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:

Press release by Christian Civic League of Maine (1-25-10).

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.

Another Call for Kevin Jennings Ouster as "Safe Schools Czar"

"Degrading Sex, Government Style"

By Helen M. Alvare, J.D., 

Senior Fellow in Law, 

Culture of Life Foundation

… President Obama is under fire for moving too slowly to champion homosexual rights, in the view of leading voices on the left. The appointment of a “czar” like Kevin Jennings is one way in which President Obama can ensure the influence of homosexual-rights-activists in important places – like our nation’s public schools – without the president’s having to pass a law, or even hold a Congressional hearing, both of which might generate public attention and opposition.  That Jennings’ influence in the Department of Education might promote the early or inappropriate sexualization of children is apparently not as important as what Jennings’ appointment might do in the way of smoothing relations between President Obama and the Human Rights Campaign.

In the case of the 2000 and 2001 sex education workshops sponsored in part by the Massachusetts state education establishment, the state partnered with GLSEN and with Planned Parenthood (known usually as the nations’ largest abortion provider), which provided the actual fisting “kits” available to participants.  Both of these groups are clearly outside the “mainstream” of adults’ thinking and behavior about human sexuality and respect for human life and dignity.  When states offer taxpayer dollars to private “partners” for carrying out state programs, the identity of these partners matters a lot.

Groups like Planned Parenthood, GLSEN, or another frequent government partner – SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the U.S) -- have little in common with the average American’s beliefs about sexual morality.  For such groups, the body is a tool, an object to be managed to maximize physical pleasure while minimizing disease and pregnancy.  The materials they publish for adolescents can only be described as depressing and dehumanizing.  Watchdog groups and citizens are vitally necessary in order to expose these groups, and the government programs and bureaucrats who would partner with them. 

One of the outcomes of the current tempest over Kevin Jennings should be his ouster.  But surely another should be a demand that the government get out and stay out of the business of instructing our children about human sexuality in ways that degrade them specifically as children, and also as human beings. [Emphasis added.]

See also:

“LAWYER DECRIES CHOICE OF US SAFE SCHOOLS ‘CZAR’; Denounces Agenda of Sexualizing Children” (Zenit, 1-12-10)

A consultor to the Vatican's laity council is protesting U.S. President Barack Obama's chosen "safe schools czar," Kevin Jennings, due to his history of promoting homosexuality, especially to young people. … She expressed concern regarding recent revelations about the career history of Jennings …

Is GLSEN "Grooming" Children for Sexual Exploitation?

Marcia Segelstein had an excellent summary piece yesterday on Kevin Jennings and GLSEN’s corrupting materials. She helps clarify what GLSEN is really up to in the schools. From , “Obama's un-safe schools czar” at OneNewsNow:

This is protecting students?  From what?  Growing up emotionally and psychologically healthy?  This is homosexual pornography, but it would be as appalling and inappropriate if it were heterosexual pornography.  This isn't about preventing bullying.  This is about the sexualization of children.


Which brings me to the subject of "grooming."  The Child Sexual Exploitation Update 2004, Vol. 1, No. 3, published on the website of the National District Attorneys Association, offers this definition:  "'Grooming' is the term used to describe the process by which child molesters build trust with the child to transition from a nonsexual relationship to a sexual relationship in a manner that seems natural and non-threatening....

Child molesters use both adult pornography and child pornography in the grooming process.... Repeated exposure to both adult and child pornography is intended to diminish the child's inhibitions..."
 


"Grooming" has traditionally been thought of as something done by individuals.  But isn't there an argument to be made that GLSEN, by advocating that children be exposed to sexually explicit material, is guilty of "grooming" school children on an institutional scale?

Kevin Jennings Funded “Gay" Prize at Harvard; Helped Radicalize University

“Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings has gone beyond corrupting and radicalizing K-12 school children through his organization GLSEN. He also convinced the useful idiots at Harvard University to put that institution’s imprimatur on his sexual radicalism at the college level.

In 2007, Jennings established a senior thesis prize fund at Harvard University with his “partner” Jeff Davis. The “Eugene Cummings Prize … will go to the undergraduate who has done the most outstanding scholarship on LGBT issues in the university that year, and that will forever keep the memory of Mr. Cummings alive in this university.” … “The [$1,500] prize will be awarded at the Women, Gender, and Sexuality end-of-year party in May.
left: Kevin Jennings [photo: Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus]

The prize name comes from a Harvard dental school student, Eugene Cummings, who committed suicide in 1920 after the administration had expelled him -- as Jennings tells it --over his homosexuality. Cummings was “denied” his “opportunit[y] for self-expression.” The 2009 prize was awarded for a senior thesis titled "On the Surface: Conceptualizing Gender and Subjectivity in Chinese Lesbian Culture."

The Harvard Gay and Lesbian Caucus (HGLC) gave Jennings their “Respect Award” in 2007. He announced the prize fund at that awards dinner. (See the video here.) The group credits him with leading the fight to get the gay students’ rights bill passed in Massachusetts. He is also described as a leader in radicalizing Harvard University, organizing the first “open” reunion events specifically for GLBT alumni.

The speaker introducing Jennings says:

Kevin and GLSEN nevertheless led a successful effort in Massachusetts to make Massachusetts the first state to outlaw discrimination against public school students on the basis of sexual orientation. In 1993, they helped establish a program called “Safe Schools” for gay and lesbian students. Kevin became GLSEN’s first executive director in 1995 and has built it into an established national organization with a presence in all 50 states and strong support from the education establishment, including the National Education Association. …

He served as the 1997 HGLC co-chair, was keynote speaker at our 2000 dinner, and organized our LGBT events for his class’s tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth reunions. …

But most importantly, Kevin has changed the face of American education. He’s made it possible for an entire generation of LGBT students and educators to learn and to work in safer schools and to be who they are.

In his HGLC speech (transcript here), Jennings urges his audience to donate to MassEquality and their “gay marriage” cause. (At that time, MassEquality had also announced the “transgender rights” bill as a priority).

Now, before I launch into my remarks, which are actually prepared and outlined, one of my former students from Concorde [sic] Academy, Liz Pinsky, or as I should now call her, Dr. Elizabeth Pinsky, who is seated right here, is probably like wow, Kevin always just pulled it out of his ass when he taught, but he actually has an outline this time. Before I do that, I want to make an unpaid and unsolicited political advertisement. 

This is the Mass. Equality envelope. Pick it up! I don’t even live in this state, but I can tell you as a national LGBT leader this: if we lose the right to marry in Massachusetts, we will not have the right to marry anywhere in America in my lifetime. You must fill this out with however much you can put on it. If it’s ten, if it’s a hundred, if it’s $1,000, if it’s $10,000, fill it out and do what I’m doing and hand it to Robin before you leave. [emphasis added]

Jennings is in foul company with other HGLC awardees. In 2002, they gave porn promoter Frank Kameny their achievement award. The bio at HGLC refers to Kameny’s heroic past, including his arrest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, “a popular gay cruising area.” (Maybe it would have been less heroic at a highway rest stop?)  Kameny started the D.C. chapter of the Mattachine Society, founded by NAMBLA supporter Harry Hay. Kameny “was instrumental in getting the American Psychological Association to declare that homosexuality is not a mental illness.” He was a founder of the extremist National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, which promotes sexual sadomasochism.  “In 1998 in one of his most recent protests, during a gay radio program on an Alexandria radio station, Frank solicited the entire adult population of the state of Virginia to engage in sodomy with him …”

In 2005, HGLC gave Alice Wolf, far-left radical State Representative and former mayor of Cambridge, their “Ally for Justice” award. She has carried water for every anti-family cause imaginable, including Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and MassEquality.

Also at Harvard, Jennings’ funded a museum exhibit (including pornographic materials) celebrating the radical group ACT UP. (Jennings was himself a member of ACT UP.)

Over-the-top activism at Harvard University by GLBT activists profoundly hurts us traditionalists with ties to the University. In its support of sexual radicalism, Harvard seems to have a death wish, buying into destructive trends that undermine the Judeo-Christian values upon which it was founded. Jennings is just one of those activists.

AFA Report 2001: GLSEN Links Children to Dangerous Websites and Adults

Time to reread one of the best summaries we’ve seen on what Kevin Jennings’ GLSEN and other homosexual activist groups are actually doing in the schools. Ed Vitagliano wrote this in 2001 in the American Family Association Journal.

Targeting Kids; Part Three: Activists Encouraging Experimentation

(American Family Association, AFA Journal, May 2001.)  
EXCERPTS:

What do kids find when they access the homosexual activist groups provided as resources by the [school] pamphlet? … [In Seattle,] GLSEN’s home page was an Internet doorway into every sort of pro-homosexual venue imaginable.

One GLSEN link, for example, was to a website that welcomed young people “who are searching out their sexual orientation.” It asked young visitors, “Do you feel that you might be bisexual, gay, or lesbian? This is the place for you.” (Emphasis added by Vitagliano.)

What important information was provided to these young people? Pictures of naked same-sex teenagers embracing, a homosexual dating service where gay youth could find “partners or friends of the same sexual orientation,” and chat rooms where homosexual youth could meet others.

… other perversions accessible from GLSEN’s web page included homosexual pornography, stories which included same-sex incestuous acts between fathers and sons, videos on sadomasochism, and listings for phone sex and live sex shows. Also available were free images showing naked men, genitalia, and oral sex acts.”

Thus young people, who may truly be confused about their sexuality or simply curious, are literally “funneled” from schools through supposedly protective activist groups into the world of the homosexual lifestyle. And once there, susceptible children can be lured into homosexual pornography, same-sex friendships and, ultimately, participation in homosexual activity. …

“Fresh meat” for homosexual adults

But experimentation among teens and their peers is not the only concern for parents. Teens confused about their sexuality often consummate their first same-sex experience with an older homosexual, and statistics demonstrate that such first sexual experiences are a powerful force for molding sexual identity.

Journalist David Lipsky spent nine months traveling the U.S. and interviewing homosexual teenagers about their lifestyles, culminating in an article written for Rolling Stone. Although the tone of Lipsky’s article was sympathetic to homosexual youth, one of the things he found was a fluid interaction between homosexuals of different ages.

In Altanta, for example, Lipsky said, “Young gay life functions as a kind of adjunct to adult gay life, with a lot of back-and-forth slippage.” There is even a lexicon of terms that describe the sexual interplay between adults and young homosexuals. One of those terms is “chicken hawk,” which describes adult male homosexuals who try to have sex with teens who have just come out of the closet – who are thus “chickens,” or “fresh meat.” …

Kevin Jennings: President of Board of Radical "Tectonic Theater Project"

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” is President of the Board of the Tectonic Theater Project (according to his Education Department bio).

 

This is the production company behind the insidious GLBT propaganda play, “The Laramie Project,” which exploits the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard as a “hate crime” and leads kids directly to groups promoting GLBT causes. It is performed in high schools and colleges across the country. Tectonic also produces other plays focusing on homosexuality and transgenderism.

In 2007, MassResistance published a detailed report on the dangers in “The Laramie Project” when it was about to be performed at a high school in Acton, Massachusetts. The school board, high school principal, and drama director fell right in line with GLSEN’s tactics and phraseology. The play’s director said,

The play is a powerful contemporary drama about hate -- what it can do to a student, a family, a town and a nation. It details how a community dealt with a tragedy and asks the hard questions "are the seeds of hate here, could this happen here?" The answer is yes, it could happen here. This play is meant to help people think about their attitudes, not only toward gays, but also to any group that experiences prejudice. There is prejudice here [in this high school]…

The high school principal said,

I understand that there may be differences regarding “The Laramie Project”; however, the administration at all levels supports the performance of the play at Acton-Boxborough this fall. We believe that the play encourages us to consider how the seeds of intolerance in a community can lead to violence. We support the safety and rights of all staff and students at Acton-Boxborough, including our GLBT members, and we expect the Acton-Boxborough community to do the same. Such support is essential to ensure a safe teaching and learning environment for all.

Our 2007 report commented:

This implies that there are community members not likely to support the safety and rights of everyone, and the principal lectures the critical members of the community that they’re not behaving properly by complaining. Are complaints about the play “intolerance” or “seeds of intolerance”?

From our report on “The Laramie Project” in 2007:

“I always say, don’t f**k with a Wyoming queer, cause they will kick you in your f**king ass.” -- “Matt was a blunt little sh*t” --“sh*t outta luck” -- “a freakin’ nightmare” -- “I was just bullsh*ttin around with my sh*t” -- “I was in deep-ass sand” – “they better watch their f**kin ass” -- “pi**ed him off” -- “good to be with people who felt like sh*t” -- “why’d you f**k up like that” – “he tried to grab my d**k” …

These are direct quotes from “The Laramie Project” – the fall play at Acton-Boxborough Regional High School, set to run the first two weekends in November. The play’s director says it has literary merit “worth six months of production time.” Certainly, it will teach students it’s OK to talk like this.

The school recommends the play for audiences “age 13 and above,” but it’s actually unsuitable for any audience. The play’s foul language is just one problem. It is also horribly violent, promotes homosexuality as normal, and undermines many parents’ values and authority. It manipulates the audience’s emotions through the language, violence, and blatant misrepresentations of Christians.

“The Laramie Project” exploits the savage 1998 murder of homosexual college student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming for radical political ends. A jumbled compilation of interviews with Laramie residents, it is sorely lacking as drama — but effective as propaganda. The play essentially blames the murder on those holding traditional values. (A report from ABC News “20/20” in 2004 showed the killers were actually drug-using thugs intent on robbery. But the audience never learns this.) … 

(For more of our report, see here and here. For quotes from the play and study materials given to students, go here.)

GLBT activists and GLSEN advocate the use of school drama programs to push their agenda. At the GLSEN-Boston “Beyond Boundaries” conference in 2004, for example, one of the workshops was entitled “Using Theater as a Way to Explore GLBT Issues in Schools.”

Tectonic also produced “Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde,” a play focusing on that author’s involvement in sodomy. “The Laramie Project” study materials given to teens in Acton led them to this play and the issue of sodomy laws. Another of Tectonic’s productions, “I Am My Own Wife,” is about “the life of Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, a transvestite who survived both the Nazi and Communist governments in twentieth-century Berlin.”

Kevin Jennings: Anyone Who Disagrees with Him Is Immoral "Child Abuser"

Whether or not any of Kevin Jennings’ claims of GLBT student victimhood are true – and GLSEN is expert at fabricating statistics -- note how Jennings swivels to assign the hate of the harassers to anyone who disagrees with his and GLSEN’s methods of pushing all things homosexual and transgender (including X-rated books and materials) at students in the schools. Anyone who disagrees with him – even if they accept his cause as genuine and/or sincere – is now a “hater” and "immoral". And any adult who teaches that homosexuality is immoral or dangerous is a “child abuser”.

Jennings is a very angry man -- not an appropriate temperament for a Department of Education official.  Here is Kevin Jennings in his own words, reacting to a letter from a cousin (reprimanding him for his "immoral" homosexuality and GLSEN activities). From Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son (2006, Epilogue, pp. 260-262):

I’m not the evil one here. And neither is anyone associated with GLSEN.

So let’s talk about moral values. It says in I John 4:20, “If a man says he loves God, and hates his brother, he is a liar.” Four out of five LGBT students are physically, sexually, or verbally harassed every single day at their schools. They are over twice as likely as their straight peers to be hreatened or injured with a weapon. Consequently, they are six times more likely to attempt suicide than their straight peers. [emphasis in original]

We’re trying to protect [LGBT students] from that [harassment, violence, suicide]. To do so is the only moral choice.

To do anything else is immoral. As it says in Matthew 18:6, "Whosoever shall offend one of these little ones … it were better for him that a millstone were hung about his neck, and that he be drowned in the depths of the sea." I’m becoming something of an avenging angel in my middle age – more Old Testament prophet than New, I’m afraid. I’m not about to cede the moral high ground to people who claim they’re "protecting children while actively working to deny them protections if they are gay. I am not about to allow people to say they are for "family values" when they teach values that turn parents against their own children if they are gay. I am not about to let people claim they are American patriots when they teach children to violate their pledge of allegiance to "liberty and justice for all" if a fellow citizen happens to be gay. I am not about to let people call themselves Christian who then ignore the commandment of the Lord that we love one another. And I’m not going to let them hide behind that "love the sinner, hate the sin" malarkey, which reminds me way too much of how my dad would say, before spanking us, "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it’s going to hurt you.” I didn’t fall for it at age five, and I’m not falling for it now. As Mom would have said, “No siree, Bob.” My capacity for forgiveness has been exhausted: I can’t turn the other cheek anymore. Instead, I’m trying to figure out how I can carry millstones around with me. If I do, I know where to hang them.

This, in the end, is the essence of the difference between good and evil, the test of a just society and of a just people: how do we treat those who are the least among us? ... To create by one’s action or inaction a culture, an institution, a school, or a community that makes some young people feel so much the very least of their brethren that they choose to take their own lives – well, I have a name for the people who do this: child abusers. They’re the immoral ones, … not me, and for their sake, I hope there exists a merciful God, because they’re going to need one.

Hmm... "how do we treat those who are the least among us?"  What is Mr. Jennings' position on abortion, we wonder?

To Little Green Snotballs: Credible Evidence of Kevin Jennings' Malfeasance

MediaMatters' useful idiots continue to deny damning evidence of “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings’ history of malfeasance. They never deal with the evidence presented, but fall back on name-calling. MassResistance -- and now Gateway Pundit -- are tagged bigoted, homophobic, hate group, not credible, etc.

We challenge Little Green Snotballs to actually look at the evidence and tell us what exactly is not credible here:

•      Audio from the GLSEN-Boston Fistgate workshop in 2000 (where Jennings was keynote speaker), discussing fisting, anal beads, and sadomasochism with minor children.
•      GLSEN’s and Jennings’ recommended reading lists of porny books for kids.
•      Packets of perverted sex paraphernalia handed out to kids at GLSEN conferences (in 2000 and 2001).
•      Pamphlets on how a “phallic woman” should put on a condom.
•      Pamphlets showing a gloved fist pointing at a woman’s naked private parts, with instructions on proper use of latex gloves (fisting), and dental dams (oral sex) for any orifice.
•      Pornographic guide on how to “safely” engage in sodomy, fisting, rimming, and “water sports” (Little Black Book).
•      Instructions on how transgenders inject opposite-sex hormones.
•      Leather bar directories handed out at various GLSEN conferences.
•      Jennings’ and GLSEN’s lesson plans for high schoolers celebrating cruising for sex as a civil right, and “gay pioneer” porn practitioners and advocates.

The only explanation of Little Green Snotball’s denial defense of Jennings and GLSEN is that he himself sees nothing wrong with any of these activities, or instructing minor children how to join in. 

Very Angry “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings’ Fantasy: Water Torture for Opponents

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” is proud of his anger. We’ve already noted his membership in that very angry group, ACT/UP (and his recent funding of a pornographic exhibit celebrating ACT/UP at Harvard). So it's not surprising that he wrote of his profound anger at that time in his memoir, Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son (2006). 

Jennings reprints his last chapel talk at the private school where he taught through 1993 (Concord Academy):

I tried witnessing one last time to help them [the students] understand what the world looked like from where I sat [as homosexual]. “This, most likely, is my last chapel, as my life’s course will soon be taking me out of the Boston area. I decided I would speak to you about an emotion with which I have often been closely associated during my years hear. That emotion is anger. ‘I know the anger that lies inside me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be angry than to hurt…. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning.’ When I first heard these words, written by the black lesbian poet Audre Lorde, I experienced a shock of recognition. Anger is an emotion I experience daily as a gay man in a homophobic society…. [Re: the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, ‘with liberty and justice for all’] I became angry as I came to understand that those words were not true, and I plan to stay angry until that pledge is fulfilled.” (pp. 207-208)

He also wrote of the effect a youth’s suicide on him, as he was taking his group GLSEN national (in the mid-1990s). He fantasized about water torture for anyone who disagreed with his plan to “queer” the schools:

“I started thinking that I needed to view every lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender child as if they [sic] were my children and fight for them as ferociously as parents like Leslie [the mother of a boy who had committed suicide] had fought for theirs. This responsibility made me want to grab by the throat every timid administrator, every equivocating school board member, all of whom did nothing, and hold their heads under water until they begged for mercy and promised they’d protect my kids. I lost my patience for their excuses because of Robbie [the boy who had committed suicide].  (p. 224; emphasis in original)

Mass. Safe Schools Program Directors Admitted Explicit Queer Sex Ed Needed for Kids

The question continues to be asked: Would “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings have expected the explicit content in the GLSEN Fistgate fisting workshop?

The DOE employees who led that GLSEN-Boston workshop in 2000 worked for Jeff Perrotti and Kim Westheimer, the program directors and coordinators for the “Safe Schools” program in the Massachusetts DOE since its inception in 1993. Perrotti and Westheimer published a book in 2001, When the Drama Club Is Not Enough; Lessons from the Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian Students. They tell about the early days of the program.

In 1993, shortly after Kevin Jennings’ Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee report was released, and the state Board of Education unanimously adopted four out of five of his recommendations, the Commission:

… lobbied government officials to fund the Safe Schools Program for Gay and Lesbian students at the Massachusetts DOE. In its first year, the program provided teacher trainings, resource materials, and grant money to schools to help them implement the Board of Education Recommendations. …

The Massachusetts Safe Schools Program attracted a group of innovative, committed activists and educators. We were given a unique opportunity to develop a landmark program, and there were no models to follow. We started by asking, “What do you think this program should be about?” “Whom should we talk to?” “How do we start?” And people told us.

We spoke to DOE staff who had dealt with other controversial school change initiatives and who had developed statewide programs. We talked to students to find out what they thought their schools needed. We called our activist friends and asked them for help – people from the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) and Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD). The Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth gave us parameters to follow, and we relied on the expertise of school administrators and teachers in the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Many of the people with whom we spoke had already been tirelessly working to create supports for gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth and to make schools, communities, and government institutions more accountable. The fledgling Safe Schools Program benefited from their wisdom and experience.  [Perrotti and Westheimer, pp. 3-5]

One of the tireless activists Perrotti and Westheimer called on to help set up their program was Bob Parlin, Jennings’ lover, according to Jennings’ own memoir (Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son, p. 201):

… [in 1993] a line item was put in the education budget to create a program to implement the new policy [Jennings’ Commission recommendations, adopted by the State Board of Education]. The program – Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students – would be the first of its kind in the nation. Having no idea how to design such a program, the department turned to us [GLSEN] for guidance, and a series of meetings ensued that were actually quite comical…. After several fruitless meetings, they [the DOE bureaucrats] realized they had no expertise or ability in this arena and decided to bring my partner, Bob, on to develop and implement the program.

Bob Parlin (R), Kevin Jennings' former partner and designer 
of Mass. "Safe Schools" program, with post-Jennings 
partner -"husband" in 2004.  [photo: Harvard Crimson]

Perrotti and Westheimer continue (pp. 138-139):

When the Governor’s Commission and the Department of Education (DOE) initially created the parameters of the program [1993], there was a conscious decision not to address sex directly. It was thought that raising the topic of sexual orientation in schools would be controversial enough without combining it with sexuality education.

There are limitations, however, in setting this narrow a focus when designing program for gay lesbian, and bisexual students. The safety and well-being of gay, lesbian, and bisexual students can’t be separated from sexuality and AIDS/HIV prevention. Obviously, safety refers to physical safety—the ability to attend school without being threatened or being attacked. For young people, it also means being safe to express and explore their identities, including their sexuality.

Currently [2001] most gay, lesbian, and bisexual adolescents do not have this kind of emotional safety. Many do not see themselves or their sexuality reflected in their families, schools, or culture. They do not have the opportunity to go through the typical dating, breakups, and other rites of passage that help young people develop a sense of themselves. In this absence, they may not feel empowered to make choices about whether or not to be sexually active and may not know how to engage in healthy relationships. They may not have relevant information about HIV prevention. Because of these factors, they may explore their sexuality secretly and be vulnerable to abuse.

The impact of this lack of safety is reflected in the epidemiology regarding sexually active young gay men. As a group they are at increased risk for AIDS/HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. The Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior data show that gay, lesbian, and bisexual students are less likely than their heterosexual peers to use condoms. …

To be effective, any HIV prevention program needs to include explicit discussions about sex. If adolescents can’t talk about sex, it is unlikely that they will be able to negotiate safe sex. The AIDS/HIV prevention program at the Massachusetts DOE has been at the forefront of addressing these issues. 

New Year's Resolutions for Concerned Parents

Linda Harvey at Mission America has a good piece for all of us concerned parents. Here are some of her resolutions:

The Top 10 Ways to Make Kids Truly Safe in 2010

By Linda Harvey

[Excerpts:]

7. Children should not be endangered personally by sexually transmitted diseases allowed to rage unchecked through our under-30 population because of political correctness. They should no longer be told the outright lies that life-threatening and/or debilitating infections can be managed through either latex or life-long, expensive drug therapy. Let’s not leave them with rampant infertility due to “everyone’s” reproductive damage. We need to establish a public health system that deals with reality.


4. We must pledge to overhaul the schools we are paying for. Let’s start sending our children to Christian schools, conservative charter schools, or begin home schooling them, while we simultaneously evict our local NEA-backed public school boards and replace them with smart soccer moms and dads who have true family values. Let’s get the radicals out of our taxpayer- funded classrooms, and refuse to vote for one more levy guaranteeing the same old anti-Christian, socialist, Darwinist, hyper-sexualized, and phony “green” school curricula.

3. As responsible stewards, we must continue to demand that U.S. Department of Education ‘safe schools’ czar Kevin Jennings be fired for his lack of experience plus his known radical, sexually corrupt ideology. Let’s also eject Obama’s Chicago crony, DOE Secretary Arne Duncan, and all public officials whose track records attest to “poor education as usual” policies. Where’s the commitment to genuine child safety? Let’s make plans to fire Barack Obama at least by 2012, too, while we are at it, before he does any more damage to the next generation.

2. Get all pro-homosexual and pro-promiscuity programs, literature, teachers, and counselors out of every school now. Remove “gay” clubs, Planned Parenthood at health fairs, and GLSEN- PFLAG- SIECUS activists. Cease all condom demonstrations, abortion referrals, on-site birth control dispensing, sexual orientation affirmation, and messing with children’s hearts, minds and bodies. Demand that schools uphold the traditional value of heterosexual identities, teach abstinence- until- marriage, and celebrate male/ female gender differences.

Senate Candidate Martha Coakley OK with Fisting for Teens

Martha Coakley, Democrat U.S. Senate candidate for Kennedy's seat, 

flanked by SEIU thug-ettes. [Photo: SEIU]

Kevin Jennings and his organization GLSEN sponsored the obscene Fistgate Conference in 2000 at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. There, they not only talked with children about fisting, anal beads, sadomasochism, and assorted perversions – they also invited groups to hand out their graphic and even frightening materials to young teens (who, of course, needed to know how a “phallic woman” puts on a condom, and other “safer sex” techniques for post-op transsexuals).

Why were Jennings and his cohorts not prosecuted for "crimes against chastity, morality, decency and good order" (MGL Ch. 272 -- which also still includes sodomy as "the abominable and detestable crime against nature")? Simply put, because those very concepts are now dead in Massachusetts. How about the rest of the country?

Jennings and GLSEN knew there was a loophole in the Massachusetts law that would protect them on the charge of disseminating materials harmful to minors. (See below.) But what about “enticing away a person for prostitution or sexual intercourse” and “inducing a person under 18 to have sexual intercourse”? (MGL Ch. 272, Sections 2 & 4.) No loopholes in those sections that we can see. Still, they got away with it. Law enforcement authorities seem to be on the side of the perverts here.

Then-District Attorney Martha Coakley (now Democrat candidate for Ted Kenney’s U.S. Senate seat!) didn’t even bother to respond to Parents’ Rights Coalition’s (now MassResistance) request for a criminal investigation after the 2000 GLSEN event. (Ann Coulter recently wrote of another Coakley outrage, which should disqualify her as a Senator.)

Since then, PRC/MassResistance has repeatedly filed a bill to remove the exemption for schools that allows them to disseminate such obscene materials (for “educational purpose”). Of course, this being Massachusetts, our bill keeps getting killed in committee.

And we all know that Kevin Jennings and GLSEN are all about “education”. GLSEN even had a contract with the Massachusetts Department of Education at the time to prove its bona fide status. (Yes, we can produce a document if MediaMatters cares to challenge this.)

The absurd Massachusetts statute reads:

CHAPTER 272. CRIMES AGAINST CHASTITY, MORALITY, DECENCY AND GOOD ORDER

Chapter 272: Section 28. Matter harmful to minors, dissemination; possession; defenses

Chapter 272: Section 28. Whoever disseminates to a minor any matter harmful to minors, as defined in section thirty-one, knowing it to be harmful to minors, or has in his possession any such matter with the intent to disseminate the same to minors, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than five years or in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years, or by a fine of not less than one thousand nor more than ten thousand dollars for the first offense, not less than five thousand nor more than twenty thousand dollars for the second offense, or not less than ten thousand nor more than thirty thousand dollars for the third and subsequent offenses, or by both such fine and imprisonment. A prosecution commenced under this section shall not be continued without a finding nor placed on file. It shall be a defense in any prosecution under this section that the defendant was in a parental or guardianship relationship with the minor. It shall also be a defense in any prosecution under this section if the evidence proves that the defendant was a bona fide school, museum or library, or was acting in the course of his employment as an employee of such organization or of a retail outlet affiliated with and serving the educational purpose of such organization.

Safe Schools Czar Kevin Jennings Recommended Porny Books for Teens in 1994

[photo: Education Week]

Here’s proof that Kevin Jennings was certainly aware that his organization, GLSEN, recommended porny books for teens.  He had recommended them himself in his 1994 high school reader Becoming Visible (published by porn publisher Alyson Books). On p. 278 in his Questions/Activities section for Chapter 17, he wrote:

15. Other resources for reading are Bennett Singer’s Growing Up Gay, Ann Heron’s One Teenager in Ten: Writings by Gay and Lesbian Youth, Aaron Frick’s Reflections of a Rock Lobster: A Story of Growing Up Gay, and Paul Monette’s Becoming a Man. Films include Robert King’s The Disco Years and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, based on Jeanette Winterson’s autobiographical novel.

These questionable books (haven’t looked at the films yet…) have been described by Linda Harvey in 2002 (also here), NARTH (late 1990s), and more recently at Gateway Pundit/BigGovernment.com (Dec. 2009).

Also in his introduction to Chapter 17, “Gay and Lesbian Youth: Voices from the Next Generation,” Jennings regurgitates some of the points he made in his 1993 report to the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth in Massachusetts. Sadly, that report is no longer available online or from the current Commission office – but MassResistance will soon be publishing a PDF of the original document.

On the books Jennings personally recommended in 1994:

Linda Harvey quoted from Growing Up Gay in her 2002 report:

"I released his arms. They glided around my neck, pulling my head down to his. I stretched full length on top of him, our heads touching. Our heavy breathing from the struggle gradually subsided. I felt ---" and then follows a graphic description of a homosexual encounter between two ten- year- old boys who are playmates, in a childhood recollection of Malcolm Boyd, an Episcopal priest, in Growing Up Gay, ... p.100.

Another excerpt from Harvey:

In the book "Growing Up Gay … is an episode that might have been written by a pedophile. A boy raised by two gay men describes his first experience of anal intercourse with a man he guessed to be around 30 years old. The youth himself was 15 at the time (p.111). The boy claims he initiated it. He had already had previous homosexual experiences beginning at age eleven (p.110). And here: "'My first experience was with a much older man, a friend of Derek's [his dad] ... When I was fifteen, he must have been twenty-nine, thirty ... l seduced him ... It was a wild night. We did everything."' (Young man, Eliot, telling about earlier experiences in a story excerpted in Growing Up Gay/Growing Up Lesbian)

Gateway Pundit also posted passages from Growing Up Gay here.

NARTH reported on One Teenager in Ten:

Some of the Alyson publications, including One Teenager in Ten … encourage teens to, among other things, go to gay bars and have sex with adults to see if they like it.” Further, One Teenager in Ten “contains a lesbian teen's explicit account of her affair with a teacher.”

Gateway Pundit/BigGovernment.com, posted excerpts from Reflections of a Rock Lobster, including:

My sexual exploits with my neighborhood playmates continued. I lived a busy homosexual childhood, somehow managing to avoid venereal disease through all my toddler years. By first grade I was sexually active with many friends. In fact, a small group of us regularly met in the grammar school lavatory to perform fellatio on one another. A typical week’s schedule would be Aaron and Michael on Monday during lunch; Michael and Johnny on Tuesday after school; Fred and Timmy at noon Wednesday; Aaron and Timmy after school on Thursday.

Kevin Jennings GLSEN Fistgate: More Student X-Rated Questions Revealed

More background on Kevin Jennings' GLSEN “Fistgate” workshop in 2000:

In the week after the Fistgate audiotapes were made public and the first articles on the incident had appeared in Massachusetts News, a defense of the fisting workshop appeared on a website called “Bridges Across the Divide.” The author, Cindy Beal, claims to have spoken directly with Margot Abels (consistently misspelled “Ables”), the DOE employee who led the teen “gay sex” workshop.

There is much of interest in the article, which claims the Fistgate workshop can only be properly understood in “context” (that would be the context of radical sexuality education). The author claims Abels revealed to her the complete list of sex questions submitted by students as written on notecards, which were then answered by the three instructors. Note the “non-judgmental” response to kids inquiring about fisting and sadomasochism (at end of the excerpt below). Abels told Beal:

"We made it clear that for some people that's [sadomasochism] what they're interested in, and for many people it's not what they want to be doing.  We didn't want people who engage in non-traditional activities to feel judged, but in no way did we say ‘go out and try this' because we wanted to make people who weren't interested in it to feel just as good and not judged [for their decision not to participate in these activities.]" 

Also note that the instructors led the kids to a “resources” at the conference, and “peer support groups for gay youth.” That would be Boston GLASS, Youth Pride and BAGLY. See our recent report on the X-rated materials those groups handed out to teens at the conference.

Abels asked the kids in the workshop to write down their questions after a role-playing session did not go as well as she’d hoped, because the kids were acting “silly” – basically acting as the children they were. Which makes the discussion that followed all the more shocking. (Yet Beals, Abels, and Kevin Jennings would still say the subject matter was “age-appropriate”.)

EXCERPT from Beal’s report on Fistgate:

Ms. Ables reflection on the role-play was that it got "silly" and the students began to focus on silliness and theatricality rather than on the content.  "The kids came to talk about questions they have that haven't yet been answered." 

They then decided to do anonymous question cards, a back-up exercise they had come prepared with.  These cards provide youth the opportunity to ask questions they have without risking judgement from their peers or adults for the content of the questions. Anonymous question cards also help guarantee that the material being asked is the students' agenda rather than the adults. 

Ms. Ables provided me with a list of the questions they asked, which she had typed up because the teachers who were present at the next workshop felt it important to know what gay youth wanted to know. 

"These are typed as written originally by the students. 

 Is oral sex better with tongue rings? P.S. I hope so.

Cum? Calories? Spit versus swallow?  Health concerns?

What age do most GLB first have sex? Is it different from the age of straight kids?

What is an anal ball? [See Wikipedia.]

 Should some kind of protection be used in lesbian sex?

 Women’s vaginal wall can expand to any dick size… Can anal walls do the same?

 Are girls who primarily like guys and are only attracted to other girls sexually (not in the love-y) way considered bisexual?

 How is protection used in lesbian sex since it’s mostly oral, where does the protection go?

 My ex said she enjoys pain, what the hell is that about?

 What is fisting?

 Define fetish.

 What is lesbian sex anyway?

 How do I find out if someone is bi?  Homo?

 What are the technicalities of transsexual and hermaphrodite sex?

 How long do you have to wait to get tested for HIV or any STD after the "act" is committed?

 A question on the ethics of oral sex: would it be considered rude not to swallow?

 Can you answer the fish question? [bad smelling vagina?]

 Do lesbians rub their clits together?  Is that even sex?

How do GLB kids determine loss of virginity?"

The procedure for this exercise was to read the questions in the order they arrived in on the pile of question cards, to turn the question back to the group so peers could do some of the education, and then to add, clarify, or correct any misinformation. 

Ms. Ables described Michael [Gaucher, DPH AIDS educator] as an actor, very dramatic and entertaining.  She said that youth love him because he presents information in a lively and humorous manner. He did most of the education on about where and how to you get tested for HIV, the different kinds of tests there are for HIV, on HIV/AIDS treatment, and responded to questions about transmission risk for different people, sexual practices and lesbian sex.  At one point he was writing on the board demonstrating the differences between the Western Blot and ELISA tests. 

The youth seemed to have a good understanding of the importance of safety in sexual activity.  One of the questions was, -- "Is it rude to spit after oral sex?" One of the students answered "whether or not it's rude, it's good HIV prevention to not swallow." 

There was a long talk about how to make decisions around sex activity and how to decide when to begin sexual activity.  They didn’t talk about abstinence in this context, but "postponement." They talked about not making a decision to enter any sexual activity until you're ready, and discussed how someone might know that they are ready.  They discussed that for some people sexual activity has feelings attached to it, and for others, it’s just physical. They discussed the context of making decisions about sex, with knowledge about what those choices were about sexual activity and emotional maturity and other things.  Ms. Ables reports that they asked the youths,  "How do you make those decisions? As you think about it, you might find it’s not the right time for you." 

There were a couple of subjects in which they purposely avoided making or implying value judgements.  The questions when to become sexually active, what is fisting, and a question about sadomasochism were answered as factually as possible to avoid stigmatizing anyone in the room who participated in those behaviors, and to maintain the educational atmosphere that there is no shame in asking questions or talking about anything.  Therefore, both Mr. Gaucher and Ms. Ables described the practice of "fisting" in an accurate way. 

As with all the questions, they turned it first back to the students. One student said that fisting was "slamming your fist up into somebody." That is a factually inaccurate statement, and they didn't want that kind of judgement and image left in the minds of these youth, so they both answered it – "not to encourage it -- we gave them clear messages that some people like it and most don’t."  That "it's not painful and we didn’t want people there or their friends to be judged" on the basis of inaccurate information. 

They responded the same way when there was a question about sadomasochism.  "We made it clear that for some people that's what they're interested in, and for many people it's not what they want to be doing.  We didn't want people who engage in non-traditional activities to feel judged, but in no way did we say ‘go out and try this' because we wanted to make people who weren't interested in it to feel just as good and not judged [for their decision not to participate in these activities.]" 

One question asked by the youth was "Is oral sex better with tongue rings?"  Another youth answered, "I have one.  My girlfriend has one.  It is." 

One young woman stated at one point that people don’t even know what vaginas look like, and jumped to the board to draw one. It was "anatomically inaccurate."  The presenters made a joke about the size of the clitoris so as not to embarrass the student, and then corrected the misinformation. 

They talked about at what age most gay kids have sex.  They talked about the statistics  from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey – (http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dash/yrbs/survey99.htm ) and asked the students why they though gay kids had sex at a younger age than their heterosexual peers.  The students primarily hypothesized that it might be because of the isolation, or ignorance, or acting out, only one student said that she became aware of her desire, thought it was a good thing and wanted to try it. 

"One kid asked about resources – he said he was sexually active at 14 and now at 15, he was thinking that he was disconnected from people as people" and was thinking that he needed to not be sexual.  He asked after about dating, how to find a community, how to find a boyfriend.  He was supported in choosing to not be sexual, and "after the workshop Mr. Gaucher went with him to the table and connected him with peer support groups for gay youth." 

THE WORKSHOP ENDED BY ENCOURAGING THEM TO FIND ADULTS THEY could talk to and ask questions to. …