As we find ourselves in the midst of Passover and heading into Good Friday and Easter, thoughts tend toward a powerful and lyrical message found in Solomon’s Ecclesiastes: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose… a time to keep silent and a time to speak.”

On April 17, we will recognize the National Day of Silence, a day in which students from around the country take a vow of silence and bring attention to the anti-GLBT name calling, bullying and harassment that students, teachers, and other school staff face.

Congressmembers Eliot Engel (D-NY) and Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) have re-introduced a resolution to highlight the National Day of Silence. More than half a million students from nearly 6,500 junior and high schools in all 50 states and Puerto Rico have participated in this silent protest. It highlights: the more than 85 percent of GLBT students who are verbally harassed; the nearly 20 percent of GLBT students who are physically assaulted by their peers at school; the almost 40 percent of GLBT students who report that faculty and staff never intervene when homophobic language is used in their presence; and the nearly 30 percent of GLBT students who report missing at least one entire school day because they feel unsafe.

We should stand by our young people and support their participation in the National Day of Silence. We must also stand by our legislators who speak out to support this peaceful protest.

As we celebrate the young people across our great nation for their resolve of silence, we also celebrate young musicians who refuse to let their sexuality silence them. The entertainment industry, for all its Hollywood liberalism stereotyping, does not have a strong history of supporting out artists. Cover Girl model and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres and film legend Sir Ian McKellan are rare exceptions to the Hollywood Closet Rule. These entertainers are role models for those who have been silenced by the shame.

“…A time to mourn, and a time to dance.”

This week we also find ourselves riding the high of the Iowa Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to grant marriage equality to same-sex couples. Following Massachusetts and Connecticut, on Friday, Iowa was the third state in the Union to extend full marriage rights to same-sex couples. It is the first to do so unanimously.

“We are firmly convinced the exclusion of gay and lesbian people from the institution of civil marriage does not substantially further any important governmental objective,” the seven-member court said. “We have a constitutional duty to ensure equal protection of the law.”

Or, as Dennis W. Johnson, a lawyer from Des Moines representing the same-sex couples told a large gathering of supporters after the announcement: “Go get married! Live happily ever after! Live the American dream.”

Long considered a bell-weather state, and the first state in the Union to cast its ballots in the quadrennial presidential elections, one might be inclined to sing out the old saying, “As goes Iowa, so goes the nation.”

But Vermont Republican Gov. Jim Douglas vetoed a bill to extend marriage to same-sex couples in his state on Tuesday, saying the state’s civil-union law serves Vermont well and he would support congressional action to extend those benefits at the federal level to states that recognize same-sex unions.

The people in Vermont and its Legislature disagreed. With the residents speaking out, the Legislature quickly followed suit and voted to override the governor’s veto, making Vermont the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage – the first to do so with a Legislature’s vote.

Speaking of the federal level, this week Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, a hold-over from the Bush Administration, announced that repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is not a priority for the current administration. Speaking on the (not-so) fair and (not-even-close-to-being) balanced Fox News, Gates said, “I think the president and I feel like we’ve got a lot on our plates right now and let’s push that one down the road a little bit.”

Leaving the current policy in place requires a lot of days of silence for the brave GLBT men and women serving our country both here and abroad.

This week is, by all accounts, one of those weeks when we could debate if our cup is half-empty or half-full. But debate, no matter the form, does require making our voices heard. In an age when young people are inundated with noise all around them, we salute those who participate in the National Day of Silence. But come April 18, the silence must end. It is imperative that those young people, and all of us, make our voices heard to end the bullying in all corners of our lives – not just students lives, but also those of loving and committed couples and of our GLBT– not just students’ lives, but also those of military members.

Maybe what we need to do is bring together these six brave artists and send them on a 50-state capital tour to sing out loud and proud. They can conclude their tour in Washington, D.C., where, we hope by then, President Obama and Secretary Gates will have a little less on their plates, and a little more on their conscience.