Christian Group's Brochure Offers Schools Help in Understanding Tolerance
by Jim Brown and Jenni Parker
April 13, 2006
(AgapePress) - - A California-based Christian group called Gateways to Better Education is offering students and teachers an alternative way to respond to an upcoming homosexual activist event being promoted in public schools.
April 26 marks another "Day of Silence," an annual event organized by the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and designed to protest the perceived intolerance and the "silence that LGBT people face each day." The event is meant to highlight what GLSEN sees as bullying and harassment of LGBT or lesbian, "gay" bisexual and transgender students by others. But on the following day, April 27, many Christians nationwide will be holding the second annual "Day of Truth," an event established to counter the "Day of Silence" and to express a viewpoint that opposes the homosexual agenda from a Christian perspective.
With these objectives in mind, the group "Gateways to Better Education" is asking Christian students and teachers to circulate a handout that the organization hopes will help clear up confusion on campuses regarding the issue of tolerance. The handout is titled "Promoting Tolerance," and Gateways president Eric Buehrer says his group is distributing it because tolerance is a word that is all too often misinterpreted to mean acceptance. He feels a better understanding would be to define tolerance as showing respect and courtesy while holding firmly to convictions.
"Too often, when someone is rightly intolerant of a particular belief or behavior or action, that's labeled as hate or bigotry, and that doesn't have to be labeled that way." Buehrer contends. "When someone is intolerant of something," he insists, "what's most important is the character they exhibit in their intolerance."
Based in Lake Forest, California, Gateways to Better Education exists to involve, equip, and support Christian parents, teachers, administrators, and school board members in America's 92,000 public schools. The group seeks to encourage these individuals in efforts to bring the influence of their Christian faith and values into their various areas of activity in academic settings.
Needed: A Working Definition of Tolerance That Tolerates Truth
Gateways has noted that schools, particularly in recent years, have given an increasing amount of attention to issues surrounding tolerance, and the group has identified a growing need for a clear and practical definition of the term. Tolerance does not mean universally accepting everyone's ideas or behaviors, Gateways' president says, and yet many students have been taught to understand the concept that way.
Buehrer believes schools need to focus more on character issues and less on pushing ideas that confuse students over what to tolerate and what not to tolerate. "The problem," he asserts, "is that too many people think they're being tolerant when actually they're only expressing indifference -- like, 'Oh, whatever'; or apathy, 'Who cares?'; or even recklessness, you know, 'Why not?' -- and they interpret that as tolerance."
The Gateways to Better Education spokesman feels such misinterpretations are morally dangerous to young people. "When tolerance is improperly understood, it can actually lead to disarming students of their proper convictions," he says.
The "Promoting Tolerance" brochure is designed to help students keep their convictions while responding to differences, Buehrer adds. The information in it can help students respond to events like the "Day of Silence" with biblically-based tolerance, showing courtesy and respecting others' differences while holding onto their own Christian beliefs and values.
Teachers and others interested in obtaining the "Promoting Tolerance" resource can go to Gateways' website (www.gtbe.org) or call 1-800-929-1163 to request the brochure.
