GLBT harassment and bullying. The event was sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), and more than a hundred thousand people registered on the website confirming their participation. Recently, more than ever before, members of Unity had reason to take notice of the silence that pervades the lives of some of our friends and allies. Just a couple of weeks ago, we made some new friends from another school who found themselves in the difficult position of choosing to remain silent about their identities and their truth, or face a lot of controversy and possible disciplinary action at the hands of their school administration. They expressed feelings of fear, frustration, insecurity and sadness - feelings under whose weight they had been living for a long time and continued to live; the light at the end of the tunnel seemed like a long way off. It's easy to forget, at a school like Hendrix, how difficult and even dangerous it can be for GLBT individuals and allies to speak up for themselves and those they love. All too often, it can be their loved ones who don't want to hear the truth. While it's important to remember and commemorate the silence of the members of our community who have to embrace it for the time being, there's a lot to be said for being loud, under the right circumstances. On that note, I'll transition into a fun news story about someone who has renounced silence and experienced an incredible change of heart that led him to take up advocacy on behalf of the community he once worked against.


Louis Marinelli once worked for the anti-GLBT advocacy group "National Organization for Marriage." Don't let the name fool you - they're very much against marriage in all but one form, but you can read their creed and some of the other things they lobby for on their website. Anyway, back to Louis - he was on NOM's payroll as a public relations rep, in charge of coordinating their Facebook page and trying to establish a network of grassroots support through social media. Last summer, Louis helped coordinate and rode along on a bus tour that traveled around the country holding rallies in support of "traditional marriage." At every stop, they were met with a handful or two of their own supporters and, in almost every case, greatly outnumbered by peaceful counter-protesters - gay and lesbian families with children, couples and their friends, siblings, parents and allies. Courage Campaign, a GLBT advocacy group based in California, had reached out to organize the gay community in each of the cities where NOM stopped by sending some representatives on the road to follow the NOM bus. (These adventures are amusing and moving and can be found cataloged here.) The Courage representatives engaged in conversation with Louis at a few stops, and that's where he says he started to wonder what he was doing there. That's right - as a direct result of looking into the faces of the real people whose rights he had been working tirelessly to take away, and as a result of hearing the firsthand stories and feelings of members of our community, Louis Marinelli changed. On April 8, he resigned from NOM, shut down the Facebook page he had been moderating for them, and released a series of public statements saying that he was proud to retract all of the hateful, ignorant comments he had made and would immediately begin working to undo the work he had done. 


Louis is living proof that the things we say and the way we live our lives out in the open can and does make a difference. By just being ourselves around our friends and family, and taking the extra steps to have respectful, informative conversations with people who don't agree with us, we can ensure that no one we know can ignore our struggles by claiming ignorance of the issues or saying they don't care because they don't know anyone who would be impacted. We can end the silence of our brothers and sisters, as well as our own, by knowing when and how to speak our truth to anyone who will listen. Discretion is, of course, very important; we know that it isn't possible for many of us to be frank with certain people in our lives, but this doesn't mean that we should give up on ever reaching them. As Louis has proven, with time, patience and respect, we can win.