Boston College Celebrates Coming Out Week

The latest from that radical "Catholic" university, Boston College: Its student newspaper reports that bisexuality was a big focus for National Coming Out Week this year. There are lots of misconceptions about this "identity":

To celebrate NCOW, the GLC has been hosting various events throughout the week. On Tuesday, the group hosted a panel on bisexuality, during which five undergraduate students from BC spoke about their personal experiences and the issue of bisexuality on campus.

"People often tell me that I should just be straight because I have more options, that I should lean more toward the opposite sex," said Rachel Graves, one of the panelists and A&S '11. "But I wouldn't want to do that because that is not being who I am. I would not be honest with myself if I claimed that I am either straight or gay." 

"Both gay and straight communities tend to have some misconceptions about bisexuals," Graves said. 

She and other panelists said they felt that some people think bisexuals claim that they are so because they are either going through a "phase" in which they feel uncertain about their sexuality, or do not want to come to terms with the fact that they are homosexual.

"This misconception is sometimes an encumbrance when dating because the partner feels insecure about the bisexual's sexuality, and thus, the relationship in general," Graves said. 

"The panel was very interesting because it explored an identity that is often overlooked in the GLBTQ community," said Clifton James, CSOM '12, who attended on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the GLC hosted an event called "Guess Who's Gay," in which the audience tried to figure out if a panelist is straight or GLBTQ. Members of the panel were behind sheets through which only their silhouettes and voices were discernible. 

Tonight, there will be an event called "Opening Boston's Closet," during which students will gather and talk about their sexual identities. Friday will be "Show Your Love Day" across the campus. People are encouraged to hug as many people as they can between classes.

And the BC kids think they have wisdom. Homosexuality is "perhaps the great theological question of our time," they write. The Church just hasn't given it enough thought. From the Cardinal Newman Society "Campus Notes" blog:

An article by the editorial board of the Boston College student newspaper site BCHeights.com upbraids the Catholic Church for its stance on gay issues.  The authors seem to take for granted that the Catholic Church’s teaching on the gay lifestyle must be wrong.  Their point is that Catholic thought on the subject would eventually come around to acceptance of the gay lifestyle if only the Church would study the question more.  Boston College is the place to do it, they argue.

“We empathize with students who were raised Catholic but who have been driven out by homophobic attitudes. The Church has to realize that its intolerance may deter people who do not identify as GLBTQ, as well. . . The Church has to face the fact that there are thousands, maybe millions of Catholics out there praying for some real discussion about the deeply personal struggle in their souls. This is, perhaps, the great theological question of our time, and BC, if it aspires to be a leader in the Catholic world, should explore ways to submit the question to rigorous examination. . . Faith and reason sometimes make a tenuous pair, but for thousands of years people in the Church have found ways to wed the two. . . BC needs to become a place where the tangled knot of Catholic moral theology on GLBTQ issues can be unraveled and debated by intelligent, thinking believers.”

BC Heights’ editorial board posted their opinions as Boston College’s celebration of National Coming Out Week continues. 

The “GLBTQ Leadership Council” celebrates National Coming Out Week every first week of October.  The Council president said, “Administrators sometimes face obstructions in helping us when they feel that the GLC activities are not aligned with Jesuit principles. But they are usually supportive of us.”

Another leader of the GLBTQ Leadership Council said, “Our school is more open to gays compared to some other Catholic institutions such as Notre Dame, and the administration has given us much help in coming this far.  We were able to have our first gala in the spring of 2009 and start selling ‘support love’ t-shirts in 2008.”

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

See Part I here.

What new ideas and experiences did Kevin Jennings' high school students encounter at the 1993 gay rights march on Washington? Check out some videos from the event here (includes ACT UP), here (mass commitment ceremony), and here.

It was the first major national event to push ”bisexuality” and “transgender rights” alongside “gay rights”. The 1993 platform also pushes the notion of “youth” rights, and loosening the sexual age-of-consent laws. Excerpts from the platform:

1. We demand passage of a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender civil rights bill and an end to discrimination by state and federal governments including the military; repeal of all sodomy laws and other laws that criminalize private sexual expression between consenting adults.... Passage and implementation of graduated age-of-consent laws.

3. ... The recognition and legal protection of the whole range of family structures. ... An end to abuse and exploitation of and discrimination against youth. ... Full implementation of the recommendations contained in the report of the Health and Human Services Task Force on Youth Suicide. ... Legalization of same sex marriages.

4. ... Culturally inclusive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Studies program; and information on abortion, AIDS/HIV, childcare and sexuality at all levels of education.

5. ... Unrestricted, safe and affordable alternative insemination.... That access to safe and affordable abortion and contraception be available to all people on demand, without restriction and regardless of age.

7. ... An end to economic injustice in this country and internationally. ... An end to consideration of gender dysphoria as a psychiatric disorder. ... An end to censorship.

A contemporary report* gives some idea of the sights and sounds confronting Jennings' high school students:

… drag queens blowing kisses, gay men with nipple rings parading in studded leather, "Dykes on Bikes" cruising down the avenues, and bare-breasted lesbians showering each other with lingering kisses.…

A review of the April 25 evening newscasts on ABC, CNN and NBC (CBS did not air a newscast that night) indicates that viewers saw a sanitized version that made the gay movement seem largely mainstream and respectable, just as march organizers had hoped….

The speakers at the post-march rally provided a stream of obscenities considered too vulgar for mainstream television. For example, a drag queen duo cracked a joke on stage about the military ban on homosexuals that was aired on C-SPAN. "They're afraid we will be demanding blowjobs in the shower," said one, "when it's blow dryers we want." Later, a master of ceremonies, praising the conspicuously absent Bill Clinton, told the throng, "I think we have a leader who is thinking with his heart and mind, and not just his penis." And at another point, a woman told the crowd that she'd like to "fuck" Hillary Clinton….

… a man dressed in a blonde wig, wearing a skimpy flag costume and high heels parading on stage…. a white man French-kissing a black man, and a shot of another man in a black mini-dress singing, "Queers Can Do It in the Army." …

Andrew Kopkind, an associate editor of the Nation who is gay … wrote … “In fact, despite the heat there were the inevitable leather chaps and harnesses, a fist-fuckers section and more bare-breasted lesbians. And a fair amount of drags sashayed down the avenues in high heels. But for the first time in the history of gay gala events, the media averted their eyes.”

… a master of ceremonies talking about "crotch politics," and a self-described "big dyke" comedienne who faked an orgasm on stage….

[A Queer Nation spokesman said] even groups like Queer Nation and ACT UP [to which Jennings belonged] made a conscious effort to dress inoffensively for the march.

A “gay marriage” website characterizes the 1993 March:

The interconnectedness of all social justice was a major theme in 1993. The stated demands condemned “racism and sexism, class bias, economic injustice and religious intolerance” as well as homophobia. The board of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People gave the march a full endorsement, which created the first direct tie between the gay rights and civil rights movements. It was also the first time that the event's title acknowledged the role of bisexuals in gay rights activism.

The “B” and “T” were officially added to the GLBT allied movement in 1993. Bisexuals and transgenders (including transsexuals) were given a huge platform for their mind- and body-bending demands. One speaker was a transsexual (“male-to-female”) attorney who told of the oppression married men face after sex-change operations:

Once a person with male genitalia is legally married to a female-genitaled person, they will remain legally married regardless of whether one has genitalia-altering surgery and it then becomes a de facto same-sex marriage. The state cannot force a divorce. The first time that I promoted this idea publically [sic], outside of the Transgender Law Conferences was in my platform speech at the 1993 march on Washington…. But many were forced to divorce and many others simply were divorced. In those cases, the fear of exposure often left the transgendered spouse to be fair game in the divorce settlement. Often children were involved, and the courts would only allow supervised visitation. [Emphasis added.]

 

AIDS Quilt [Photo: Smithsonian Institution]

The emotional wallop of the AIDS Quilt displayed on the Mall would surely have had a deep effect on Jennings’ students. A homosexual news service reported:

Over two million people, according to the Washington Police Dept., viewed the AIDS Memorial Quilt over the weekend of October 11-13, 1996 in Washington, D.C. This marked the first time the entire quilt, now at 45,000 panels, has been displayed since the National March on Washington for Gay and Lesbian Rights in April, 1993. … Among the vast numbers viewing the Quilt [in 1996] were 55,000 school children, each of whom had to get parental permission to participate in the visit which included an orientation to deal with the emotions they might experience or witness…. [Emphasis added.]

These are the sights and messages Kevin Jennings used to radicalize his Concord Academy students in 1993. He has surely carried these radical beliefs through his years as national director of GLSEN and to his current position as Obama’s “Safe Schools Czar” in the U.S. Department of Education.

A 2005 article in Education Week confirms that Jennings and GLSEN continued the mission of turning high school students into radical political activists.

Recognizing gay students remains an emotional, politically charged issue. But Kevin Jennings isn't out to provoke shouting matches. Instead, he's quietly turning students into activists capable of changing schools on their own.

GLSEN hasn’t grown from a one-man to a 30-person organization with a $5 million annual budget by battling his opponents on sexual orientation issues.

Instead, he’s done something the civil rights movement taught him is much more effective: He’s turned students into activists…. (Samantha Stainburn, “Straight Talk,” Teacher Magazine, November 1, 2005.)

This fits right in with Obama’s community organizing approach to transforming the country. But while Obama's community activism manipulated adults, Jennings mastered the art of manipulating children. 

 

Kevin Jennings in 2005.

[Photo: Education Week]

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

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

     [Part II here.]


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

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

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

In that 2008 speech, Jennings refers of the murders of Matthew Shepard in 1998 and an eighth-grader in California earlier in 2008, both of which he blames on the “homophobia” he is combating. He then says (at 1 min. 10 secs.):

But I know that it won’t always be this way. I know that because of the young people I’ve been privileged to work with who’ve demonstrated the power of people to make a difference. [Jennings indicating photo on screen here.] This is my gay/straight alliance at the 1993 march on Washington for gay and lesbian rights. Those kids are now in their early 30’s. They have taken with them into their adulthood a belief that they can make a difference. And they are making a difference every single day. I know because 20 years ago I sat in my office and I had a young girl come up with a crazy idea [to start a gay/straight alliance club] and I saw it spread to 4,200 schools. I know because 15 years ago I sat in a state legislator’s office in Massachusetts and said, “We need a law in this state.” And now that law is in 11 states…. [Emphasis added.]

While this video snippet does not absolutely prove Jennings was with his Concord Academy students at the 1993 march, the context of his Equality Utah speech (see Part I) is the telling of his life story through these slides. It’s hard to imagine he would have missed this huge event. He was still teaching at Concord Academy that spring, and still acting as advisor to the GSA (gay/straight alliance). At a minimum, it’s safe to say he would have encouraged his students to attend the event. (Too bad no Senate confirmation hearing was required on his appointment so we could confirm such things.)

The D.C. field trip by Jennings’ GSA club is a prime example of his corruption of children. The video below exposes the obscene and radical character of the 1993 march. Note the topless women; the banner carried by Brookline (Mass.) High School students (at 3:00); the ACT UP banner at 3:27 (Jennings was an ACT UP member); the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence”; the guys singing (at 6:30) “God is a Dyke … she’ll make it on the floor with us.”

Also participating in the march from Massachusetts were GSA clubs from Phillips Academy Andover and Brookline High School. Jennings had co-founded GLSEN a few years before with a teacher at Phillips Academy.*

The march was organized by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), an extremely radical group that has long advocated same-sex marriage, lowering the age of sexual consent, transgender/transsexual “rights”, universal health care, decriminalization of prostitution, and sexual sadomasochism. One of its founders was porn promoter Frank Kameny (who apparently spoke at NAMBLA’s 1981 convention). NGLTF worked hand in hand with ACT UP (present at the 1993 march), and led a “town meeting” on how to “fight the right.” (Video clip here; see at 2:35-4:35.) 

NGLTF supports sexual sadomochism groups and presents “leather leadership awards.” Their director was the keynote speaker at a 2006 Leather Leadership Conference, where he reminisced: “I'm sure many of you remember in 1993, when President Clinton met with representatives our community, Billy Hileman from Pittsburgh wore a leather vest – what an uproar it caused.” In 2008, the NGLTF “Creating Change” conference included workshops emphasizing “sexual freedom” for youth, entitled “A Dialog with Youth: Talking about Sex and Sexual Freedom” and “Mentoring Queer Youth.”

The radicalism of NGLTF at the time of the 1993 “gay rights” march is evident in its official platform. It reveals not only radical sexual demands, but also a Marxist/socialist/statist mentality. The featured NGLTF speaker at the march challenged everyone to “fight the Right” and “match the power of the Christian supremacists.” The claim is that most citizens are “oppressed” and there is “ecomomic injustice” in the U.S. 

These are the ideas Kevin Jennings was pushing on his students. In his gay and lesbian history reader for high school and college students, Becoming Visible (1994), Jennings even published sanitized excerpts from the platform.

Fists are popular with the GLBT crowd... [Photo: Minnesota Historical Society]

See Part II of our report.

________

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

Martha Coakley Was Keynote Speaker at Lesbian Gay Bar Assoc. Fundraiser

As Attorney General, Martha Coakley had no problem helping the radical Massachusetts Lesbian Gay Bar Association raise money. She was keynote speaker at their May 2007 fundraising dinner.

MLGBA luminaries.

See her speech here. Excerpts:

Access to civil marriage for gays and lesbians is the law of the Commonwealth. I applaud now, as I did at the time, the Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Goodridge. And as your Attorney General, charged with responsibility for upholding the law, I will do whatever I can to see that the rights of same-sex couples to marry is protected. I am also personally committed to that....

We also know that if the proposed [anti-gay marriage] amendment goes on the ballot, Massachusetts will spend the next year and a half besieged by anti-gay activists and will be the recipient of zealous rhetoric and invective from across the country. If that battle is necessary, you have my support....

We cannot allow hate to occupy any legal space in Massachusetts.  We cannot legislate hate away, but we can hold those accountable who act upon it and that's why it is important to develop and implement effective civil rights programs in our schools....

I strongly encourage our legislators to defeat it [the marriage amendment] and to close the door once and for all on prejudice and unequal treatment.

She vowed to uphold the "law" and protect the "right" for gays and lesbians to "marry" -- this despite the fact that the legislature still has not changed the statutes to enable same-sex couples to "marry", as instructed by the Supreme Judicial Court in 2003! (See the homosexual lobby's pending bill here.) What "law" is Attorney General Coakley upholding?

She labeled those who oppose "gay marriage" prejudiced and hateful. She is also committed to "hate-crimes" laws and homosexual programs in the schools. And she won't forget "civil rights" for "bisexuals" and "transgenders". 

If you believe in traditional values, Martha Coakley really despises you -- but labels you the "hater".

Concord-Carlisle High School's “Falsettos” Promotes Polyamory, Bisexuality and Homosexuality

Concord-Carlisle High School is promoting a take-down of family values on Thanksgiving Day – engineered by Mr. Peter Atlas, an old friend of Kevin Jennings (Obama’s “Safe Schools czar” and founder of GLSEN).

Peter Atlas, Concord-Carlisle High School 

Math Teacher and Gay Activist 

[photo: Boston Globe]

A few years back, we reported on Concord-Carlisle High School’s disgraceful hosting of the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus on Palm Sunday. Now they’re at it again. Under the direction of perennial gay-activist CCHS math teacher Peter Atlas, CCHS students are performing “Falsettos” in December -- a musical pushing polyamory, bisexuality and homosexuality. Community residents are very concerned about the production’s vulgar sexuality and anti-family message. Not content with inflicting this on the community in the weeks before Christmas, the school has added a sneak preview scheduled on Thanksgiving Day. 

A few words on Mr. Atlas. An ally of GLSEN founder/Obama “Safe Schools czar” Kevin Jennings, both Atlas and Jennings were young gay activist teachers in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1990s. Atlas was a board member of GLSEN Boston in the 90’s.  Atlas followed the GLSEN playbook and “came out” at CCHS in 1993 in the student newspaper. He was the original adviser to Spectrum, the Gay-Straight Alliance (GSA) club at the CCHS.

Peter Atlas, the advisor to SPECTRUM, came out by publishing a letter in his school's newspaper on National Coming Out Day. His motivation was twofold: First, he did it for the students. "It was an attempt to alleviate some of the fear, shame, loneliness, and despair of kids in the high school today that I also felt as a closeted teen." And second, he did it for himself and other staff members. "It takes much more energy to be closeted than it does to come out." He explained. "All of the energy I used in worrying that I would say the wrong thing is now freed up to do other things. I think I'm a much more effective teacher now on many levels." He said that after coming out, "I got tremendous support which surprised me.

He’s also behind a pro-homosexual teachers’ coalition there: 

Peter Atlas, a teacher at Concord-Carlisle High School, said that his school has formed a committee on Gay and Lesbian Student Safety. The committee has two faculty sub-groups in addition to the Gay/Straight Alliance. One sub-group deals with issues of Curriculum and Support by addressing ways that teachers can integrate gay and lesbian issues into the curriculum and offering faculty training, gathering resources. The second sub-group deals with Outreach to the Community by looking at ways to solicit resources and help from the community and to address concerns of the community and parents.

We’ve heard that he gave a speech at a recent CCHS commencement where he talked about “queering” math (his subject). Two years ago, the Boston Globe revealed he offers matchmaking advice to “gay” teens: 

Peter Atlas, the former adviser of Concord-Carlisle's Spectrum group, says that, increasingly, gay kids who turn up at his classroom aren't only asking questions about coming out and getting support. "They want to know where they can meet boys!" he says with a laugh.

Now Mr. Atlas is queering the school's theatre department with "Falsettos". Synopsis from Wikipedia:
It's 1979 in New York City, and Marvin, his son Jason, his psychiatrist Mendel and his male lover Whizzer are Four Jews In A Room Bitching (well, technically, Whizzer's only "half Jewish"). Marvin steps forward to explain his situation: He has left his wife, Trina, for Whizzer, but Marvin wants A Tight-Knit Family and is attempting to forge a new family situation with the addition of Whizzer, a situation no one is happy with.

Trina, on Marvin’s recommendation, pays a visit to Mendel where she wearily wonders how her life has turned out this way. Mendel, who is instantly attracted to her, tries to console her, telling her that Love is Blind. Meanwhile, Marvin and Whizzer comment on their relationship: the two have very little in common, apart from the fact that they both love fighting and are insanely attracted to each other. Both worry that The Thrill of First Love is wearing off.

Here’s a sampling of “Falsettos” song titles:

·      My Father’s a Homo

·      Everyone Hates His Parents

·      Days Like This I Almost Believe in God

·      Four Jews in a Room Bitching

And a quick look at some “Falsettos” lyrics:

“My Father’s a Homo”

My father’s a homo

My mother’s not thrilled at all

Father homo:

What about chromo-

Some?

Do they carry?

Will they carry?

Who’s the homo now?

My father said that one day I’ll grow to be president

And that idea’s not so wild

I don’t live the life of a normal child

‘Cause I’m too smart for my own good

And I’m too good for my sorry little life

My mother’s no wife

And my father’s no man

No man at all

“Four Jews in a Room Bitching” 

We are manipulating people and we need to know

Our worst sides aren't ignored.

We charge ahead to show--

MENDEL: We're good in bed.

(WHIZZER puts his hand on MENDEL's shoulder.)

WHIZZER: Excel in bed.

(MARVIN puts his hand on WHIZZER's shoulder.)

MARVIN: We smell in bed.

(WHIZZER puts his hand on MARVIN's. JASON picks up the bed and hides it behind his back.)

JASON: Where is the bed?

MENDEL: I love the bed. …

Four Jews in a room bitching (wheee!)

Four Jews talking like Jew-ish men

I'm neurotic, he's neurotic,

They're neurotic, we're neurotic.

Bitch bitch bitch bitch

Funny funny funny funny.

“A Tight-Knit Family”

Well, the situation’s this

It’s not tough to comprehend

I divorced my wife

I left my child

And I ran off with a friend

But I want a tight-knit family

I want a group that harmonizes

I want my wife and kid and friend

To pretend

Time will mend

Our pain.

So I make them interact

So I don’t go by the book

We all eat as one-

Wife, friend, and son-

And I sing out as I cook

“I want a tight-knit family.

I hope you all enjoy linguine.

Talk till you hear the dinner bell.

Such a dear clientele.

I swear we’re gonna come through it.

I fear we’ll probably fight,

But nothing’s impossible.

Live by your wit-“

Kid, wife, and lover will have to admit

I was right

I cushioned the fall

I want it all

I want it all

I want it…

“Love is Blind” 

[Wife Trina & psychiatrist Mendel]

TRINA: 

Love is a mess

So’s my son, expressly to hurt me

Marvin, my ex-

You’ve seen him for years-

Told me over the phone to tell you my fears

Do you only treat queers?

MENDEL: 

Breathe deep, my dear

You’ll find me understanding

Your pain is a priori

Unfold you untold story

Now to break bread

Loosen your glands

Put your head in my hands

TRINA: 

I’m everything he wanted

It’s time I put it all together

The date was set

My father let my marry

I married. I…

Then Marvin came from work

Sat me down on the bed

He told me how he loved me

How needed, that thought valued me

I have…

MENDEL:  What?

MARVIN (as Trina mouths this): Syphilis

TRINA:  He said

MENDEL:  Good

TRINA:  I have

MENDEL:  Yes?

MARVIN (Trina mouths):  Syphilis

TRINA:  It’s true

MENDEL:  Good

TRINA:  I had something rotten

Which appears thought now it’s well forgo, an’

MARVIN:  Maybe, darling, so do you

TRINA:  Maybe, darling, so do you

TRINA (to Marvin):  I am probably diseased

MENDEL:  You’re a lovely girl

TRINA (to Marvin):  And so easily appeased

MENDEL:  What a lovely girl, though she’s probably diseased

TRINA:  He took pains to not excite us

He explains I’ve…

MARVIN:  Hepatitis

TRINA:  Too

MARVIN, JASON, AND WHIZZER:

Hepa hepa hepatitis hepatitis hepatitis

MENDEL:

Love is blind

Love can tell a million stories

Love’s unkind

Spiteful in a million ways

“I’m Breaking Down” 

TRINA:

I’d like to be a princess on a throne

To have a country I can call my own

And a king

Who’s lusty and requires a fling

With a female thing

Great, men will be men

Let me turn on the gas

I saw them in the den with

Marvin grabbing Whizzer’s ass…

I only want to love a man who can love me

Or like me

Marvin was never mine

He took his meetings in the boy’s latrine

I used to cry

He’d make a scene

I’d rather die

Than dry-clean

Marvin’s wedding gown…

HIV/AIDS Epidemic Calling Out for Action by Dept. of Public Health

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