Family Research Council Ginning Up Opposition To Gay Appointee At Dept. Of Education
The Family Research Council has embarked on a new public relations effort against a particular Obama Administration appointee, Kevin Jennings, saying he should not be in his new position at the Department of Education because of his previous position in private activism -- as executive director of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network.
Jennings is set to begin his new job on Monday, as Assistant Deputy Secretary of Education for the Department's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools, after his appointment was announced about a month ago. And this week, FRC launched a last-minute Web petition to oppose him. It asks a pointed question: Would you choose this teacher to guide your children?
(Click image to enlarge.)
Many of the quotes here, regarding youthful drug use and other misadventures, are from Jennings' autobiography, Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son, about his coming of age in the South.
They also have a comprehensive, point-by-point essay on why Jennings shouldn't be responsible for kids in school. Headings include, "Jennings' and GLSEN's concept of 'safe schools' means special protections for privileged groups (especially homosexuals), rather than safety for all," and "Jennings' own youthful drug use calls into question his suitability for promoting 'drug-free schools.'"
Then there's a section with this heading, to which very close attention should be paid: "Jennings favors indoctrinating even elementary-age children in pro-homosexual ideology."
I asked Eliza Byard, the current executive director for GLSEN, a blunt question: Is the FRC subtly suggesting that it's not safe to let Jennings near kids?
"There's nothing subtle about it," said Byard. "I think it's the same kind of malicious attack on LGBT people, with relation to young people and schools, that we've seen for many many years. You go back and look at the Briggs Amendment in the late 70s, this is the same kind of thing."
(The Briggs Amendment was a referendum in California to ban gays or even people who openly supported gay rights from being teachers. It failed after attracting opposition from a wide variety of political figures, ranging from Harvey Milk to Ronald Reagan.)
GLSEN has launched its own online petition in support of Jennings. "Up until today, I had been simply saying this is the same old stuff we've been dealing with for years, and we here at GLSEN have become very practiced at ignoring this kind of effort to slander us," said Byard, "And so we really hadn't taken action before this time. And it got to a point where there was so much energy online and in our own constituency to say we can't let this stand."
"I don't expect there to be any much further action this issue," Byard added. "I mean, certainly the appointment was a terrific choice, we're very excited to see terrific progress for all students while he's there. And we expect this'll fade away."
A spokesman for the Department of Education declined to comment. Phone calls and e-mails to FRC were not returned.
Josh
Matt
Eric
Brian
Not only would I let him teach my kids, I would let him TUTOR THEM IN PRIVATE!
July 2, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
I would love to have some private instruction....oh baby!
July 2, 2009 6:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd much sooner have them taught by Jennings than by one of the fundie nutjobs that seem to run the FRC. Those people just creep me out.
July 2, 2009 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
It appears that they should be more concerned having their own around their kids
Fucking hippocrits
July 2, 2009 6:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anita Bryant would be proud, wouldn't she?
July 2, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly. Its interesting what the FRC sees and fears in someone else.
Usually people look to see faults in others they fear in themselves. Thats why so many rethugs are closet homos.
Denial much, FRC?
lol
July 2, 2009 11:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait a minute. If Jennings really publicly made these statements, he is a BAD choice.
These are seriously, politically impossible statements to justify.
He's expressed a serious hostility to (undifferentiated) Christian people. As a public servant, PARTICULARLY A STEWARD OF OUR EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS, you can't be so hostile to 60% of the population.
You can't possibly defend this guy. Get out of here.
July 2, 2009 6:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
EVEN IF you think the stuff he said is ok, do you REALLY think Obama should be spending his chips on THIS APPOINTMENT?
Of ALL the stuff he wants to accomplish, THIS is where he's going to cash them in? Fuck that.
This guy's statements, once this appointment gets to the big stage, are sure to reenergize every psychopathic religious person in America, and make the majority of Americans squirm.
If Obama tries this, it's going to cost him big. Americans need EFCA too much to pull this shit.
July 2, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yes Obama can and oh yes Obama DID!
Jennings is a political appointee at DOE. No confirmation required
As Eric correctly reports, he begins work on Monday
Get out of here
July 2, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I worked in Washington DC I knew Kevin Jennings and often saw him working. He is an extremely talented and capable leader, completely committed to the well-being of young people and students.
The FRC is taking a number of quotes completely out of context (not surprising for them). His autobiography is a compelling and frank story of coming of age as a young gay man in the US south -- many of the quotes FRC is citing come from that work, describing how he felt at times in the face of hostility of straight society and homophobia -- and how he grew and matured in his attitudes. The right wing tried to play the same game with President Obama's autobiographical writings -- and that didn't stick either.
Kevin has a strong history of working successfully with faith-based groups (Christian and otherwise), and has always done so with respect and professionalism (which is a lot more than you can say about how the Christian right groups are able to work with those who disagree with them).
These misleading quotations do not disqualify him in any way, and pose absolutely no danger to President Obama's agenda or political capital -- instead the unfair attacks from the wackos at FRC will only serve to solidify Kevin's profile and position, and to energize those of us willing to stand up for decency and fairness.
July 2, 2009 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
And if you want people to back you up on YOUR ISSUES, you might be more circumspect about your contempt for other Democrats, pal.
July 3, 2009 10:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
I can and I did
I am a Christian...God save us from the Christianists at FRC
July 2, 2009 7:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why not? The Christianists are.
At least he says he is trying not to be. Not the case on the other side -- they thrive on being hostile to most of the rest of society.
July 2, 2009 7:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh good grief. Just shut your piehole. Don't you have something else to wring your hands over?
July 2, 2009 7:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
LMAO
July 3, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Before assuming that the Family Research Council is being honest about the ad and the context of the quotes,
why not read here
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/03/kevin-jennings/
And next time, when not concern trolling actually do the due diligence and exercise some critical reasoning skills when confronted with homophobic propangda.
July 3, 2009 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
pretty good defense here;
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/03/kevin-jennings/
July 3, 2009 11:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's put it this way: Kevin Jennings strikes me as a far better choice for guiding schoolchildren than, say, Mark Sanford or Mark Foley or former Gainesville, GA, mayor Mark Musselwhite.
What better choice to generate some fresh ideas about how to reach schoolkids on the subject of drug use than a guy who has been there?
Talk about nattering nabobs of negativism!!!!
July 2, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
since you brought spiro agnew into this, a very fitting anagram for spiro agnew in relation to this blog is "grow a penis".
July 3, 2009 9:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
Keep kids away from Mark Sanford!
Oh wait, he is more than willing to stay away from them.
July 2, 2009 7:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hear hear
I am gay and I am so sick and tired of the FRC Morality Police I could just hurl
I googled the "controversy" and surprise, surprise, the fruitbats have been onto this one from the day the APPOINTMENT was announced.
I have had a lifetime of this crap
No more
July 2, 2009 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
From last month's DOE announcement
Kevin Jennings, Assistant Deputy Secretary, Office of Safe & Drug Free Schools
Kevin Jennings is the founder and former executive director of the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an organization that works to make schools safe for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. Prior to his tenure at GLSEN, Jennings served as History Department chair and a history teacher at Concord Academy in Massachusetts and before that as a history teacher at Moses Brown School in Rhode Island. Jennings has also authored six books including Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir which was named a 2007 Book of Honor by the American Library Association and Telling Tales Out of School which was the winner of the 1998 Lambda Literary Award. Jennings received an A.B. in history from Harvard, an M.A. from the Columbia University Teachers College and an M.B.A. from NYU's Stern School of Business.
July 2, 2009 7:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wonder if the FRC circulated a petition on this guy - a Reagan NOMINEE
July 2, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I/m with the Christian groups on this one.
After all, given a choice, who wouldn't choose Christians from the right with morality and drive to obey God and a desire to strike others dead for their sins, and reignite the Crusades, and torture the bad guys and preach the word of God, which condemns ALL child molesters, sodomists, and other perverts who haven't confessed and accepted Jesus... and promote assassinations of other leaders... and... and....
Those sticks must be WAY to big to remove from their own eyes....
July 2, 2009 7:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Has the Family Research Council already been branded a hate group?
God knows they should be...
July 2, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
The part "special protection for homo kids" part grabbed my attention.
The North Carolina General Assembly finally managed to pass an anti-bullying law. There was much Republican sturm und drang over the inclusion of kids who were homosexual or percieved to be homosexual (either of which is a more than adequate pretext for your average school bully) as one of the classes teachers are required to protect from bullying. They were really upset. They said requiring schools to protect kids who were gay or perceived as gay from being bullied promoted homosexuality.
Think about that. What they were really saying, and all but coming out and saying, is that protecting gay kids from getting the shit beat out of them at school, a not infrequent occurance down here in the land of diversity and tolorance, promoted gayness. By implication, and it seems pretty clear that they believed it, getting beaten up is actually a socially necesary deterrent to keep weak-minded straight kids from choosing to be gay.
They really have hit a point where they don't even think their soul-sickness is something they need to work on. On the contrary, they think it is laudible.
July 2, 2009 7:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm familiar with that line of thought but... Wow. Just wow.
July 2, 2009 8:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't see anything negative at all in those quotes. I mean, not even a little.
-He got stoned and watched airplanes. So?
-He hates fundies that want to deny him rights. Yeah?
-He'd rather a student had protected sex than unprotected sex. And?
What the hell is wrong with people?
July 2, 2009 7:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Aaah the good old days
Used to get stoned ...WASTED with my STRAIGHT frat pals and we'd go to the very end of the runway at New Orleans International...
That was a RUSH...that's watching airplanes when they land 20 yards from your head
July 2, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
The stoned passage was incautious.
Saying to 15-year-old boy who had just acknowledged to have had gay sex that he should use a condom is basic social responsibility. If he doesn't say that, he's complicit in spreading disease including some pretty nasty ones.
Politically, I do think that the embrace of gays may come back to haunt Obama but we'll see.
July 3, 2009 4:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Still cowering before the Mighty Moral Majority after all these years
OOOOO Obama's embrace of the gays!
They wrecked traditional marriage in this country
Why look at Ensign, Vitter and Sanford
July 3, 2009 1:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Objectively, you're totally right, of course.
It's about where to you go with tactics and what are absolute values and at which point in the debate.
Example: You know, the Second Amendment is not perfectly clear, but it's not totally confusing either: "A well-regulated militia being necessary the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
A. So where are the arms? In or as part of the *militia.*
B. What kind of militia? A *regulated* one.
C. How is it regulated? *Well* regulated.
That's a limitation on the right to bear arms and there's no respectable argument that it isn't one, whackjobs think what they will. Let alone that they are a grave public menace. Yet we've totally abandoned this issue, as a tactical matter. We all totally love guns, the more the merrier. You have an imbecile like Condoleeza Rice for example, posing as an intellectual, spewing, "I am a Second Amendment absolutist!" And what does the shit-for -brains mean by that, that we can all own suitcase nukes?
Why did Dems surrender on the issue? Cuz it's a *total loser*! Condi, Sarah, and Joe the Plumber win; the people lose. Fight over it, and the result is all Republicans, all the time. And Dems decided the price was too high. So sometimes, Dems have picked their fights, even over important issues.
John, I don't want to argue with you in any way, I respect you too much as an intelligent person of good will. Just discussing, with great respect for you and your orientation, and very sincerely so. If I'm wrong, then I am, okay?
Best,
O.T.
July 3, 2009 2:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lord, save us from the pseudo Christians!
Eternal Mother and Father, deliver us from the hatred and bigotry of pseudo Christians!
Oh, G-d, please open the eyes of the pseudo Christians to their un-Christ-like behavior!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! If the pseudo Christians fail to confess and repent their wicked, hate-filled, bigoted ways, PLEASE exact some of that old-fashioned, Old Testament justice, upon them as they love it so much(boils, impotency, and stoning come to mind)!
Amen.
July 2, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess Obama should have appointed Helen Lovejoy instead.
July 2, 2009 9:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
As usual, the homophobes mistake HOMOSEXUAL for PEDOPHILE. Homosexuals are sexually attracted TO ADULTS OF THEIR OWN GENDER. Pedophiles are attracted to children; some are attracted to same-sex minors, some are attracted to either genders, BUT THE VAST MAJORITY OF PEDOPHILES ARE ATTRACTED TO THE "OPPOSITE" GENDER.
Documented fact; most child molesters are heterosexual. This insane phobia against homosexuals teaching or being involved in education is just a smokescreen for anti-gay bigotry. Besides, this guy is going to be an administrator, far removed from children.
July 2, 2009 9:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could they be any more insecure about their sexuality?
July 2, 2009 10:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a bunch of sick fucs these people are! Sick and totally devoid of any sense of ethical behavior. It's just disgusting. There's simply nothing anyone could do to discredit them more thoroughly than what they themselves are doing now. What scum!
July 2, 2009 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Naw
They're sick fucks
July 3, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, what Bwakfat said!
July 3, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I so want to take a two by four and strap it one of these vagrant christian hypocrites ass's to see if they could pass muster as a straw man in the middle of a busy freeway,
Might get a whole new take on the shake and bake routinem plus I'm willing to bet their strawman attitude would be rectum fied in contact with a few indiscreet bumber's.
July 3, 2009 2:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Upon reflection, Obama['s people] handed the right an issue by putting this guy in the Education Department.
It's red meat for Talibangelicals et al. Plus, he liked to get stoned and he's now in charge of making schools drug-free? I hope he's not going to be in a position where children are going to be asked to respect his authority on such issues, since (unless I am missing some info) no one will.
Sensitive executive jobs as to gays I can think of would be Defense (unfortunately) and Education. Every other Department (it seems to me) can be filled with openly gay people, without great political cost.
Now, maybe the Administation just wants to poke a stick in some people's eyes by saying, "We don't care what you think! He's a talented, committed professional and if you feel his orientation is a stretch, then Overreach THIS!" And probably that's the moral high ground, fine. But one can't be surprised if this sort of thing hurts a bit in the mid-term elections and makes 2012 just a little harder. Maybe.
July 3, 2009 5:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
right, because kids have so much more respect for people who talk about things they know nothing about.
and yes, you're 'missing some info'.
July 3, 2009 9:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's the info I'm missing? Not philosophy, info. Be specific.
July 3, 2009 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama should appoint a dozen more like him -- or, better yet, one every news cycle. There's nothing like a gay educator to bring sad wingnut phobias out in the open for everyone to see.
July 3, 2009 5:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Look, I still haven't forgiven my fellow Americans for voting for Bush in 2000 and 2004. It really does disturb me; how *anybody* could have imagined that that lout might be qualified to be President. But many, many did. *Twice!*
*TWICE!!*
It shows that there are lot of very stupid people out there, plus wingnuts as you say, Talibangelicals, conservative Catholics, homophobes, bigots, ruralists, traditionalists, anti-intellectals, regressives, malcontents, curmudgeons, and cusses, and they are capable of voting in numbers. We should pick our fights in full consideration of the potential consequences.
July 3, 2009 7:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
you're right, obama should just continue the practice of telling gays they're second class citizens and should just stay in the closet because electing democrats is more important than actually standing for equal rights.
an administration cowed by bigotry is an administration captured by bigotry.
July 3, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Looks like somebody took his GRUMPY PILLS today!
July 3, 2009 1:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wow this guy did drugs before taking pubic office. I can't imagine the Right ever supporting anyone who, oh say, maybe did some cocaine or maybe was an alcoholic before taking public responsibility.
Oh wait, wasn't a guy like that PRESIDENT for the past 8 years?
Goddamn hippocrites.
July 3, 2009 6:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
wow. all of my female teachers growing up must have been lesbians. not a single one of them fondled or raped me (i'm a male). what are the odds of that?
July 3, 2009 9:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
http://thinkprogress.org/2009/07/03/kevin-jennings/
July 3, 2009 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
July 3, 2009 12:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, sure; people like Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Robbins, Walt Whitman, and Langston Hughes have all been sooo destructive to American society.
No, the real destructive threat here is the FRC itself.
July 3, 2009 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink