Spectrum members, supporters and passers-by walked, ran, danced and jumped through a free-standing doorway in Free Speech Alley midday Thursday.Members of Spectrum, LSU’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer group, set the door up for their “Come Out as Whoever You Are” event, part of LGBTQ Awareness Week.Ashlee Abudyak, a Denham Springs high school student, was one of those who ran out the door. Although she isn’t gay, Abudyak applauded the group’s efforts.”What they’re doing is great,” Abudyak said. “Even at schools, we have a lot of barriers, and being loudly spoken sort of breaks those out of people’s minds as well as your own.”Devin Schmitt, a chemistry graduate student, also walked through.”There wasn’t anything symbolic about it. They said, ‘You wanna walk through a door?’ I said, ‘Sure,'” Schmitt said. “I’ve got some friends who are gay, and they’re some of the best people I know. Getting the word out is good.”Spectrum members made banners Monday, held a picnic Tuesday and advocated people holding hands in the Quad on Wednesday.Daniel Guillot, mathematics graduate student and former Spectrum officer, said the noise from the Student Union construction was loud, but he was glad the group didn’t have to deal with the Consuming Fire Baptists, who often spread religious messages including anti-gay rhetoric in Free Speech Alley. Spectrum’s Awareness Week ends today with the 13th Annual National Day of Silence, a day when the homosexual, bisexual and transgender community and their supporters remain silent to raise awareness.Spectrum president Matthew Patterson said the day, which began in 1996 at the University of Virginia, helps build tolerance in schools of several levels.”Ironically, the point is to demonstrate that these problems don’t go away,” Patterson said.Guillot said the Day of Silence helps support the people who are forced to remain silent every day.”Every day many people are silenced — whether they’re prevented from expressing themselves in some way, harrassed in some way or in extreme cases, the occasional murder or suicide permanently silences someone,” he said.Guillot said some people actually reschedule oral exams, work and other obligations to make observing the Day of Silence possible. Other people just have to drop the vow of silence when events make it impossible.”In the extreme cases when they’re forced to speak, it’s pretty much a pure representation of the people that don’t care about what we have to say,” said a second-year Spectrum member.The member wished to remain anonymous because he has family on campus who don’t know his sexuality.Spectrum members will be in Free Speech Plaza from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today silently handing out Day of Silence push cards before finishing Awareness Week with the “Break the Silence” forum from 7-9 p.m. in Room 435 of Nicholson Hall.”We encourage anyone from the public community to come with questions or concerns,” Guillot said. “We’ll have a kind of open roundtable discussion period. Anyone that wants to jump in is more than welcome to. It’s kind of a symbolic breaking of the silence.”—-Contact Jerit Roser at [email protected]