More on Kevin Jennings' Tectonic Theater Connection

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar,” is President of the Board of the Tectonic Theater Project. Tectonic’s most famous product is the pro-homosexual propaganda play, “The Laramie Project.” Tectonic claims that "Laramie" is “the second most performed play in high schools and colleges.” 

Jennings’ position on Tectonic’s board once again confirms his animosity towards Bible-believing religious citizens -- and reveals one of his most important tactics for pushing the GLBT agenda in the schools.

We first reported Jennings’ direct connection to “The Laramie Project” yesterday. WorldNetDaily has picked up on the import of the Safe Schools Czar’s direct connection to this prime piece of theater propaganda.

Moises Kaufman, director of Tectonic and primary author of “The Laramie Project,” confirmed his anti-religious sentiments and branded anyone who doesn’t agree with him as a “homophobe” in a Kalamazoo “gay” newspaper (Pride Source, Feb. 28-Mar. 5, 2008). Excerpts:

Kaufman and his team crafted the play “The Laramie Project,” which has since been performed by over 100,000 people … He said the play is now the second most performed play among high schools and colleges. [Kaufman also claims the play has touched 40 million people.]

“High school is the best place for this play to be performed. It is so moving to me that high school students are leading a profound dialogue in the community.”

Kaufman, who has written [Fred] Phelps into his play because the minister showed to protest Shepard’s funeral, had an observation on the controversial minister. “What he’s doing is articulating what many religious institutions feel. So much of homophobia is being fueled by religious beliefs. We still have a long way to go. There is so much misinformation.”

He said during the process of putting together “The Laramie Project,” his team noticed that about 85 percent of the time someone said something homophobic, they supported or mentioned the church a line or two down. He said that homophobia is pushing LGBT people away from religion.

“People know it’s not OK to speak certain things anymore, but they still think and act them.”

Kaufman said fighting homophobia is not work just for the LGBT community. “If you are not part of the solution you are part of the problem.”

“You better get to working on this [LGBT rights] because you don’t know if your children are going to need it.”  [Emphasis added.]

A primary funder of "Laramie" is the Rockefeller Foundation. 

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.”

Still Guilty: Kevin Jennings Mishandled “Brewster” Case

Defenders of “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings like to dismiss as insignificant the fact that he failed to report his student Brewster’s sexual activity with an adult male met at a Boston bus station. They don’t defend it by saying “it’s all about love,” but they do get hung up on the boy's age. Brewster was 16 at the time, and therefore at the legal age of consent in Massachusetts. (Jennings, however, also referred to the boy as 15 … so by his own frame of reference he should have done something.) Jennings had no qualms about this sexual relationship as long as the boy “knew how to use a condom.” 

But Massachusetts law was still violated even if the boy was 16 or even 17, and Jennings had a duty to report it. That is because (as even the Wikipedia entry notes) an adult “inducing” a child under 18 to have sex is breaking the law. Since Brewster had just met the man in a bus station, then went back to the man’s home to have sex, we can say with assurance that this was not about “love” or a “committed relationship.” So it seems safe to say that the man “induced” Brewster to have sex, as the boy was apparently not a prostitute (and therefore would fall under the characterization “of chaste life,” as stated in the law).

Now the only “wiggle room” here might be that sodomy is not considered “sexual intercourse” in Massachusetts. Rather, it is called a “crime against nature” -- but that, too, would be breaking the law. So however the defenders of Jennings wish to look at this situation, the sexual act between the adult stranger and the 16- or 17- year-old was illegal.

And this would be why the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force has joined forces with the Woodhull Freedom Foundation to overturn “archaic” sex laws and lower the age of consent.

Massachusetts General Laws

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

Chapter 272: Section 4. Inducing person under eighteen to have sexual intercourse

Whoever induces any person under 18 years of age of chaste life to have unlawful sexual intercourse shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than three years or in a jail or house of correction for not more than two and one-half years or by a fine of not more than $1,000 or by both such fine and imprisonment.

Chapter 272: Section 34. Crime against nature

Section 34. Whoever commits the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or with a beast, shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than twenty years.

CHAPTER 265. CRIMES AGAINST THE PERSON

Chapter 265: Section 23. Rape and abuse of child

Whoever unlawfully has sexual intercourse or unnatural sexual intercourse, and abuses a child under sixteen years of age shall, for the first offense, be punished …

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. 

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. …

Kevin Jennings: Weekend Recap

Who founded GLSEN – the “Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network” -- while teaching at an elite New England boarding school?

·      Who advised his teenage male student to be sure to use a condom when he had sex with adult male strangers met in bus stations?

·      Who was asked by an extremist sexual radical to join the Mass. “Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth” in 1992?

·      Who was a member of ACT/UP?

·      Who ran the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth Education Committee? (Jennings, Mama’s Boy Preacher’s Son)

·      Who wrote the Commission’s 1993 Report, “Making Schools Safe for Gay and Lesbian Youth,” which started the “Safe Schools” programs in Massachusetts – and served as the template for GLBT activists in schools across the country? [Stay tuned for a new report by MassResistance.]

·      Who dishonestly claimed that an epidemic of gay teen suicides required bringing homosexual issues into our schools – that it was all about student “safety” -- but later admitted his deceit?

·      Who was “sought out” by Alyson Publications (publisher of pro-pedophilia works, gay & lesbian pornography, and Heather Has Two Mommies) to produce a gay & lesbian source book (for teenagers).

·      Who wrote the infamous “heterosexism questionnaire” widely used in diversity training sessions (especially in schools)?

·      Who wrote an adulatory chapter on Harry Hay, NAMBLA supporter and pioneering homosexual radical, with a lesson instructing teenagers that fighting “police entrapment” (protecting anonymous homosexual sex in public bathrooms and parks) was a great “civil rights” battle to be proud of?

·      Who put his sexual “partner” in charge of designing the Massachusetts “Safe Schools” program? (Jennings, Mama’s Boy Preacher’s Son)

·      Whose organization continued to guide the Massachusetts DOE as it implemented its “Safe Schools” program? (Perrotti & Westheimer book.)

·      Who gave the keynote address at his GLSEN-Boston 2000 conference, AKA “Fistgate”, where young teens received instruction in perverted and dangerous homosexual sex practices?

·      Whose organization handed out “fisting” and oral sex kits to teens at its 2001 conference?

·      Whose organization gave out the pornographic Little Black Book: Queer in the 21^st Century in 2005, and earlier similar guidebooks to “leather bars” at his GLSEN conferences – where teens could pick them up?

·      Who advocated Queering Elementary Education – with terrorist Bill Ayers’s blessing?

·      Whose organization published reading lists for students with sordid, graphic details of sexual encounters? (See here and here.)

·      Whose organization employs propaganda techniques such as “Gay-Straight Alliances,” “Day of Silence,” “Ally Week,” and “anti-bullying programs” to enlist youth in pro-GLBT political activism – and the “lifestyle”?

·      Who wrote flippantly about his teenage drug and alcohol use in his memoir?

·      Whose organization published a lesson plan for LGBT history month, using a film idolizing purveyors of pornography?

·      Who hosted Barack Obama in his home, raising “GLBT community” donations for the candidate, thereby ensuring his appointment as “Safe Schools” czar in the federal Department of Education?

·      Who helped fund a 2009 ACT/UP retrospective exhibit  -- incuding pornographic images and even insinuations of child rape -- at Harvard University, celebrating ACT/UP’s attack on public decency, the Catholic Church, and traditional values?

·      Who has spread this plague of GLBT indoctrination in the schools to the rest of the country?

·      Who now has the President, Vice President, and big media behind him, while they ignore the public outcry over this appointment?

That would be Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Dept. of Education.