Obama HEARTS Drag Queen Hedda Lettuce

[photo: BigGovernment.com]

We read on BigGovernment.com and WorldNetDaily that drag queen “Hedda Lettuce” [AKA Steven Polito] is now proudly decorating Obama’s White House “holiday tree.”

Polito/Hedda commented on his blog about the honor:

… yes one of my balls is hanging in the White House. When I looked at the photo of the ball, it was not my signature green color, it was many shades of blue. Not only was my ball hanging in the White House, my blue ball is hanging in the White House. I may never get equal rights, I may never be blond and pencil thin, I may never see Lady Gaga in concert this winter at Madison Square Garden (I could not get a ticket) but one of my balls is hanging in the White House with my name for all to see. Just for today that feels a bit better than me having the right to marry.

“Hedda Lettuce” was the vilely vulgar emcee at Boston Pride’s entertainment on the Boston Common in 2006. MassResistance reported on that event. To fully appreciate the outrage of the Obama “holiday tree” decoration, we are reprinting our 2006 report here. [Photos below are by MassResistance.]

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MassResistance report:

The headline entertainment at "Pride Festival" -- official "emcee" on the Boston Common, Saturday, June 10 [2006]

Extremely gross and disgusting "entertainment" by Hedda-Lettuce, a man dressed as a woman.

This was blasted through huge loudspeakers you could hear blocks away, and displayed on a giant screen. Many adults (some who had brought kids) were forced to leave, it was so vulgar and distasteful.

Keep in mind that the Gay Pride Week organizers and gay "community" participants didn't seem to see anything wrong or even unusual about this. We were a little surprised to find that the homosexual newspaper "Bay Windows" featured a transcription of Hedda-Lettuce's speech in their post-Pride Week coverage, for their readers who might have missed it, which appears below.

Caution: VERY gross and disgusting.

This was not only blasted out with huge loudspeakers, but a giant screen was erected
in the Boston Common so no one could miss this "entertainment."

The keynote address by Hedda-Lettuce was faithfully transcribed by the "Bay Windows" homosexual newspaper:

"Oh, last year with the gays it was Chihuahuas, Chihuahuas were all the rage. This year, people, it's Filipino babies, and you know why? Because they're beige, and they go with everything." 

[to the tune of the Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces"] "Done crystal meth since he was a child. He could fuck and fuck for days, that boy was wild. But his butt hole was large and wide. You could stick both hands in and clap [claps twice] clap inside, I'm tired of- everybody- wide open spaces." 

"My favorite subcategory of bottoms is the bossy bottom. We all know the bossy bottom. They tell you how to fuck them, they leave nothing to the imagination, they come with diagrams and flow charts, you know what I mean? It's like when you go to a friend's house that just moved into a new apartment and you're helping them move a painting on the wall, and they're like, do it just to the left, no, do it just to the right, no, do it, just, pull out, pull out, you ruined everything. Martha Stewart: bossy bossy bottom, people. You think the billion dollar woman's going to let you fuck her the way you want to fuck her? Uh, uh, uh. She's going to tell you how to fuck her and make a decorative basket at the same time. That's how crafty she is. And this is an old joke, but how do you make Martha Stewart scream twice? Fuck her up the ass and wipe your dick on her curtain, that's how." 



"How many men in the audience, and this can go for the lesbians too, have a big dick? Oh, that's wonderful, I like men with big dicks, I just don't like the men they're attached to most of the time. You know what happens, you go with a man with a big dick, you get on your knees, you're just about to perform fellatio, which means sucking cock in French, and they pull out that large phallus, which means huge fucking cock in French, and they don't even give you a chance to suck it. All of a sudden they start smacking you about the head and face like you're a fucking punching bag. All of a sudden you're not sucking dick, you're Mike Tyson in the ring. I've got to tell you, this is a true story, this man hit me so hard with his dick I flew over his futon, I landed on the floor, my wig shifted, I stood up, and my front tooth had crooked, he hit me so hard. It didn't fall out. I looked like that singer Jewel. You know Jewel, with the crooked tooth? All the money in the world and she can't afford to fix that fucking tooth, you know? I hate to be the man she's going down on right now. Like a cheese grater. [makes sound effect] 



"You know what it's like when you come and you just want to roll over and go to sleep and that selfish faggot in the bed next to you wants you to get them off, and you're doing everything in your power to do so. You're tweaking on one of their nipples like you're adjusting a broken knob, you're biting on the other one, you've got a couple of fingers up the ass, all the while jerking them off with your free foot, shouting, 'Shoot, baby! Shoot, baby! Shoot, baby! Shoot!' And it's not sex anymore, it's like Cirque du Soliel. 'Shoot, baby, shoot, oh, oh!' And you wish at that fucking moment an alien mother ship would come overhead, beam him up, jerk him off, and beam him back down again.But I tell you, people, aliens never abduct you when need them, it is, you know, true. Oh, your hands must be burning, all that dirty talk. So, a Jew, a Pollack and a fag go into a bar. No, I don't know what - how we doing? Is she ready?

Thank you very much to Macy's Department Store, Mayor Thomas Menino, Verizon, and all the other supporters of Pride Week. Boston really needed this. [end of June 2006 report by MassResistance]

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The Bay Windows story following the 2006 event (no longer online) read, in part:

"The six-time Drag Queen of the Year Award-winner from New York's HX magazine reached into her bag of tricks and pulled out what could only have been her nightclub act, which features jokes about stretched anal orifices, gay couples adopting Filipino babies and pop singer Jewel giving oral sex with a chipped tooth. After Hedda Lettuce had dropped more f-bombs than we could count, someone from backstage asked her to tone things down. And that's when Hedda blew her top and things got, well, entertaining.”

"Gender expression" defined in photos

"Gender expression" has not been defined, but may soon become a "civil right" in Massachusetts.

The pending Body Mutilation ("Transgender Rights") Bill declares it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of "gender identity or expression" yet fails to define either "gender identity" or "gender expression" in any meaningful way. (Likewise, the phrase "sexual orientation" remains undefined in the law.)

The inclusion of "expression" is heavy with implications on how this bill will play out. Whereas "orientation" and "identity" are states of mind, "expression" connotes ACTION, and guarantees that perversions will be protected when played out in the public sphere.

Soon, scenes such as those below will be unstoppable in public places ("public accommodations"). They will be considered a "civil right" to "gender expression." And as we've pointed out, GLAD is readying its defense for public sex acts. (Thanks to GLAD, pervs can already can do it in restrooms or behind the bushes in the Fens without worry of arrest.)

We see no need to warn anyone of the upsetting nature of these photos, since we'll all be seeing similar things in public within a few years. [Photos by MassResistance, except as noted.]

"Folsom East" street fair, New York City, June 21, 2009
[http://www.americansfortruth.org/]

Nudity at Boston Dyke March, June 2008

Men dressed as women, Transgender Pride, Northampton, Mass., June 14, 2008

Women proudly showing their breast removal scars, Transgender Pride, Northampton, Mass., June 14, 2008

"Gays" at Folsom East street fair, New York City, June 21, 2009

[http://www.americansfortruth.org/]

Sadomasochists with lashes cheered by crowd at Boston Pride, June 2008

None dare call him "Sissy": Mark Snyder (QueerToday) soaking up the rays at Randolph Country Club [from his blog]

Boston Pride celebrant in a public street, June 2009

[EdgeBoston photo]

Woman in kilt with breast removal scars and beard
at Transgender Pride, Northampton, Mass., June 14, 2008

Transsexual leader of BAGLY, "Grace" Sterling Stowell,

drawing children into the trans and sadomasochist world
[Bay Windows photo]

Young woman strutting her "manly" chest, Transgender Pride,
Northampton, Mass., June 14, 2008

Man or woman (?) in skirt with beard & mustache, Transgender Pride,
Northampton, Mass., June 14, 2008

Adam Shanahan (left), aka "Raquel Blake", & friends at Boston Pride, June 2008

Eugene Tan, aka "Becca d'Bus", reaching out to teens

at Mass. Youth Pride, May 2007

Queens at Boston Pride, June 2008

More queens at Boston pride, June 2008

How many new perversions ("identities") can they invent? Mass. Transgender Political Coalition T-shirt at Boston Pride, June 2008

Boston Parents' Paper Normalizing GLBT "Families" -- Part III

Is this OK with Boston Parents' Paper?

Back to the Boston Parents' Paper's promotion of "gay parenting" (see our Parts I and II). The sidebars on parental rights (p. 25) and parenting resources (p. 28) bring up some serious concerns.

1. Parents' rights in the schools: The sidebar (p.25) title, "In school, the subject of same-sex marriage is an issue of parental rights," is fair enough. But Evelyn Reilly of the Mass. Family Institute perhaps misspoke when she said the subject of homosexual marriage "shouldn't be shoved down the throats of parents. This is forced indoctrination." It's not the well-grounded parents who are being indoctrinated; it's the young school children.

Reilly mentions that children ideally need both a mother and a father. True. But she fails to mention that homosexual "parenting" puts children in direct touch with unhealthy practices as a valid role model for their own adult lives. Reilly said, "We have no adversity [sic; did she mean aversion?] toward homosexuals. We're just trying to protect marriage." Why protect marriage unless there's something wrong with homosexuality, and especially in this context, homosexual "parenting"?

Well, we do have an aversion toward those homosexuals who -- as "parents" to young children -- encourage them in a GLBT identity. Besides the questionable "love life" models they show their children, it's common for homosexual "parents" to include their children in unseemly adult events such as "Pride" parades. (See the popular homosexual "parenting" book, Gloria Goes to Gay Pride.)

We documented that Meg Soens, a leader of the GLBT extremists (attacking David Parker) in Lexington, was at Boston Pride with two of her young children in 2006. What did her boy learn there? He certainly saw the ManHunt.net float, which encourages anonymous sexual encounters. What did her young daughter learn there? She saw women with bare breasts riding motorcycles, and other women whose breasts had been surgically removed, dressed as "drag kings", and "tranny" parents. Is this the kind of good parenting the Parents' Paper is promoting?

See the paper by Real Women of Canada which points out these documented dangers inherent in "same-sex parented" households: higher incidence of domestic violence; higher incidence of mental health problems in parents; reduced life expectancy of parents; higher incidence of "same-sex orientation" in children; greater risk of sexual involvement with parents*; greater risk of social or psychological problems in the children; higher incidence of child molestation.**

See also Dawn Stefanowicz's web site. Dawn's childhood experiences with a homosexual father, who included her in his depraved and dangerous activities, are a warning to our too accepting society. (Her book is coming out in the fall.)

Parents' rights in the schools are not jeopardized only through "sex ed." "Family" topics of any sort should NOT even be discussed. No newly manufactured stories about Mommy & her boyfriend. No stories about two "daddies". No stories about divorce. No stories about Daddy undergoing sex-change surgery. No stories about Mommy's (or is it Daddy's?) collection of whips. No stories about "Daddy died." No stories about "Grandma's Alzheimer's."
Can't we just leave all this stuff out of the schools? Read classic literature instead. Keep it neutral, non-controversial. It's the old argument we've been putting forward for years: Return to academics, and leave the family therapy for families to deal with on their own. Schools -- and the government -- cannot solve these problems for our children. (It would be nice, however, if the schools didn't worsen things by assaulting our kids with sensitive, emotional materials -- and the government didn't create more problems by financial incentives for family dysfunction.)

2. Parenting Resources Sidebar (p. 28) How can any "parenting" guide that mentions Fenway Community Health and PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians & Gays) be taken seriously?

Fenway Community Health Center is the group that passed out the Little Black Book to teenagers at the GLSEN Boston Conference in 2005 at Brookline High School. Fenway runs ads in the Boston "gay" newspaper seeking practitioners of "barebacking" anal intercourse -- for "tops and bottoms" -- to take part in HIV drug tests. They send bizarre "entertainers" to the Fens anonymous sex cruising grounds to hand out anal lubricants and condoms. (Some of their advice: "Safer sex is not necessarily about wrapping yourself in latex until no part of you is exposed. Although some people may find this appealing, for many people it comes across as a complete turn-off. So what else can you do?"... read more. And check out their Dr. Cox.) This is a "parenting" resource?

PFLAG bills itself as a group that supports parents whose children "come out" as G L B or T. (Are you ready for your teenage daughter to tell you she wants her breasts removed? If not, PFLAG will help you!) PFLAG is pushing hard for homosexualizing and transgenderizing your children. (See their pamphlet, "Our Trans Children.")They do teacher and counselor training and "GLBT pride days" in our public schools promoting homosexuality and transgenderism. We've drawn attention to their more secretive Transcending Boundaries conference which also promotes transsexuality, poly sexuality and "families" (multiple partner relationships), BDSM (whips & chains), and now hormone-blocking injections to pre-pubescent "transgender children" (making their later transitioning surgery less complicated). PFLAG also has a "straight spouse group"! (We think this means a spouse whose opposite-sex spouse is actively bisexual? So their child is seeing who knows what in the home?) This is a "parenting" resource?

From Real Women of Canada report:
*According to a study published in Adolescence, 29% of the adult children of homosexual parents have been specifically subjected to sexual molestation as a child by a homosexual parent, compared to only 0.6 percent of adult children of heterosexual parents.These findings were confirmed in a study published in the American Sociological Review.
**Proportionately, homosexual men are more inclined to child molestation than heterosexual men.According to American studies, the evidence indicates that homosexual men molest boys and teenagers at rates completely disproportionate to the rates at which heterosexual men molest girls. A study shows that the homosexual child molester accounts for approximately 7 times more victims than the heterosexual molester. When it comes to child sex abuse, men are almost always the perpetrator. Less than 3% of the population is homosexual, yet one-third of the sex abuse cases are committed again boys.

Shame on Gov. Deval Patrick

Watch this video of Governor Deval Patrick mingling with the crowds after he marched in the Pride parade on Saturday. Then he posed for a picture by the BAGLY banner. He did promise during the campaign to do whatever the homosexuals and transsexuals wanted.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3413868453541066974&hl=en

Polluted Streets of Boston Pride

(c) 2007 MassResistance

Left: At "Boston Dyke March". Does D.O.E. stand for Department of Education?
Right: "Transwoman" looking his best.

Here are some of the proud participants in "Boston Pride" this past weekend. There were many children on the parade route who viewed this -- most were probably children of "GLBT parents".

If you don't like this, take it up with Mayor Thomas Menino and Governor Deval Patrick.

Boston Pride Official Participants: All-Out Assault on Decency

Here is an index of the groups assaulting our community today at the Boston Pride parade. Will the elementary and pre-schools have their little children marching alongside adults of unknown character? What are hospitals and health care companies doing on the list (Beth Israel, Dana Farber, Tufts Health)? From Boston Pride's web site:

Boston Pride Parade Participants 2007 (as of June 4)
All The Kings Men -- Animal Rescue League of Boston -- Arlington Street Church -- Atrium School -- Auburndale, United Parish -- Avalon Night Club -- Backyard Productions -- Barrios Committee -- Bay State Stonewall Democrats -- Bay Windows -- Bedford, First Parish -- Belmont Gay Straight Alliance Committee -- Bentley College -- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center -- BGLANTS, GLBT Students at Andover Newton Theological School -- Bisexual Resource Center -- Boston Derby Dames -- Boston Gay Men's Chorus -- Boston Living Center -- Boston Prime Timers -- Boston, First Church of -- Braintree, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church -- Cambridge Friends School -- Cambridge Health Alliance -- Cambridge, First Parish Unitarian Universalist -- Cambridge, The City of -- Chiltern Mountain Club -- Colage of Greater Boston -- Concord, First Parish -- Coro Allegro -- Dana Farber -- Delta Air Lines -- Dignity Boston -- Donor Pride, Inc -- East Coast Biker Chicks Motorcycle Club -- Ellis South End Neighborhood Association -- Emmanuel Church -- Episcopal Dioscese of MA -- Fagbug -- Femmes & Allies -- Fenway Community Health -- FLAG Flag Football -- Franklin, First Unitarian Church -- Freedom Trail Band -- Frontrunners Boston -- Gay Fathers of Greater Boston -- Gay Men's Domestice Violence Project -- Gay Officers Action League -- Gays for Patsy -- GLAD (Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders) -- GLBT Youth Network -- GLSEN -- Greater Boston PFLAG -- Greater Lynn, UU Church -- Groton, First Parish Church -- Harbor To The Bay -- Hub Plumbing & Mechanical Inc -- In Newsweekly -- Independent Pagans of New England -- Ironside Rugby Football Club -- K Street Facilities -- Keshet -- KinshipLanes-Liquid Assets New England Swimming -- Latin American Health Institute -- Lexington Montessori School -- LGBT Aging Project -- Liz Malia [State Rep.] -- MA Conference (UCC) -- Machine Nightclub -- Malden, First Parish -- Map For Health -- MAPS -- MassEquality -- Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition -- Metropolitan Community Church of Boston -- Michael F Flaherty (Boston City Council) -- Michael Ross, Boston City Council -- Mike Cottei, Committee to Elect -- Moving Violations Motorcycle Club -- Multicultural AIDS Coalition-State Emergency Initiative -- Network Health -- Network La Red -- New England Leather Alliance -- Newton, First Unitarian Society -- North Andover-North Parish of Interweave UU -- Now Greater Boston -- Old South Church in Boston -- Ole [Older Lesbian Energy] -- Phoenix -- Pine Village Preschool -- Queer Soup Inc -- Ramrod -- Rhode Island Pride Committee -- Sam Yoon, Committee to Elect -- Seacost Gay Men, Inc. -- Sexual Orientations United With Pride -- Sidney Borum Jr. Health Center/JRI -- Sidney Frank Importing Co. Inc. (Jagermeister) -- Social Justice Committe-Wellsley Hills Unitarian Church -- Somos Latinos -- Sovereign Bank -- Speak Out -- Starbucks -- Stonewall Communities -- Stow & Acton, First Parish -- Sudbury, First Parish UU -- Team Enterprises, USA -- Theatre Offensive -- Tim Schofield, Commttiee to Elect -- TJX Companies -- Tobin Committee (Boston City Councillor) -- Tufts Health Plan -- United Here Local 26 -- Verizon -- Voices Rising -- Waltham, First Presbyterian Church -- Wellesley Friends Meeting -- Weston, First Parish Church -- Winchester Unitarian Society -- Women Meeting Women -- Yale Appliance & Lighting

"GLBT Holocaust Commemoration" Tonight

Tonight, the Boston Pride festival held its "GLBT Holocaust commemoration" as part of their week-long bacchanal. We doubt they were handing out copies of The Pink Swastika -- because it debunks the "gay" myth that homosexuals were a major target of the Nazis in the same manner as the Jews and Gypsies. The commemoration was at Boston's Holocaust Memorial near Faneuil Hall, close by lots of great bars.

See Scott Lively & Kevin Abrams, The Pink Swastika (available online). From their Preface:

[The book contradicts] the common portrayal of homosexuals as exclusively victims of the Nazi regime. For this reason we were scrupulous in our documentation of homosexuals as the true inventors of Nazism and the guiding force behind many Nazi atrocities. We purposefully drew heavily upon homosexual writers and historians for our source material and used direct quotations from their writings whenever possible. The remainder of our sources are primarily mainstream historians of the Nazi era. ...

In the [pre-"politically-correct"] 1960s, Nazi homosexuality was so widely acknowledged in America (at least among the “social elites”) that the portrayal of Nazi thugs as homosexual was a frequent occurrence in Hollywood movies. One of the best examples is in Exodus (United Artists, 1960), the film adaptation of the Leon Uris novel about the creation of the State of Israel after World War II. In the film, actor Sal Mineo, playing a young man attempting to join the Irgun (the Jewish underground movement), fails to convince Irgun leaders that he is a genuine Nazi concentration camp survivor. Finally they are convinced — only when he breaks down and confesses that the Nazi guards “used me as a woman.” To the Irgun, this was definitive proof that he had been a Nazi prisoner.

Allen Ginsberg, the homosexual “beat” poet was asked by a Justice of the Supreme Court in 1966 (during an obscenity trial related to the book Naked Lunch, by William Borroughs) whether at “some time in the future there will be a political party, for instance, made up of homosexuals.” Ginsberg replied, saying “this has already happened in a sense -- or of sex perverts -- and we can point to Hitler, Germany under Hitler” (The New York Times, August 10, 1997).

These are but two examples which reveal the extent to which homosexuality was openly associated with Nazism in the past.

Corporate Sponsors of "Gay" Porn at Boston Pride

When Boston officials and corporations celebrate "Pride Week", what exactly are they celebrating? Here's one answer: "gay" pornography. Yesterday, Borders Bookstore in Downtown Crossing held a book signing. This event appears on the official Boston Pride calendar. The book: Hard -- a pornographic chronicle of the sexual adventures of a young "gay" male in New York City.

Are Mayor Menino and the executives at all the Boston Pride sponsors receiving promotional copies of Hard? Are they enjoying the porn, as in this online excerpt? This trashy book is so bad we can't show the cover or print this excerpt. But we encourage you to follow the links, and see what's really being celebrated this week.

Who are the government, agency, and corporate sponsors of Boston Pride who celebrate this book?
Mayor Thomas Menino
Boston City Council/City of Boston
Macy's (lead sponsor of AIDS Walk)
Borders Bookstore
Bank of America
Delta
Wainwright Bank
Verizon
Hyatt Regency Boston
Stoli Vodka
Budweiser
Boston Volvo Village
Spirit Boston
Mix 98.5 FM
Orbitz
Hotels.com
Dowtown Crossing Association
Jurys Boston Hotel
Amtrak
Faneuil Hall Marketplace
Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Center
Zipcar
Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism

Radical GLBT Activists Not Into Military Fetish

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Boston Pride's Sex Offender Says His Crimes Just His "Personal Life"

So, things have actually worked out for the best on the Boston Pride Sex Offender scandal. If we had reported Boston Pride committeeman Bill Berggren's criminal history before Weekly Dig got it out, we may never had heard the responses from Pride officials and some in the "gay" community -- that his criminal record was no big deal. After all, the Pride people wouldn't give us interviews! So now we have the Weekly Dig and Bay Windows quotes we wouldn't have had otherwise.

Read Mr. Berggren's resignation letter (below) carefully. Note his attempt to cast his CRIMINAL record as just part of his "personal life". No, Mr. Berggren, what you do in your bedroom -- with teenagers, with pornography involving young people -- is NOT just a private affair. It is exploitation of underage children, and therefore communally recognized as harmful to society. It is therefore PUBLIC business. That's what being convicted of a crime means: a violation of society's standards. Maybe you didn't have a public audience while the activity was going on, but that doesn't mean that activity was just "personal".

Unless one escapes to some little island pederast paradise, one must accept the fact that society recognizes the criminality of certain sex offenses. And once one is convicted of sexual offenses, he has no "privacy" concerning that conviction. Does Mr. Berggren's state of denial tell us he's still not accepting society's standards? Remember that this man also holds a high position at the "gay" newspaper, In NewsWeekly, so is still in a very high-impact public position. The Dig reported: "Berggren, who is officially classified as a Level 2 offender (“moderate” risk of re-offending), doesn’t feel his record is an issue.

Bill Berggren resigns from Pride Committee
by Lissa Harris
Weekly Dig 5/24/2007

Boston Pride fundraising committee chair Bill Berggren resigned voluntarily from his position, in response to an article we ran yesterday that highlighted his criminal history and current status as a registered sex offender. From the Weekly Dig:

Here’s what Berggren had to say:
“I’m a little disappointed. I’ve never hidden anything about my life … I have a lot of support in the community. My phone has been ringing all day long with people telling me not to resign. But I feel at this time it’s the best thing for the community,” he told Bay Windows.

And here’s his resignation letter:
“To: The Board of Directors, Boston Pride Committee
May 23, 2007
Dear Members of the Board:
It is with a heavy heart that I am submitting my resignation as fundraising chair of Boston Pride. The resignation is effective immediately.
My resignation comes in the wake of a malicious attempt to bring my personal life into the public sphere. This has precipitated a hasty judgment from some members of the community, and I anticipate the enemies of Pride will seize this opportunity to attack the organization. In order to protect Boston Pride from unnecessary attacks two weeks before Pride Week, I am quickly stepping aside.
This is not an easy decision, but I feel that the message and spirit of Pride is more important than any one individual. I hope members of the community and the media will accept this matter as closed and continue to enjoy Pride as we all intended it. I also hope and ask for my privacy to be respected during this time.
Sincerely, Bill Berggren”

Boston Pride Board Member Outed as Sex Offender

We were informed of this a few months ago, and unfortunately The Weekly Dig beat us to the punch reporting it: The head of fundraising for Boston Pride, Bill Berggren is a convicted sex offender. He's also associate publisher of In NewsWeekly, a Boston "gay" publication. Yesterday, Boston Pride accepted Berggren's resignation from their organizing committee. But they also had no problem with his criminal record!

See the Weekly Dig, "Pride and Prejudice -- Sense and Sensibility? Not So Much" (5-23-07).

Berggren also has a long rap sheet. In 1998, he was convicted on child pornography possession charges, after a search of his Wakefield business by US Customs officials and local police. A story about the conviction in the Wakefield Daily Item reports that in 1991, Berggren also pled guilty to indecent assault against a 19-year-old. In 1985, he was found guilty of showing pornography to six teenagers. He was also found guilty on 10 counts of providing alcohol to a minor. Clearly, this stuff would be volatile information in the hands of someone like Brian Camenker... [ironically, we did have the info, just hadn't gotten it out yet -- but it's out now!] ...

Berggren, who is officially classified as a Level 2 offender (“moderate” risk of re-offending), doesn’t feel his record is an issue. “Everything I am doing is 18-plus events,” he says, tersely. “They know who I am, they know what I’ve done, and they appreciate my work. I have nothing to hide.”

Berggren’s history is clearly no secret in the volunteer circles in which he runs. “He’s not really secretive about it. A lot of people know,” says Keri Aulita, vice president of the Boston Pride board. “Their competitive paper could have broken it a long time ago.”

“It is a concern, but it is a concern everybody is aware of and everybody has addressed,” says Joblin Younger, who serves on the board of directors of the Friends of the Commission on GLBT Youth and is a former member of the Boston Pride Committee. “And it’s very seriously taken into consideration what situations Bill is allowed to be in.”

Boston Pride has contracted with the Human Rights Campaign to run criminal offender record information (CORI) and sex-offender record information (SORI) checks of all volunteers working in family areas. Sex offenders aren’t allowed. But it’s not a perfect system.

In part, the Boston Pride board’s policymaking comes in response to a 2005 incident in San Diego, when a conservative activist [James Hartline, ex-homosexual, now Christian activist, living with AIDS] ran the names of all the Pride volunteers through the sex-offender registry database and came up with a couple of matches. The resulting brouhaha brought a firestorm of unwelcome attention down on the event, and eventually, the Pride Committee acted to bar all people convicted of crimes against youth from volunteering.

Interviews with former and current Pride volunteers made it clear that the organization doesn’t consider Berggren’s sex-offender status an issue. The consensus is that he’s up-front about his history, he’s served his time and he doesn’t need reminding to stay away from the under-18 crowd.

That said: If Boston Pride thinks his position doesn’t reflect badly on Pride, on Boston and on the gay community at large, they’re in serious denial.

Bay Windows also ran this piece: "Bill Berggren resigns from Pride Committee" (4-25-07).

The Dig, quoting a 1998 report published in The Wakefield Daily Item, highlighted Berggren’s past run-ins with the law, including a 1998 conviction for possession of child pornography, a 1991 guilty plea to indecent assault on a 19-year-old and a 1985 conviction for possession of pornographic material with the intent to distribute it to minors. ...

Berggren told Bay Windows that he was “disappointed” by the fallout from the Dig article, but he chose to resign for the good of Boston Pride. He said the Pride Committee knew about his offenses, and he never made any effort to hide them.“I’m a little disappointed. I’ve never hidden anything about my life … I have a lot of support in the community. My phone has been ringing all day long with people telling me not to resign. But I feel at this time it’s the best thing for the community,” said Berggren, who in addition to his fundraising work also served as coordinator for the Boston Pride Idol competition. Berggren is associate publisher of In Newsweekly.