Kevin Jennings & Acolyte Attacked Religious Right at GLSEN Fistgate Conference in 2000

In Kevin Jennings’s keynote address at the GLSEN-Boston Fistgate conference (March 25, 2000), he related a Bible story of the “widow’s mite,” but gave it a perverted meaning. He twisted it from an exhortation to give all you can to God, to give all you can to the homosexual community.

Also at that conference, a GLSEN national board member, Leif Mitchell from Planned Parenthood of Connecticut, led a workshop “exposing” the “Religious Wrong.” At that time, Mitchell “train[ed] teachers and children about sex education in the classroom and how to integrate homosexuality into the curriculum of public schools.” As a national board member, Mitchell was surely in touch with GLSEN’s national director Kevin Jennings on content and strategy.

The teacher who attended the conference and reported on this workshop to Massachusetts News (May 2000) has just emailed us more background on the “Religious Wrong” workshop. She is convinced that its leader, Leif Mitchell, “got his training” directly from Kevin Jennings:

I know he got his training from Kevin Jennings because the strategies numbered for how to work against the Religious Right is something right out of KJ's handbook. Also, relating to ex-gay John Paulk having been verbally attacked by Leif Mitchell, his explanation of the difference between “sexual orientation” and “sexual identity” is something I heard Kevin Jennings say on an instruction tape/video. … At any rate, Mitchell was espousing the KJ philosophy/teaching/propaganda word for word. (Fallout: Mitchell was removed from that position soon after he talked to the Massachusetts News reporter, not knowing who the press was he was chatting with, and letting it "all hang out.") Mitchell said he learned to speak "Christianese" and went to all the conservative Evangelical conferences for a decade before 2000. (- Teacher attendee at Fistgate; email to MassResistance, 12-18-09.)

We would add that Mitchell’s advice to “keep bringing it back to the issue of student safety” when confronted by difficult challenges is exactly the strategy Jennings developed in his 1993 report for the Massachusetts “Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth” (which we will soon post), which he later outlined in his 1995 speech to the Human Rights Campaign on how to “frame the issue” for victory.

In the GLSEN workshop, Mitchell …

… explained the need to combat such questions by using safety and suicide prevention issues as their mantra. Several times during the discussions Mitchell told the participants when they get in trouble during such discussion with the public or the press to: “Just keep bringing it back to safety in the schools. That’s the message." (Massachusetts News, May 2000)

That is GLSEN’s #1 strategy given to fight the Religious Right. Here are all five, as outlined by Mitchell:

1)            Focus on violence prevention. “Always go back to the issues of safety to explain why Gay/Straight Alliances need to be formed. ‘Violence helps us!’ he said.”

2)            Focus on legal perspectives. "Focusing on legal perspectives also helps to bring the focus back to safe schools," he said.

3)            Put a Face on Homophobia (e.g., Matthew Sheppard)

4)            Use statistics effectively

5)            Build coalitions proactively with like-minded groups (e.g., Coalition for Democracy, NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, Planned Parenthood)

For the full Massachusetts News report on Mitchell’s workshop attacking the Religious Right, see “ ‘Religious Wrong’ Exposed at Fistgate” (Tom Duggan, Massachusetts News, May 2001). Excerpts:

[Jennings] attacked religion and even used the Gospel to do so. He used the story of the widow’s mite to motivate children in the audience to give all they can give to the gay and lesbian community.

"This is ridiculous," exclaimed one teacher in utter disbelief. "I know that Bible passage and it is a direct reference to giving all you can to God. How ironic that GLSEN is preaching hatred towards religious people, attacking religion as ‘wrong’ and at the same time they are quoting Jesus and twisting the scripture. … Not a single person in the audience that I could see had any negative reaction to his "sermon". He simply "tickled their ears."

A handout attacked religion and people of faith. It promoted a book by a lesbian activist who claimed to expose "The Right and THEIR Agenda; The Right’s overall goals, the targets of their organizing efforts, the strategies they employ, and who benefits from their agenda." …

Kevin Jennings Wrote "Heterosexism Questionnaire" Used in Schools All Over Country

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” had his first three books published by Alyson Publications, known for its gay and lesbian pornography, and also for its pro-pedophilia books. The publisher actually sought out Jennings to write a book of gay and lesbian readings, Becoming Visible (1994). In that book – intended for high school and college students – Jennings is careful to credit the author of the selections. Otherwise, the writing is apparently his own.

That would mean that Kevin Jennings deserves the (dis)credit for the hideous “heterosexism questionnaire” that’s been used all over the country since the mid-1990’s. (Becoming Visible is one of the most utilized source books for pro-homosexual curriculum.)  It’s often a first exercise in “diversity” training at schools, for both students and staff. Jennings said the questionnaire was designed “to illustrate ‘unearned privilege’ that accompanies heterosexuality in a heterosexist society.” Talk about sowing evil confusion in the minds of young people! This is what his organization, GLSEN, has foisted on schools in the name of “safety”.

Here’s Jennings’ questionnaire, his “Reading 1-A” on pp. 25-26 of Becoming Visible:

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

2. When and how did you first decide you were heterosexual?

3. Is it possible heterosexuality is a phase you will grow out of?

4. Is it possible you are heterosexual because you fear the same sex?

5. If you have never slept with someone of the same sex, how do you know you wouldn’t prefer that? Is it possible you merely need a good gay experience?

6. To whom have you disclosed your heterosexuality? How did they react?

7. Heterosexuality isn’t offensive as long as you leave others alone. Why, however, do so many heterosexuals try to seduce others into their orientation?

8. Most child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose your children to heterosexuals? Heterosexual teachers particularly?

9. Why are heterosexuals so blatant, always making a spectacle of their heterosexuality? Why can’t they just be who they are and not flaunt their sexuality by kissing in public, wearing wedding rings, etc.?

10. How can you have a truly satisfying relationship with someone of the opposite sex, given the obvious physical and emotional differences?

11. Heterosexual marriage has total societal support, yet over half of all heterosexuals who marry this year will divorce. Why are there so few successful heterosexual relationships?

12. Given the problems heterosexuals face, would you want your children to be heterosexual? Would you consider aversion therapy to try to change them?

GLSEN Fistgate Student Magazine Reveals Sex-Obsessed and Sad Kids

At the Kevin Jennings’ GSLEN Fistgate conference in 2000, students produced a “zine” specially for the event. The cover reads:

We’ll Be Right Out

Special TeachOUT Conference Edition #2

Produced by Project 10 East and GLSEN/Boston

March 25, 2000

This was given out in the registration packet to all participants. Clearly, it was blessed by GLSEN and Project 10 East. Our volunteers saved their copies. You can view the entire publication here. 

The collection of ramblings, poems and prose shorts includes:

·      “an argument against the ten commandments”

·      a graphic sexual discussion of masturbation

·      a tale of heterosexual rape

·      many plaintive reflections on loneliness, confusion, and sadness

·      exhortations to political gay activism

Here are just a few excerpts (typos are in the originals):

++++++++++

Goal: Raise awareness and acceptance in my high school by becoming more active and visible. I plan on taking my boyfriend to the prom and going with my friends to show them that we are here and I’m not afraid to show them who I care about and that I am happy.

++++++++++

SEX!

As most teenagers know, we can’t be with our significant others 24:7, or even everyday. I know I can’t. Because we are nearing peeks of our sexual life we want, and need, sex all the time. Though I don’t practice masturbation many I know do. I’ve had the pleasure of or lack of, hearing what they use.

One tip: Icy Hot and bengay are a no-no. It might feel good for a moment, but desperado, it hurts more that it provides pleasure. I hear pumps are great. They act like a hand, but feel better. How? I wouldn’t know.

Vibrators are great for some, but if your low on cash – maglites are excellent. Go to K-mart in the batteries aisle. Not that expensive, Yet just as fun as a vibrator.

Though toys are good (supposedly) nothing beats the real thing. I wait for my partner and it all out then. But hey to each his/her own. These are just a few tips suggestions. Do with it what you want.

++++++++++

SLUT

She didn’t want to do it

So she thought, “I’ll scream as loud as I can.”

Her crying didn’t stop him,

He had to be a man.

When he was finally through,

She felt so dirty and unclean.

How could the man she loved

Be so brutal and so mean?

Back in school the football players would shove and,

Grab her butt.

They figured they could get some too,

Considering she was a slut.

No one realized it, and she was unaware too,

In reality it was RAPE that

Was making her so blue.

++++++++++

Reason 1 for the argument against the ten commandments

Peter is the typical gay boy next door. He’s out and everything. Peters neighbors are Louis and Heather. He is quite attracted to Louis and try’s to visit him as much as possible, just to see him. He waters the garden, cuts the grass, even throws parties just to see this Louis. Peter has a gaydar and has picked up on a Louis. In fact Louis is one of the biggest closet cases in the world. He just married her to get his mothero ff his back.

Louis and his wife, Heather, have gone off on a vacation and they ask Peter to house sit. Louis, however, just cam home from an important business meeting in the middle of the week. On Wednesday, Louis returns home and starts talking to Peter. They talk and talk and talk. Suddenly POOF! Peter and Louis wind up in bed.(we won’t go into details)

Now, there is nothing in the ten commandments that says “Do not covet the neighbors husband.” Therefore it is morally acceptable for the gay, unattached man to sleep with the married-to-a-female-closeted man.

Reason 2

In some cultures, God does not exist. Therefore the “word of God” does not exist and the 10 commandments are something not to be followed.

++++++++++

My thoughts are racing,

Where do I start?

I don’t know

What to do with the

Thoughts of my heart.

Fistgate: Original Audio Cassettes Still Available!

The original cassettes distributed in 2000 by Massachusetts News,

and later by Parents' Rights Coalition (now MassResistance).

Collector's item. Limited quantity still available! Get yours for a donation of $100! Makes a great Christmas gift for the liberals in your family! 

Send your order to PO Box 1612, Waltham, MA 02454 today!

From Sex Ed to Porn Ed

That was the great Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld’s title to his WorldNetDaily article in June 2000 on the Fistgate conference. Well worth a read.

What’s amazing to us is that so many in the country are just now learning the hideous truth about what’s really going on with the GLBT indoctrination in the schools, thanks to Obama's appointment of Kevin Jennings as "Safe Schools Czar." It’s not just about “respecting diversity” and “no name-calling” campaigns. It’s about graphic discussions of perverted sex acts – and recruiting our children.

But we’re glad to have company in fighting this evil. Let’s hope the “dazed acquiescence” of parents will finally come to an end!

Dr. Blumenfeld wrote in 2002:

It was inevitable that sex education would eventually become porn education, for sex education is not about education, it's about sex. Its main purpose is the destruction of innocence, the seduction of the vulnerable, the degrading of morals and the forwarding of an agenda.

On March 25, the Massachusetts Department of Education, the Governor's Commission for Gay and Lesbian Youth, and the Gay and Lesbian and Straight Education Network [GLSEN] co-sponsored a statewide conference at Tufts University called "Teach Out." … The May 2000 Massachusetts News described what took place at the workshops as "every parent's nightmare." The participants discussed oral sex, anal sex, vaginal sex, oral-vaginal sex, clitoral sex and a homosexual practice called "fisting." …

By now, everyone in Boston knows what fisting is. It's been discussed on radio talk shows, written about in the newspapers, and, needless to say, talked about in classrooms. The article in the Massachusetts News, which graphically described what was discussed in the workshops and presentations, was written by Brian Camenker and Scott Whiteman.

I met Brian years ago when he started fighting sex education in the schools of Newton. He brought speakers like Judith Reisman and Don Feder to speak to parents in a large assembly at the high school. I sat in the second row in back of a pair of young homosexual lovers flaunting their life style in front of the speakers. At the end of the program, a young minister stepped forward and excoriated the speakers for their intolerance. There was an air of pandemonium in the place. …

There is a kind of dazed acquiescence on the part of most parents to what is now going on. The governor, a Republican, is not going to stop supporting the Gay/Straight Alliance. The Democrat legislature would be up in arms if he did end support. But what is even more distressing is that parents don't care enough to get their kids out of the public schools. …

"This is a very important event," said J. Edward Pawlick, publisher of Massachusetts News, "because it has taken us over a year to explain to the people in the state exactly what is being taught in the schools, both to heterosexual and homosexual students. When we started writing about this, the establishment tried to brand us as right-wing, homophobic kooks. But if that's true, then 90 percent of the citizens are also of that persuasion. …

Why Did MassResistance/PRC Tape "Fistgate"?

Why did the Parents’ Rights Coalition (now MassResistance) decide to tape the 2000 GLSEN-Boston workshop, AKA “Fistgate”?

Below is then-director Scott Whiteman’s December 1999 testimony before the Massachusetts State Board of Education – just months before the March 2000 GLSEN event. State education officials ignored it as not credible.  Read this testimony with the hindsight offered by our Fistgate audio tapes.

Whiteman refers to BAGLY (Boston Alliance of Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth) – whose director was a founding member of the Governor’s Commission, a close working ally of Kevin Jennings, and has run the GLBT youth prom for decades. 

At this same Board of Education meeting, the Chairman of the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth (David LaFontaine) even admitted that “he [did] not have statistics showing the number of gay and lesbian students harassed or attacked in schools each year." Yet he went on to say, "We feel it's the responsibility of the state to stop the antigay violence in so many school systems." And so the “Safe Schools” program proceeded, despite the fact that there was no proof of antigay violence. (Boston Globe, “Students urge state to clarify gay rights,” 12-21-99.)

Testimony by Scott Whiteman 

Massachusetts State Board of Education Meeting

December 21, 1999
[See original document here as pdf.]

“We shall sodomize your sons, emblems of your feeble masculinity, of your shallow dreams and vulgar lies. We shall seduce them in your schools.” - Michael Swift, Gay Community News, Feb. 15, 1987.

On February 10, 1992, the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth was created by William Weld's having signed and authorized Executive Order 325, stating as his predominant reason for the institution of this Commission that 30% of completed youth suicides annually are by gay and lesbian youth; and . . . that suicide is the leading cause of death for gay and lesbian youth.

It is not my purpose to extrapolate fully on why the use of a 1989 Health and Human Services report on Youth Suicide was erroneous, rather to merely point out that the report was speculation then and has since been proven false by the Centers for Disease Control. I point this out for two reasons, which I call the Double Lie:

1. that there is a high percentage of youth suicide in the gay community

2. that the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth is in the schools to prevent youth suicide

The Governor's Commission was founded on false premises with misrepresentation and disregard of the facts about the homosexual lifestyle. The facts were, and remain, that it is not determinable how many of the 5,000 annual youth suicides are by gays or lesbians. The intent of instituting the Commission on these premises was, and still is, to deceive you as to the nature of homosexuality. The Governor's Commission would have you believe that gay youths are beaten or harassed on a daily basis to the point that they contemplate suicide to escape this terrible lifestyle which they were born into. Fiction is fun, but the reality is that all teens, gays and lesbians alike, are resilient to attacks if they occur. However, where are they occurring? In Massachusetts, how many gays are beaten on a daily basis? How many are killed for being gay? These are the real numbers we need to see before the Governor's Commission should be allowed to continue with its supposed agenda, since the foundational 1989 study on Youth Suicide has been declared inconclusive.

What then, since the suicide rate is not so prevalent [as] the agents of the Commission [say], does the Commission, through the Gay Straight Alliances, do? According to the Recommendations in Prevention of Health Problems Among Gay & Lesbian Youth given to the Governor in 1994, the Commission has provided "trainings" on "Sexual Orientation and [the] Coming Out Process." Additionally, when dealing with STDs, information about safer sex should be given "as it relates to gay, lesbian and bisexual youth," with the understanding that "[g]ay, lesbian and bisexual youth may not be able to practice skills crucial to developing [a healthy homosexual relationship]."(1) Exactly what skills ought we be teaching children to practice? Should it be how to keep their fingernails trimmed so they don't tear their lover's rectum while "fisting" him, as the Color Me Healthy brochure from The Fenway instructs? Maybe they ought to be "practicing" on a New Hampshire lakeside weekend retreat and be paid $25 to do it at events sponsored by the Boston Area Gay and Lesbian Youth (BAGLY)? BAGLY itself recognizes that their age ranges from 14 to 22 at its meetings. Have we decided that youths who question their sexuality aren't protected from pederasts simply because they think they might be gay?

I am 25. If I were to approach any of your 14 or 15 year old daughter or granddaughter to "discuss sex" and give her a chance to "really get to know [me] ... on a much deeper level,"' you would rightly come against me and prevent me from meeting your daughter in this, or any, atmosphere. You might even seek to punish me criminally. Yet, we allow our young boys to be preyed upon by older men and call it "diversity." Pedophilia is still a crime in Massachusetts, and consensual sex is still rape when it occurs between a child under the age of 16 and an adult above the age of 18. Who will be to blame when an older man and a young boy lie together, facilitated by the GSAs? [gay/straight alliance clubs in the schools, mandated by the DOE “Safe Schools” program] Keep in mind that homosexuals are too ready to admit that "only" 30% of the pedophilia crimes are committed by homosexuals; stated differently, by 3% of the population.

I have come today not to give you questions to ponder before you allow the Governor's Commission to influence the schools with their call to diversity. Rather, I have come to reveal to you that they are in your schools under the guise of "safety." They have lied to you to get into the schools, lie to parents while in the schools, and you must pray that they are not lying with boys who statutorily cannot consent to sex. If you provide the in-road for these criminal pedophiles, you ought to be held accountable as well for their crimes. I leave you with this thought:

“How many gay men, I wonder, would have missed out on a valuable, liberating experience -- one that initiated them into their sexuality -- if it weren't for so-called molestation?”   - Carl Maves, "Getting Over It," The Advocate, May 5, 1992, p. 85.

This was in a 1992 edition of The Advocate, a "mainstream" gay magazine. According to the gays, you don't have to fear that they are pedophiles, you should thank them.

___________

(1) Prevention of Health Problems Among Gay & Lesbian Youth, p. 21

(2) BAGLY pamphlet announcing meetings and a $25 stipend for those who attend a lakeside weekend retreat.

Kevin Jennings' "Safe Schools" Ploy

Linda Harvey of Mission America was the first to expose the X-rated content in Kevin Jennings' GLSEN-recommended readings back in 2002. See Harvey's

"GLSEN, Corruption and Crime" (2002)

"Why PFLAG and Children Don't Mix" 

"Community Organizing Our Youth for the 'Gay' Agenda" (Dec. 2009) 

In this video, she explains Jennings' revolutionary ploy to bring homosexual indoctrination into our schools:

Safe Schools? Or 'Gay' Tactics of Revolution?

(posted December 14, 2009)

What are 'safe school' programs? Often they are a cover for the 'gay' agenda. Linda Harvey of Mission America discusses the damage homosexual activism is doing in American schools. By using tactics of revolution, people like Kevin Jennings and others are pressuring children to believe homosexuality is acceptable and look out, parents, if you object.

Kevin Jennings: Pied Piper of the Homosexual-Transgender Movement

Kevin Jennings' GLSEN-Boston transported kids to "Fistgate II" in taxpayer-funded school buses in 2001:
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
[Massachusetts News, May 2001]

Jennings was a founding member of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, and as co-chair of the education committee, he masterminded the DOE's "Safe Schools" program. He (and GLSEN) have had a long partnership with BAGLY, the Boston Alliance of Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth.

BAGLY was prominently included and recommended in the founding document of the Governor's Commission (1993). BAGLY's long-time director, Sterling Stowell (who later "transitioned" to become "Grace"), was a founding member of the Governor's Commission and co-chair of the its human services committee. At the time of the GLSEN Fistgate conference (2000), Stowell was a GLSEN-Boston board member and made sure a transsexual workshop was included in the conference. Stowell is now Vice Chair of the Massachusetts Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Youth. A very important player in Jennings' dream of GLBT-supportive schools.

Jennings' GLSEN funnels kids through its GSAs (gay straight alliance clubs) to GLSEN's conferences -- and to the BAGLY prom.

 
Entrance to BAGLY prom at Boston City Hall, 2007.

BAGLY holds its GLBT prom every May at Boston City Hall, wrapping up the festivities of Massachusetts Youth Pride day (which from the beginning has been sponsored by the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth).

 
Kids waiting to enter the BAGLY prom (2007).



In a 2007 photo (above), Grace Sterling Stowell, the "male-to-female" transsexual director of BAGLY, greets kids at the prom, and keeps reporters (and MassResistance) out. The kids get warmed up before entering:

     

By 2009, BDSM (bondage and sadomasochism) had become an open theme of the BAGLY prom. (We're sure Jennings would approve of this legacy.) Mr. Boston Leather was all smiles as he greeted the kids on the dance floor:



Dance floor at BAGLY prom (2005):



The transgender message is a big focus at BAGLY events (2009):

 

At the national level, Kevin Jennings' GLSEN continues to draw kids in with dreams of revolutionary activism, for example their "JUMP START" program  (encouraging students to start GSAs at their schools). Eventually, many of the high school activists will join up with the dangerous crowd at the BAGLY prom.

  
Strange adults (above and below) mingle with kids at the 2009 event.

Kevin Jennings' Fistgate Conference Gave Teachers DOE Professional Credits

Kevin Jennings and his organization GLSEN worked hand in hand with the Massachusetts Department of Education. The DOE has tried to distance itself from the infamous GLSEN-Boston Fistgate conference in 2000. But that won't wash. They were in this together.

The DOE Commissioner wrote a welcome letter in the conference booklet, but further, teachers were also able to collect professional development credits for attendance. We can't imagine that the DOE would extend professional credits for an event unless they knew the content of the workshops. Two of the instructors of the fisting workshop were DOE employees (in the "Safe Schools" program). If the DOE people knew the content, wouldn't the man in charge of the conference know too?

That would be Kevin Jennings. And the Mass. DOE "Safe Schools" program was his brainchild.

Here's the diploma, good for 6.0 hours of professional development credits:

Kevin Jennings' Own Lesson Plan on Harry Hay: Doing It in the Bushes as "Civil Right"

I know, I know... I've just posted so much original info on Kevin Jennings it's hard for you all to keep up! So... I wanted you to look again at KJ's very own high school LESSON PLAN presenting anonymous anal sex in the bushes as a "civil right" to fight for... See my October 19 post: 

Kevin Jennings, Harry Hay, and Pornography

excerpt:

... So when we examine Jennings’ gay and lesbian history teaching aids for high school and college classes [Becoming Visible, One Teacher in Ten, and Telling Tales Out of School], we shouldn’t be surprised that he focuses those young minds (as early as 13 years old!) on Harry Hay’s campaign against “police brutality” and “oppression” of homosexuals in “entrapments.” (See Becoming Visible, Chapter 11, “Harry Hay and the Beginnings of the Homophile Movement.”).  A 1952 California “entrapment” case (where coincidentally the accused was named Jennings) became a focus for the new gay activist movement, and is held out to children (along with the Stonewall riots) as a heroic moment in American history. Having anonymous sodomy in restrooms is a “right” to be fought for, according to Hay – and Jennings -- and any attempt by society to enforce traditional norms is called “oppression”....

In his introduction to the unit on Hay, Jennings generates sympathy with the young readers, excusing Hay’s “idealist” membership in the Communist Party as “driven by a desire to better things for disadvantaged Americans.” Gays were victims, and Hay’s genius was to see an opportunity for a political movement fighting for his “oppressed minority”. “Growing oppression often creates growing resistance,” wrote Jennings.

Jennings’ student discussion topics on Hay include the police “entrapment” of a gay man involved in "cruising" for sex -- gay men engaging in anonymous sodomy in public bathrooms or public parks.  Students are told that such arrests amount to “financial and emotional lynching” of gays. Imagine what this topic would actually mean in a classroom discussion with children as young as 13.

When Jennings taught in Concord Academy (just prior to his editing this book), “no stories were forbidden.” His organization GLSEN held Boston conferences where children discussed fisting and tribadism (“Fistgate” in 2000) and handed out the pornographic Little Black Book (2005) to minor children. His Seattle GLSEN chapter linked children directly with pornography on their web site. So Jennings' pattern of leading children to age-inappropriate, hard-core sexual subject matter is clear.

What were Jennings’ suggested discussions for high school students in his chapter on Harry Hay? Here are the terms they needed to know, and some of the suggested topics (pp. 178-180): 

·       Harry Hay

·       Daughters of Bilitis 

·       Mattachine Society

·       Kinsey Report

·       Police entrapment 

·       1. Recreate the scene in the apartment the night Harry Hay first gets the idea for a gay-rights organization. This can be done by: writing a “sales pitch” that Hay delivers to prospective members; role-playing the parts of Hay and the partygoers; or writing diary entries from the point of view of Hay and others, as if you have just gotten home from the party. 

·       5. Hay’s most important contribution in the eyes of many was his notion that gays were a “cultural minority.” What does this mean? Why would it be important? (You may want to look at the life of Ulrichs in Chapter 7 for a comparison.) 

·       9. The key argument Hay came up with in the groundbreaking [Dale] Jennings [entrapment] case was that Jennings had been homosexual but not “lewd or dissolute.” What made this a dramatic new argument at the time?

·       12. Every minority group has debated the “assimilation or resistance” question. Put yourself in the late 1950s and imagine you are a member of Mattachine or DOB [Daughters of Bilitis]. Justify your group’s political strategies. Others can represent a more “resistance” point of view. [Act Up for example?] After a debate, vote on which argument would be more convincing, given the conditions in the United States for gays of that period.

Note the technique of drawing the student -- whether “gay” or straight -- into a gay or lesbian identity in these exercises. And clearly, students are forced to engage in vivid thinking and discussion about gay sex practices. What, after all, was the accused doing when the policeman arrested him? Further, extremist political activism is held up as worthy of emulation, and students are directed to think along those lines.

Jennings never really answers his own question (in his Introduction to Becoming Visible), “Why teach gay history?” He does say, “it is intellectually dishonest not to do so” (whatever that means), and it will “help our students create a better society.” He equates gay history with African-American history and women’s history, totally ignoring the fact that homosexuality is not an innate characteristic (as are race and sex), and that the subject deals with the morally sensitive issue of sexual behavior. 

Perhaps the honest answer to his question was that Jennings was “filled with rage.” From his introduction:

“I thought back over my twelve years in North Carolina public schools and my four years at Harvard University, sixteen years when I never once learned anything in a classroom about gay people or gay history, and I was filled with rage. Denying me that history had nearly cost me my life, for gay invisibility had helped create the feelings of isolation that had made me want to end it all.”

Jennings refers to himself as an “historian” (in his introduction). It appears he’s more of a propagandist for a sorry cause: the moral perversion of youth, and the spreading of a myth that our “heterosexist” culture is to blame for all the psychological, emotional and physical sufferings of gays and lesbians.

The Fistgate Buck Stops with Kevin Jennings

Fistgate instructor Margot Abels had been with the Massachusetts DOE “Safe Schools” program for seven years by the time she ran the scandalous workshop documented at the GLSEN-Boston conference in 2000. That takes her back to 1993, the year the “safe schools” program began in the DOE. She had run “at least five” workshops similar to Fistgate prior to 2000, possibly going back to 1995 or even before (if she had done one yearly at the GLSEN conference). The Boston Globe reported:

"This is absolutely sanctioned by the department," Margot E. Abels told a reporter as 125 to 150 people* marched nearby in front of department headquarters to protest her firing. [*from the SEIU – see note below.] "It's not like the commissioner clears every word we say, but because we do our work based on research performed by the department, it's understood what we're going in there to do," said Abels, who had been the department's HIV/AIDS coordinator for seven years. "It's standard. There's nothing we did that was a secret. The department has always given us its full support - until now."

Abels, speaking publicly for the first time since being fired May 19 by Education Commissioner David P. Driscoll, said she has led at least five other workshops that were extremely similar to Teach Out 2000, which took place at Tufts University on March 25 - all without protest from her superiors. … (“Protest over a firing,” Raphael Lewis, June 2, 2000; emphasis added.)

It was in 1992 that Kevin Jennings joined radical David LaFontaine at the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, to “run its education committee” – which set up the “safe schools” programs in the Department of Education. From Jennings’ memoir, Mama’s Boy Preacher’s Son (p. 196):

… in the spring of 1992, [Governor Bill] Weld just decided to appoint one [a Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth] under his own auspices [via Executive Order], and to call it the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. David [LaFontaine] was asked to chair it. Having heard about GLSTN [now GLSEN], he was calling me to ask me to run its education committee. It became quickly apparent that many commissioners had little or no knowledge of youth, and that the ones who did came mainly from social services and knew little about schools. Basically, I was being handed the school portfolio and asked what the governor should recommend.

Isn’t it safe to assume that the head of the education committee worked directly with his HIV/AIDS “sexuality educator,” Margot Abels, as they designed the queer sex curriculum? Are we to believe that Jennings’ ideas on content and methods would be less radical than the DOE employees’? When Abels said “it’s understood” what she did in her workshops, are we to believe that her superiors at the DOE understood it, but the mastermind of their “Safe Schools” program, Kevin Jennings, did not?

According to Jennings’ “partner”, while he was a teacher at Concord Academy, Jennings was very close to his students. They came to “worship him.” They called him “Kevin”. “He disrespected the entire, like, Mr. Jennings thing that we all had to grow up with. … No stories were ever forbidden when he was there.” That says something about Jennings’ teaching “methods” – doesn’t it?

LaFontaine, Jennings, Abels. Hardly a “grand conspiracy theory.” What we’re talking about is a small group of hugely dedicated radical activists with a lot of time on their hands to make mischief, who worked very closely together to launch the Massachusetts homosexual youth indoctrination and sexualization program.

Jennings continued to be closely connected with the Boston scene even after he moved to New York to start up a national GLSEN office. The GLSEN-Boston chapter was its “mothership”. He was keynote speaker at the Fistgate conference in 2000. Here is Jennings with Wallace Bachman (see Bachman's photo in conference program, p. 2), then Executive Director of GLSEN-Boston, at the Fistgate event:

[Photo: Massachusetts News, May 2000 Special Report, print ed.]

Margot Abels’ position was “HIV/AIDS educator” at the DOE. One of her supervisors–surely known to Jennings -- was Kim Westheimer, variously listed as “School Program Coordinator” and “Director” of the “Safe Schools” programs in the DOE (at least as early as Gov. Cellucci’s administration 1998-2000, and possibly earlier).

According to a letter by Westheimer (written in 2001), Bachman (GLSEN-Boston director) defended Abels and opposed her firing in 2000. Was Bachman out of step with Jennings, his superior as national GLSEN director? Jennings may have made a CYA statement immediately after the Fistgate story broke, but what about in the months thereafter?

There’s only one HIV/AIDS “queer sex ed” menu, Jennings designed it, and Bachman and Abels picked from it.

In her March 2001 letter (written just prior to that year’s GLSEN-Boston conference, “Fistgate II”), DOE “Safe Schools” program official Westheimer stated, “Our challenge as a community is to find ways for explicit education to take place as well.”

Massachusetts News reported on her letter:

The Westheimer language which supports “explicit” sex education belies the DOE’s official distancing from what went on last year at Fistgate. Interestingly, at the particular workshop last year which was tape-recorded by the Parents’ Rights Coalition (PRC) [now MassResistance] and where kids were given explicit homosexual instruction on fisting and other sexual practices, 55 minutes passed before there was any mention of AIDS/HIV.

Westheimer wrote, “When PRC launched their campaign against GLBT youth last year, GLSEN Boston and Wallace Bachman [GLSEN-Boston Executive Director] in particular were among the few organizations or individuals who spoke up publicly against PRC, against DOE firing, and in support of providing AIDS/HIV and sexuality education for GLBT youth. Not many organizations spoke out in support of GLSEN or the DOE employees who conducted the workshop.” [emphasis added]

When Westheimer wrote about this “explicit education” in HIV/AIDS and queer sexuality workshops, what could she have in mind? How many specifically “queer” sex acts are there? Let’s see: anal intercourse, fisting, tribadism, “water sports”, “pig play,” rimming, sex in the bushes, sucking … Did we leave any out? So the repertoire the GLSEN-Abels workshops would bring up is pretty clear.

Remember: The workshop was billed as queer specific. Abels said the whole point was to answer any question the kids might ask about queer sex when uninhibited. This attitude and approach would not have changed since the time Jennings designed the curriculum in 1992-3. In Kevin’s classroom, “no stories were ever forbidden.”

A Boston Globe story maintains that Abels’ Fistgate workshop was sponsored by GLSEN, not the DOE:

The workshop at Tufts, designed to answer explicit sexual questions from teenagers too embarrassed to ask them in school, took place on a Saturday and was sponsored by the Gay and Lesbian Student Education Network, not the education department.

Abels, however, insists that the department knew of and supported her work. The department "shamefully caved in to orchestrated pressure and heinous threats against Ms. Abels at the expense of her constitutional rights," said Betsy Ehrenberg, Abels's attorney. (“Educator fired for sex discussion sues,” Scott S. Greenberger, November 28, 2000.)

But Jennings had a hand in both sponsoring groups, as national executive director of GLSEN, and as designer (and likely ongoing informal consultant, at least) of the DOE’s HIV/AIDS queer sexuality curriculum. Either way, the buck stops with Kevin Jennings.

The Abels workshops would not have changed significantly between 1993 and 2000 (and probably only varied depending on what questions were asked). Abels confirmed this. Queer sex is queer sex. So it’s silly to suggest that Jennings would not have known the general content, topics, and style of the her workshops. 

And yes, Media Matters, there is a grand conspiracy. It’s called the homosexual agenda.

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*Note: On the SEIU role in Abels’ complaint, see:

Boston Globe, “Protest over a firing,” Raphael Lewis, June 2, 2000: "This is absolutely sanctioned by the department," Margot E. Abels told a reporter as 125 to 150 people marched nearby in front of department headquarters to protest her firing. [SEIU]

Bay Windows, “Protest planned over DOE firing of educators in sex-ed workshop,” Laura Kiritsy, June 1-7, 2000:   Recently fired over the flap about a workshop on gay sexuality, former Department of Education employee Margot Abels is fighting for her job and her labor union [SEIU] has organized a June 1 noon protest at DOE headquarters in Malden to draw attention to what it contends was her unwarranted termination.  

Boston Globe, “Arbitrator rules against dismissal of sex educator,” Scott S. Greenberger, August 22, 2001:   The Service Employees International Union challenged Abels's dismissal and took the case to arbitration.