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The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) has teamed up with celebs like Hilary Duff and Wanda Sykes to create PSA advertising to help curb bullying or threatening language aimed at LGBT youth. Think Before You Speak is a new campaign that seeks to educate young people about the harmful nature of associating negativity by saying “that’s so gay” — which is an issue that I, as a teacher, tried to take on at the school I worked at a few years ago. This issue is very close to my heart and I am very glad to see that this new campaign has been launched:

FOR the first time since the Advertising Council was founded in 1942, the organization — which directs and coordinates public service campaigns on behalf of Madison Avenue and the media industry — is introducing ads meant to tackle a social issue of concern to gays and lesbians. The campaign, which is scheduled to be announced by the council in Washington on Wednesday, will seek to discourage bullying and harassment of teenagers who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. The campaign, created pro bono by the New York office of Arnold Worldwide, urges an end to using derogatory language, particularly labeling anything deemed negative or unpleasant as “so gay.” That is underlined by the theme of the campaign: “When you say, ‘That’s so gay,’ do you realize what you say? Knock it off.” There will be television and radio commercials, print and outdoor ads and a special Web site devoted to the campaign (thinkb4youspeak.com). Some spots feature celebrities, the young actress Hilary Duff and the comedian Wanda Sykes, delivering the message. The campaign is on behalf of a nonprofit organization in New York called the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or Glsen (pronounced glisten), which promotes tolerance among students. Glsen is spending about $2 million to develop and produce the campaign. The introduction of the campaign will be accompanied by Glsen’s release of the 2007 edition of an annual report, the National School Climate Survey. The survey will report that 9 in 10 teenagers who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender said they were verbally harassed during the last school year. Almost half said they were also physically harassed because of their sexual orientation. The campaign is “something I dreamed about for 10 years,” said Kevin Jennings, the founder and executive director at Glsen, and has been in active development for two years. “If you follow hateful language, you eventually get hurtful behavior,” he added. “The chain of events begins with kids learning it’s O.K. to disrespect people.” The campaign is “a very bold step” on the part of the council, Mr. Jennings said, in that “this will be, by a million miles, the largest public education campaign on L.G.B.T. issues” … The council has presented antidiscrimination campaigns like “A mind is a terrible thing to waste,” for the United Negro College Fund, and ads promoting gender equality (“Expect the best from a girl and that’s what you’ll get”) … the goal was “to show the situation in a new light,” Mr. Staffen said, “to point out this language can be hurtful and let the kids make their own decisions.” “Ultimately, we believe they will make the right decision,” he added.

Kudos to both the Advertising Council and GLSEN for taking such a bold, important step in this matter. As I said, when I taught high school kids, this was an issue that we tried to take on and were marginally successful with. At our school, we found that kids weren’t necessarily trying to be hurtful with their language … they were just too comfortable associating something bad or negative (like a pop quiz, for example) with “being gay” (ie. In the library where my desk was located I might hear “that pop quiz was so gay”). When it was brought to the kid’s attention, they realize that what they were saying was wrong and could be hurtful to others. I think a campaign like this will go along way to help educate more kids on a larger scale. After the jump, check out Hilary Duff‘s Think Before You Speak PSA …

It’s a simple message and, as I said, I really think kids will be receptive to this campaign. For the most part, I really do believe that kids are more accepting … or, at least, are learning to be more accepting of others. Our society continues to make great strides in acceptance and it all begins with education. The more you know …

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