When the Day of Silence takes place one week from tomorrow, Religious Right groups are urging parents to keep their children home from school if students decide to participate. During the Day of Silence, sponsored by the Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), students take a vow of silence in solidarity with closeted and bullied LGBT youth.

The groups organizing the “DOS Walkout” include the American Family Association, Liberty Counsel, state chapters of Concerned Women for America and the Coalition of African-American Pastors, a front group for the National Organization for Marriage.

They have joined forces with smaller groups such as Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries, Brian Camenker’s MassResistance, Peter LaBarbera’s Americans for Truth About Homosexuality, Janet Porter’s Faith 2 Action and Linda Harvey’s Mission America in urging parents to “actively oppose this hijacking of the classroom for political purposes” by “calling your child out of school if your child’s school allows students and/or teachers to refuse to speak during instructional time on the Day of Silence.”

Harvey penned a WorldNetDaily column warning that the Day of Silence is a Satanic (and Marxist!) plot to destroy America:

The “Day of Silence” is a stunning example of the widespread indoctrination of youth culture with trashy, deviant behavior masquerading as acceptable conduct. The GLSEN-sponsored pro-homosexual event is a well-developed exercise in cultural Marxism and, I have come to believe, a tragic symbol of the rapid demise of America. And ironically, it poses as a protest of “bullying.” Satan is laughing as he messes with the minds and bodies of our dear children. This event is a blatant exercise in mental, emotional, physical and spiritual molestation as our children become apologists for sodomy and gender confusion.

Instead of discussing LGBT themes with students, Harvey recommends that school officials simply declare that gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people don’t exist:

What if we declared that there are, or shouldn’t be, any such students? That no one is born this way? That these are destructive behaviors that no conference should ever, ever be detailing to our precious kids? And these are identities that no day of silence should ever honor?

She said on her daily radio broadcast yesterday that “it’s a really sad situation when impressionable kids are manipulated” by those who “promote homosexuality and gender confusion.”

“No one, especially young people, should take on this identity and behavior,” she said of homosexuality, while claiming that the event persecutes opponents of gay rights.

Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute accused GLSEN of “silencing” conservatives:

“They’re exploiting legitimate, anti-bullying sentiment to achieve their ultimate goal of eradicating conservative, moral, social, and political beliefs about homosexuality, or at least silencing them,” she adds. She says parents who keep their children home on that day should tell school administrators they’re doing so because schools participating in Day of Silence are allowing classrooms with captive audiences to be politicized.

Ex-gay activist Linda Wall of MassResistance Virginia marked the occasion by posting a three–part series on her website titled “The Day of Silence – ‘We’re Coming After Your Children.’”

In it, she lamented that there are children who are “mentally being raped by this effort” and claimed that it “should be criminal for schools to promote such a behavior that is life threatening.”