Saturday, February 27, 2010

Kevin Jennings Took High School Students to Radical 1993 Gay Rights March on DC – Part II


What new ideas and experiences did Kevin Jennings' high school students encounter at the 1993 gay rights march on Washington? Check out some videos from the event here (includes ACT UP), here (mass commitment ceremony), and here.
It was the first major national event to push ”bisexuality” and “transgender rights” alongside “gay rights”. The 1993 platform also pushes the notion of “youth” rights, and loosening the sexual age-of-consent laws. Excerpts from the platform:
1. We demand passage of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender civil rights bill and an end to discrimination by state and federal governments including the military; repeal of all sodomy laws and other laws that criminalize private sexual expression between consenting adults.... Passage and implementation of graduated age-of-consent laws.
3. ... The recognition and legal protection of the whole range of family structures. ... An end to abuse and exploitation of and discrimination against youth. ... Full implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Health and Human Services Task Force on Youth Suicide. ... Legalization of same sex marriages.
4. ... Culturally inclusive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies program; and information on abortion, AIDS/HIV, childcare and sexuality at all levels of education.
5. ... Unrestricted, safe and affordable alternative insemination.... That access to safe and affordable abortion and contraception be available to all people on demand, without restriction and regardless of age.
7. ... An end to economic injustice in this country and internationally. ... An end to consideration of gender dysphoria as a psychiatric disorder. ... An end to censorship.
A contemporary report* gives some idea of the sights and sounds confronting Jennings' high school students:
… drag queens blowing kisses, gay men with nipple rings parading in studded leather, "Dykes on Bikes" cruising down the avenues, and bare-breasted lesbians showering each other with lingering kisses.…
A review of the April 25 evening newscasts on ABC, CNN and NBC (CBS did not air a newscast that night) indicates that viewers saw a sanitized version that made the gay movement seem largely mainstream and respectable, just as march organizers had hoped….
The speakers at the post-march rally provided a stream of obscenities considered too vulgar for mainstream television. For example, a drag queen duo cracked a joke on stage about the military ban on homosexuals that was aired on C-SPAN. "They're afraid we will be demanding blowjobs in the shower," said one, "when it's blow dryers we want." Later, a master of ceremonies, praising the conspicuously absent Bill Clinton, told the throng, "I think we have a leader who is thinking with his heart and mind, and not just his penis." And at another point, a woman told the crowd that she'd like to "fuck" Hillary Clinton….
… a man dressed in a blonde wig, wearing a skimpy flag costume and high heels parading on stage…. a white man French-kissing a black man, and a shot of another man in a black mini-dress singing, "Queers Can Do It in the Army." …
Andrew Kopkind, an associate editor of the Nation who is gay … wrote … “In fact, despite the heat there were the inevitable leather chaps and harnesses, a fist-fuckers section and more bare-breasted lesbians. And a fair amount of drags sashayed down the avenues in high heels. But for the first time in the history of gay gala events, the media averted their eyes.”
… a master of ceremonies talking about "crotch politics," and a self-described "big dyke" comedienne who faked an orgasm on stage….
[A Queer Nation spokesman said] even groups like Queer Nation and ACT UP [to which Jennings belonged] made a conscious effort to dress inoffensively for the march.
A “gay marriage” website characterizes the 1993 March:
The interconnectedness of all social justice was a major theme in 1993. The stated demands condemned “racism and sexism, class bias, economic injustice and religious intolerance” as well as homophobia. The board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gave the march a full endorsement, which created the first direct tie between the gay rights and civil rights movements. It was also the first time that the event's title acknowledged the role of bisexuals in gay rights activism.
The “B” and “T” were officially added to the GLBT allied movement in 1993. Bisexuals and transgenders (including transsexuals) were given a huge platform for their mind- and body-bending demands. One speaker was a transsexual (“male-to-female”) attorney who told of the oppression married men face after sex-change operations:
Once a person with male genitalia is legally married to a female-genitaled person, they will remain legally married regardless of whether one has genitalia-altering surgery and it then becomes a de facto same-sex marriage. The state cannot force a divorce. The first time that I promoted this idea publically [sic], outside of the Transgender Law Conferences was in my platform speech at the 1993 march on Washington…. But many were forced to divorce and many others simply were divorced. In those cases, the fear of exposure often left the transgendered spouse to be fair game in the divorce settlement. Often children were involved, and the courts would only allow supervised visitation. [Emphasis added.]
 
AIDS Quilt [Photo: Smithsonian Institution]

The emotional wallop of the AIDS Quilt displayed on the Mall would surely have had a deep effect on Jennings’ students. A homosexual news service reported:
Over two million people, according to the Washington Police Dept., viewed the AIDS Memorial Quilt over the weekend of October 11-13, 1996 in Washington, D.C. This marked the first time the entire quilt, now at 45,000 panels, has been displayed since the National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights in April, 1993. … Among the vast numbers viewing the Quilt [in 1996] were 55,000 school children, each of whom had to get parental permission to participate in the visit which included an orientation to deal with the emotions they might experience or witness…. [Emphasis added.]
These are the sights and messages Kevin Jennings used to radicalize his Concord Academy students in 1993. He has surely carried these radical beliefs through his years as national director of GLSEN and to his current position as Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” in the U.S. Department of Education.

A 2005 article in Education Week confirms that Jennings and GLSEN continued the mission of turning high school students into radical political activists.
Recognizing gay students remains an emotional, politically charged issue. But Kevin Jennings isn't out to provoke shouting matches. Instead, he's quietly turning students into activists capable of changing schools on their own.
GLSEN hasn’t grown from a one-man to a 30-person organization with a $5 million annual budget by battling his opponents on sexual orientation issues.
Instead, he’s done something the civil rights movement taught him is much more effective: He’s turned students into activists…. (Samantha Stainburn, “Straight Talk,” Teacher Magazine, November 1, 2005.)
This fits right in with Obama’s community organizing approach to transforming the country. But while Obama's community activism manipulated adults, Jennings mastered the art of manipulating children

 



Kevin Jennings in 2005.






*Alicia C. Shepard, Did the networks sanitize the gay rights march?American Journalism Review, July 1, 1993. (Available at Amazon.com.)

Kevin Jennings Took High School Students to Radical 1993 Gay Rights March on DC - Part I

     [Part II here.]


It appears that Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” Kevin Jennings, took his high school students with him to the April 1993 “gay rights” march on Washington, D.C.

April 25, 1993 Gay Rights March on Washington [AP Photo]

At Equality Utah’s Allies Dinner on October 9, 2008, Kevin Jennings spoke with pride of his high school’s GSA (gay-straight alliance club) participating in the March for “Gay and Lesbian Rights.”  He shows a photo of them on the stage screen as he stands at the podium.

In that 2008 speech, Jennings refers of the murders of Matthew Shepard in 1998 and an eighth-grader in California earlier in 2008, both of which he blames on the “homophobia” he is combating. He then says (at 1 min. 10 secs.):
But I know that it won’t always be this way. I know that because of the young people I’ve been privileged to work with who’ve demonstrated the power of people to make a difference. [Jennings indicating photo on screen here.] This is my gay/straight alliance at the 1993 march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. Those kids are now in their early 30’s. They have taken with them into their adulthood a belief that they can make a difference. And they are making a difference every single day. I know because 20 years ago I sat in my office and I had a young girl come up with a crazy idea [to start a gay/straight alliance club] and I saw it spread to 4,200 schools. I know because 15 years ago I sat in a state legislator’s office in Massachusetts and said, “We need a law in this state.” And now that law is in 11 states…. [Emphasis added.]
While this video snippet does not absolutely prove Jennings was with his Concord Academy students at the 1993 march, the context of his Equality Utah speech (see Part I) is the telling of his life story through these slides. It’s hard to imagine he would have missed this huge event. He was still teaching at Concord Academy that spring, and still acting as advisor to the GSA (gay/straight alliance). At a minimum, it’s safe to say he would have encouraged his students to attend the event. (Too bad no Senate confirmation hearing was required on his appointment so we could confirm such things.)
The D.C. field trip by Jennings’ GSA club is a prime example of his corruption of children. The video below exposes the obscene and radical character of the 1993 march. Note the topless women; the banner carried by Brookline (Mass.) High School students (at 3:00); the ACT UP banner at 3:27 (Jennings was an ACT UP member); the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”; the guys singing (at 6:30) “God is a Dyke … she’ll make it on the floor with us.”

Also participating in the march from Massachusetts were GSA clubs from Phillips Academy Andover and Brookline High School. Jennings had co-founded GLSEN a few years before with a teacher at Phillips Academy.*
The march was organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), an extremely radical group that has long advocated same-sex marriage, lowering the age of sexual consent, transgender/transsexual “rights”, universal health care, decriminalization of prostitution, and sexual sadomasochism. One of its founders was porn promoter Frank Kameny (who apparently spoke at NAMBLA’s 1981 convention). NGLTF worked hand in hand with ACT UP (present at the 1993 march), and led a “town meeting” on how to “fight the right.” (Video clip here; see at 2:35-4:35.) 
NGLTF supports sexual sadomochism groups and presents “leather leadership awards.” Their director was the keynote speaker at a 2006 Leather Leadership Conference, where he reminisced: I'm sure many of you remember in 1993, when President Clinton met with representatives our community, Billy Hileman from Pittsburgh wore a leather vest – what an uproar it caused.” In 2008, the NGLTF “Creating Change” conference included workshops emphasizing “sexual freedom” for youth, entitled “A Dialog with Youth: Talking about Sex and Sexual Freedom” and “Mentoring Queer Youth.”
The radicalism of NGLTF at the time of the 1993 “gay rights” march is evident in its official platform. It reveals not only radical sexual demands, but also a Marxist/socialist/statist mentality. The featured NGLTF speaker at the march challenged everyone to “fight the Right” and “match the power of the Christian supremacists.” The claim is that most citizens are “oppressed” and there is “ecomomic injustice” in the U.S. 
These are the ideas Kevin Jennings was pushing on his students. In his gay and lesbian history reader for high school and college students, Becoming Visible (1994), Jennings even published sanitized excerpts from the platform.
Gay Liberation button. Location no. 1998.105.11

Fists are popular with the GLBT crowd... [Photo: Minnesota Historical Society]
See Part II of our report.
________
*[Kathy] Henderson also co-founded the Gay and Lesbian Independent School Teachers Network (later GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network) with Concord Academy’s Kevin Jennings in 1990....The GSA also sent a contingent to the 1993 March on Washington. Phillips Academy did not, however, let them carry any signs or banners with the school name. When they walked past the White House, Paczynska recalled, they chanted, “George [H.W.] Bush’s prep school won’t let us carry a sign!” Mombian.com, “Phillips Academy GSA: 20 Years of Friendship and Activism,” March 16, 2009.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Was Kevin Jennings Speaker at Radical “Join the Impact” Rally against Prop 8?

Watch this video of the "Join the Impact" rally in Boston against California’s Prop 8 on November 15, 2008 -- the week after it passed (declaring marriage between one man and one woman to be the law):



The voice at the beginning, we believe, belongs to Kevin Jennings. Let him or his GLBT allies correct us if we’re wrong! (Email us here.)

Why is this significant? Because the “Join the Impact” activist network is the worst of the worst -- an angry, hate-motivated far-left wrecking crew. The theme of the day was “Prop 8 = Hate.” Jennings' participation as speaker would show that he is not simply an advocate for "tolerance" in the schools, but a radical rabble-rouser of the most dangerous sort.

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[Photo: EdgeBoston]

Jennings is now Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” and is controlling over $400 million to push his sexual radicalism and hateful attitudes on schoolchildren. His appearance at such a highly charged event would hardly recommend him as possessing the temperament to run a major office in the U.S. Department of Education.

photo: Joe DePonte
[Photo: Joe DePonte, TowleRoad]

We were the first to reveal that Jennings was a member of the extremist ACT UP group in the 1990s, and that he recently funded a celebratory exhibit on the group at the Harvard University museums – complete with pornographic images. So it's not at all surprising that he'd feel right at home at this extremist event.

This is the man Obama has put in charge of transforming the nation’s public schools into GLBT propaganda zones, with the potential to irreparably undermine parental rights and traditional values for generations. 

ANOTHER VIDEO revealing the anger at this rally:


And another showing the hateful signs and immaturity of the crowd at the Boston event:


Jennings is followed (in the first video) by the radical transsexual “female-to-male” leader of the Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition, Gunner Scott:76946
[Photo: EdgeBoston]

See another video which with Jennings speaking (?) here. We can find no online reference to Jennings speaking that day, but await correction from our GLBT friends if we're mistaken!

Monday, February 22, 2010

Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN Pushing “Transgender Bathrooms” in Maine Schools


Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” has played a key role in the nightmare plan to transgenderize restrooms in Maine’s schools. According to the Bangor Daily News, a GLSEN leader in Maine is a player in the push to end biology-based restrooms:
Representatives from several gay and lesbian rights groups participated in a Dec. 15 workshop with the [Maine Human Rights] commission on the guidelines. One of them was Peter Rees of the Downeast Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network [GLSEN] based in Ellsworth. Rees said people who oppose rights for transgender students — such as allowing them to use locker rooms with people who are biologically of the opposite sex — fear something “that just isn’t borne out in reality.”
“What do they think is going to happen?” asked Rees. “That boy who is identifying as a girl is not going to be displaying herself in a girls’ locker room. She’s going to be acting as much like a girl as possible and being very modest.”
“She” – meaning a boy – will be “acting … like a girl … and being very modest.” But wait! We thought we weren’t supposed to stereotype on the basis of gender!?How confusing!
GLSEN has been very influential in Maine. Check out the 2008 report by the “LGBT Youth Commission” to the Maine Governor, where GLSEN is listed as the authoritative source on what needs to be done in the schools.
Maine’s 2005 anti-discrimination law -- covering the essentially undefined revolutionary concepts “sexual orientation” and “gender identity or expression” --has opened the door to the horror of boys using girls’ restrooms and locker rooms (and vice versa), and playing on opposite-sex sports teams, in schools. Worse, we wrote in our recent report:
As MassResistance has consistently warned, this also opens the door for the discussion in schools of transgenderism and so-called "sex-change" operations for children, even as young as elementary school age. Assemblies and events introducing kids to these concepts have already been taking place in some high schools in Massachusetts.
And a GLSEN-Boston board member gave a talk in a third-grade classroom in Newton, Mass. about a student’s father who was transitioning to “become a woman” – without parental notification, of course.
 “Safe Schools Czar” Jennings was one of the masterminds of this insanity being foisted upon young children across the country. He founded GLSEN shortly after his participation in the 1987 gay march on Washington. He apparently also participated in the 1993 gay march on the capitol*, which was the first big event to push “gender identity” non-discrimination alongside “gay and lesbian rights” demands. (See the “Platform of the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation.”) One speaker at that 1993 march was a transsexual (“male-to-female”) attorney who told of the oppression married men face after sex-change operations.
Back to the Maine school bathrooms, WorldNetDaily reported (Biology-based restrooms to be banned?”):
[GLAD attorney Mary] Bonauto has filed a brief with the [Maine Human Rights] commission that says the commission is acting properly in trying to deal with students' "identity" issues.
 "Practically speaking, making a transgender student with a female gender identity [a boy] use the boys' restroom would be stigmatizing and have a serious, negative, emotional consequence for the student as well. It would be no less stigmatizing for that student to have to use the boys' room than it would be for any non-transgender girl to be singled out and made to use the boys' room," she claims.
Bonauto suggests restroom usage should not be based on biology.
"Applying these rules, it is clear, for example, that an anatomy or biology-based rule for bathroom usage cannot be used to bar transgender students from using a facility consistent with their gender identity," Bonauto said.
… On the issue of sports, Bonauto supports rules that require the schools to open doors based on the students' sense of identity.
The Slippery Slope is real.
See also:
GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders) document targeting Maine’s school children, “Students' Rights in Maine” (lists GLSEN as resource in PDF).
________
*See Jennings’ Equality Utah speech (Part 3 at 1 min. 10 secs.) where he's showing slides of his life story, and bragging that his Concord Academy gay-straight alliance was at the march.

Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Sex Change Operations Now Tax Deductible!

GLAD (Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders – the group that brought “gay marriage” to Massachusetts) won a big case against the IRS for “transgender rights”.
Former construction worker Rhiannon O’Donnabhain wanted to write off his “male-to-female” sex-change procedures as necessary medical treatments. But the IRS denied the deduction, declaring the procedures “cosmetic”. Then the U.S. Tax Court bought GLAD’s arguments and overruled the IRS.
“In this landmark ruling, the Tax Court affirmed the consensus position of the medical establishment that transition-related medical care is essential for many transgender people,” explained Jennifer Levi, Director of GLAD’s Transgender Rights Project. 
 
He’s a “woman” now, and gets a tax deduction too.
The US Tax Court ruled yesterday that a Massachusetts woman should be allowed to deduct the costs of her [sic] sex-change operation, a decision that could have wide implications for transgender people.
Rhiannon O’Donnabhain, who was born a man, sued the Internal Revenue Service after the agency rejected a $5,000 deduction for approximately $25,000 in medical expenses associated with the sex-change surgery.
The IRS said the surgery was cosmetic and not medically necessary.
In its decision yesterday, the tax court said the IRS position was “at best a superficial characterization of the circumstances’’ that is “thoroughly rebutted by the medical evidence.’’ …
“I think what the court is saying is that surgery and hormone therapy for transgender people to alleviate the stress associated with gender identity disorder is legitimate medical care,’’ said Jennifer Levi, a GLAD attorney. …

The court got down to details, noting he could not deduct the itemized cost for his “breast augmentation surgery, because it found that she [sic] had achieved breast enhancement through hormone treatments.”
Yikes. So what we see in the photo is a combination of hormone treatments plus breast augmentation surgery. What kind of documentation did the court look at to determine that? They must have studied before and after photos, to weigh hormones vs. surgery? How did they determine what breast size was adequate for his mental health needs?
This will be a huge precedent for health coverage in this country, especially as the government takes more and more control. We’re sure that no Massachusetts insurer would now dare to cross GLAD and deny any and all transgender procedures to patients. If the Transgender Rights bill is passed here in Massachusetts, any discrimination on the basis of “gender identity or expression” will be banned.
So all citizens will be underwriting such procedures through their insurance premiums and through our tax system.
But the transgender advocates are also tying themselves -- and us -- up in illogical knots over the grounds for their appeals. In this IRS case, they apparently won by arguing that transgenderism is a “serious mental disorder” needing treatment – including hormone therapy and “sex-reassignment” surgery.
At the same time, the activists are arguing that transgenderism is a normal variation on the “sexuality spectrum” and are actively fighting to de-classify it as a disorder in the DSM-IV manual. They are using this “normal” argument to push their “Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes Bill” in the Massachusetts legislature. That’s so they can deny that the government will be actively sanctioning and promoting a disorder in protecting “gender identity or expression.”
How will they resolve this contradiction?
By the way, O’Donnabhain is a member of the Mass. Commission on Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth. He’s there to help confused teenagers.

Monday, February 01, 2010

Scott Brown Refuses to Take a Stand on Homosexuals in the Military


On Tuesday, Feb. 2, there will be a Congressional hearing on whether the 1993 law banning homosexuals from serving in the military should be repealed. (The law should not be confused with Clinton’s policy to evade the law, known as “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”.)

So it was good timing last Sunday for Barbara Walters to ask Scott Brown whether or not he agreed with Obama on allowing homosexuals to serve in the military. But Brown refused to answer her question.

Brown, as a Lt. Colonel in the National Guard, knows well the military’s purpose and climate. He should have manned up and answered this question directly. Instead he avoided taking a clear stance, following the Mitt Romney model. (This is not surprising given that Romney’s men are now Brown’s top advisors.)
Brown deferred to “generals in the field.” Well, Senator-elect Brown, they’ve already spoken (as noted by the Center for Military Readiness):
As of January 2010, a formal statement of support for the 1993 Eligibility Law, addressed to the President and Members of Congress, has been personally signed by 1,164 retired Flag & General Officers for the Military, 51 of them of four-star rank. The statement concludes:
“Our past experience as military leaders leads us to be greatly concerned about the impact of repeal on morale, discipline, unit cohesion, and overall military readiness. We believe that imposing this burden on our men and women in uniform would undermine recruiting and retention, impact leadership at all echelons, have adverse effects of the willingness of parents who lend their sons and daughters to military service, and eventually break the All-Voluntary Force. As a matter of national security, we urge you to support the 1993 law regarding homosexuals in the military (Section 654 Title 10) and to oppose any legislative, judicial, or administrative effort to repeal or invalidate the law.”
Brown’s prevarication does not bode well. It is not indicative of an “independent thinker,” but of a politician waiting to see which way the wind is blowing. Not what his supporters voted for...
Here is our transcript from the Barbara Walters interview:
Walters: You have been a member of the National Guard for 30 years. You’ve talked about how important that service is.
Brown: Yes.
Walters: You’re a Lt Colonel. On Wednesday, the President announced that he wants to work with Congress to repeal ‘Don’t ask, don’t tell.’  What’s your view?
Brown: I think it’s important, because as you know, we’re fighting two wars right now. And the first part is to finish the job and win those two wars. I’d like to hear from the generals in the field – in the field – the people that actually work with these soldiers to make sure that, you know, the social change is not going to disrupt our ability to finish the job and complete the wars.
Walters: But Senator, your own view?
Brown: That’s my view.
Walters:  So you can’t say whether you’re for or against it?
Brown:  No, I’m gonna wait to speak to the generals on the ground.
For more on homosexuals in the military, see the Center for Military Readiness. We especially hope that Senator Brown will study this report: “Consequences of the Proposed New “LGBT Law” for the Military.”

Scott Brown Going Wobbly on Gay Rights?

Is this what conservatives supported in electing Scott Brown? I don't think so! Let's hope this is just wishful thinking  on the gay activists' part. Then again, pro-gay Romneyites are advising Brown. Hold the line, Scott!

From EDGEBoston (GLBT news), Feb. 1:
 
Graham Wilson, a Political Science Professor at Boston University, believes Brown’s views on social issues will evolve in time.
"I don’t know his stand on (gay marriage) in detail but I do think he will moderate and has shown signs of doing so already," Wilson told EDGE. "Now that he has the Republican nomination, his challenge is to avoid defeat in general elections that will be held in what for him are likely to be less favorable circumstances."
Someone who is familiar with Brown’s positions on LGBT issues is Scott Gortikov, the Executive Director of Mass Equality, who said Brown has expressed "consistent opposition to LGBT equality" as a State Senator.
Gortikov does hold out the hope that Brown may be inclined to be more supportive of the LGBT community on certain issues considering the company he will be in.
"He is a junior Senator from a Massachusetts delegation and this is a delegation that has supported issues of equality for a long time," Gortikov said. "(Brown) touts not only his traits of independent thinking but also his conservative credentials. There may be nuances to his thinking when it comes to future votes on LGBT issues."

Bay Windows (linked with EDGE) also posted an "open letter" to Scott Brown, asking for a "dialogue". They're "awaiting his reply."