Gay students use silence to spread message

B.J. Olsen didn't say a word for nearly 12 hours Wednesday.

He hopes his silence at Bountiful High School will send a message to those he says verbally assault and threaten him because of his sexual orientation.

"Some teachers were pretty surprised," Olsen said of his participation in the National Day of Silence. "Some students just laughed."

But Olsen said he has friends who support him — three other students, all straight, also took the daylong vow of silence.

Olsen broke his silence, along with more than 50 other students from around the state, at a rally at the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender (GLBT) Community Center of Utah.

"I want to create awareness at my school for diversity," Olsen said.

The protest, a project of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, is a national student-led effort to protest the oppression of GLBT youths and their allies.

According to a 2003 survey by the education network, four out of five GLBT students reported verbal abuse and 29 percent said they missed a day of school in the past month because of fear for their own safety.

At the University of Utah, Andy Shie Kee Wong, coalition manager of the San Francisco-based Asian Equality, spoke as part of the campus' Asian Awareness Week. Many students who attended his speech, "Gay, Asian and Mormon: Reflections on Faith, Identity and Empowerment," wore black "Day of Silence" T-Shirts.

Wong said it's troubling that he can't legally get married because of his sexual orientation.

What's even more troubling to Wong is what he said was a total lack of response by the mainstream gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community when some 7,000 Asian Americans rallied against same-sex marriage.

He wonders if things would have been different if it had been a rally of Catholics or Mormons or whites.

"It was a very visible, very vocal show of homophobia," Wong said. "It was clear there needed to be a response from the LGBT community."

Wong says the LGBT community needs to do more outreach to its communities of color. He said a lack of outreach, in part, allowed Republicans to create gay marriage as a wedge issue among traditionally Democratic minority communities.

Gay marriage, he said has become the new abortion, "a tool used by the right wing . . . to get people to the polls to vote a certain agenda."

Wong said opposition to gay marriage in states such as Utah, where voters last November passed a state constitutional amendment, are largely based on fear as were arguments against desegregation.

Monte Stewart, president of the Marriage Law Foundation, said Wong's assertions are based on a misconception that those defending traditional marriage are also advocating discrimination against gays and lesbians.

"The great, great majority of those seeking to preserve man-woman marriage, are doing so out of out of sincere conviction and profound understanding of the importance of the institution of marriage," Stewart said.

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E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com