GLAAD reacts:

I recognize that this is a joke, and that
she is not really taken seriously in any context anyway, but with this
coming right after National Coming Out Day, at the start of Ally Week
and just days before Spirit Day, I thought this would be a good
opportunity to talk about this idea of hers. There was a time in our
culture’s history when, if thousands of LGBT kids were to come out on
the same day, the next week genuinely would be exactly what Ann
describes, all across the country. Fathers disowning their sons and
kicking them out onto the street. Mothers locking up their daughters or
sending them to charm school. Children forced to undergo electro-shock
or even worse forms of “therapy” to rid themselves of their orientation.
To learn how to not be true to themselves.

And although we’ve come a long way from
those ideas as a cultural collective, I have no doubt that last week,
more than a few American households experienced the tragedy that Ann
joked about. Approximately 50% of LGBT youth experience some degree of
family rejection. There are as many as 100 thousand homeless LGBT youth
on our nation’s streets, and it’s estimated that LGBT youth make up as
much as 40% of our nation’s homeless youth population. LGBT youth who
are completely rejected by their parents are more than 8 times as likely
to have attempted suicide. Pretty funny, right?

Again, I know it’s a joke, but ANYTHING that adds to the idea that
family rejection of LGBT young people is expected, or even “normal”
enough to be casually joked about, causes harm. The kind of harm that
Spirit Day was specifically created to protect against.
So this week we’ll let the rest of America stand up for those young
people. With Spirit Day on Friday, I thought it would be a nice thought
to list some of the corporations and individuals who will be standing up
against Ann Coulter’s idea, and showing their support for LGBT youth
this week by going purple:

Facebook, the NBA, Major League Soccer, Times Square, the New York
Stock Exchange, the hosts of ‘Good Morning America,’ ‘The Talk,’ ‘E!
News,’ ‘Chelsea Lately,’ Dianna Agron, Sir Ian McKellen, Fun.,
Bernadette Peters, the cast of Days of Our Lives, Joel McHale, Cesar
Milan, the Duke Energy Tower, Toyota Financial Services, AMC
Entertainment, NBCUniversal, Nielsen, Omnicom Group, American Apparel,
AT&T, PepsiCo, American Airlines, Thomson Reuters, Warner Bros.

Not to mention the millions of everyday people across North America
who will be participating, and standing up in support of every LGBT
young person, including – and especially – those who came out last week.
Like I said, I’ve never taken Ann Coulter seriously, and I’m certainly
not going to start now. But the idea of family rejection is one that
does deserve serious attention as a society. Go purple on Friday, not
just to show LGBT young people that you support them, but to show Ann
Coulter what you stand for.