The Gay Straight Alliance is wrapping up the fourth annual Rainbow Week today. 

Rainbow Week concludes with the nationwide Day of Silence. Teachers and students are honoring those who have suffered from being silenced by the fear of coming out and those still suffering from a lack of acceptance by family and friends.

“The Day of Silence goes back to the AIDS epidemic, to honor those who died, the early victims,” GSA sponsor and social studies teacher Monty Worth said. “It is also to reduce the spread of HIV, to encourage people to get tested and to not be silent about public health issues.”        

To spread awareness of LGBTQQ issues, the club members will continue to sell white American Apparel t-shirts printed with a variation on a widely known poem: “Roses are gay, Violets are straight, Posies are bi, Why discriminate?”

Over time GSA hopes to achieve “greater tolerance,” Worth said. “GSA is here for the younger people, either Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer and Questioning or the sexual minority in general. We try to get people to be tolerant and to realize that discrimination is a real problem.”

GSA co-president sophomore Jen Monroe said that Rainbow Week is also about celebrating the community. “The rainbow refers to the LGBTQQ flag, which represents every person,” she said.

Throughout the week, GSA members sat at a table on the catwalk, making themselves available to answer questions and draw attention to the week’s theme of support and awareness.

On April 22, students left colorful handprints on a poster on the catwalk pledging their alliance to the LGBTQQ community. “It is a new and creative idea,” junior Mona Man said. “I think it’s a nice way to show support as well as to do something fun.”

On April 23 GSA took pictures of students for a digital media project and mounted them on a backdrop of handprints representing support for the community. “This year we got a $500 grant to take pictures and put it together to make a story,” Monroe said.

Yesterday students and teachers dressed as famous LGBTQQ people in an event called “Gays of our Lives,” according to Monroe.