Massachusetts News reported in April 2001 on a letter from a Mass. Department of Education official who clearly stated that then GLSEN-Boston executive director Wallace Bachman spoke out against firing the DOE employees who led the fisting workshop. And as we posted a few days ago, in 2001 -- the year after Fistgate -- the GLSEN-Boston conference still handed out sex kits for fisting and oral sex. Excerpt:
In a revealing letter written shortly before the [2001] conference, an official from the state’s Department of Education, Kim Westheimer, seemed disappointed about GLSEN’s new policy barring explicit sex instruction.
In the March 20, 2001 letter, Westheimer, who works for the DOE’s “Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students” wrote, “[U]p until the last minute it looked like GLSEN wasn’t going to have a conference at all. Sites they tried to obtain were unwilling to host the conference fearing negative publicity because of what happened last year.
“It might be possible that the only way GLSEN could host the conference at Tufts was to agree to stipulations about materials. I wouldn’t want to make any assumptions about GLSEN’s actions without asking organizers what went into their decision-making. People may agree or disagree with the decision to have the conference without providing explicit AIDS/HIV education. But to cancel the conference would have also sent a negative message to young people.”
The Department of Education employee continued, “Our challenge as a community is to find ways for explicit education to take place as well.”
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.”
Two DOE employees were fired last year for teaching children how to perform dangerous homosexual sex acts such as “fisting.” The letter from Westheimer supports the contention of fired employee Margot Abels, who is suing the Department of Education, that she had the support of the DOE in what she taught the kids and she was made a scapegoat. [Emphasis added.]
