In Their Own Words: Kevin Jennings
UPDATED with more recent remarks by Jennings from a 2015 interview
“…the great thing about the Supreme Court ruling is we don’t have to call it ‘gay marriage’ anymore; it’s just plain old marriage. So that’s an exciting thing for those of us who are LGBT because we don’t have ‘gay lunch’ or ‘gay dinner,’ and we don’t have ‘gay marriages’ either. We just have marriages and lunch and dinner.”
“In terms of the religious issue, I find that quite confusing. And I find that confusing for a couple reasons. First of all, we have separation of church and state in this country. And we have a constitutional clause that says there shall be no establishment of religion. So it doesn’t matter if it bothers your religion. It’s a public school that has a responsibility for serving 100 percent of every kid who lives in the community. Some of those kids are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. And it’s your job to serve them, whether you like them or not.”
“My denomination, the Episcopalian church, just voted to recognize marriage equality and extend the same rights of marriage to same-sex couples that it has extended in the past to opposite-sex couples. My church tells me to accept LGBT people. So I get really frustrated when people say, ‘Well, I really can’t accept this because I’m Christian.’ You know what? I’m Christian, too. I go to church every Sunday. And my church tells me to accept people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender. So why should your version of religion trump my version of religion?”
Yesterday I sorted through some of the controversy surrounding the “Safe School Czar” Kevin Jennings1. FOX and other talking heads have now connected the dots and are railing against his comments supporting gay activist Henry Hay and lack of reporting underage gay sex. I personally feel his agenda of teaching gay tolerance as early as kindergarten should face much more scrutiny and controversy.
We can look to the Progressive playground in California to review and understand their agenda, goals and what this government intends for the nation. From the DVD “It’s Elementary: Talking about Gay Issues in Schools”2, to the Pro-Gay pledges 3, Gay Day, Coming Out Day — even a mandatory gay tolerance program in Alomeda California: all of this is underway or old news.
Last month I posted the quotes and exerts from interviews with Cass Sunstein 4, one of the czars under attack, so it’s only fitting to allow Mr. Jennings to speak for himself – in his own words.
photo Julyo based on work by Gilbert Baker, 1979 via wikimedia commons
“It’s not about how you feel about gay people, it’s about making sure all of our students achieve.” – NEA interview5
You may read or hear how Jennings is hostile towards religion based on these comments from his memoir:
“God…had done nothing but cause me pain and anguish through His inaction and malevolence throughout my childhood. … What had he done for me, other than make me feel shame and guilt? Squat. Screw you, buddy — I don’t need you around anymore, I decided.”
(Discussing his feelings as a gay teen, frustrated with God)
Stop there, most would agree, but he went on a few sentences later: “Decades passed before I opened a Bible again” and Jennings goes into serving as a board member on the Union Theological Seminary in New York.
But he’s no role model:
“I got stoned more often and went out to the beach at Bellows, overlooking Honolulu Harbor and the lights of the city, to drink with my buddies on Friday and Saturday nights, spending hours watching the planes take off and land at the airport, which is actually quite fascinating when you are drunk and stoned.” – 2007 autobiography, page 103, “Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son: A Memoir”, discussing his high school years in Hawaii in the early 1980s.
Great role model for our school kids.
March 20, 2000 in a speech to Marble Collegiate Church (New York):
“Twenty percent of people are hard-core fair-minded [pro-homosexual] people. Twenty percent are hard-core [anti-homosexual] bigots. We need to ignore the hard-core bigots, get more of the hard-core fair-minded people to speak up, and we’ll pull that 60 percent [of people in the middle] … over to our side. That’s really what I think our strategy has to be. We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit — … I’m trying to find a way to say this. I’m trying not to say, ‘[F—] ’em!’ which is what I want to say, because I don’t care what they think! [audience laughter] Drop dead!”
Days later…
Massachusetts Departments of Health and Education led a youth workshop titled “What They Didn’t Tell You about Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class” – it was in 2000 and hence been dubbed “Fistgate” and is NOT for the meek.
PLEASE BE WARNED THAT THIS IS RATHER INTENSE, GROSS DESCRIPTION
Children as young as 12 (it was promoted to be for ages 14 to 21) were instructed by adults (Massachusetts State employees or members of Jennings’ group GLSEN) how to perform a range of dangerous and perverted homosexual sex acts.
One of those State Officials: “Fisting [forcing one’s entire hand into another person’s rectum or vagina] often gets a bad rap….[It’s] an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with…[and] to put you into an exploratory mode.”
So, the founder of this organization GLSEN praised a gay activist Harry Hay, a communist and NAMBLA supporter. He has pushed the pro-homosexual agenda with their own brand of bigotry and hatred. I’m going to credit him that he’s admitted to error in judgment by NOT reported the homosexual underage sex, but I’m not convinced that he’d changed.
Endorsing a book and supporting a movement as controversial as mandatory gay tolerance in public schools, as early as kindergarten, is NOT mainstream. Safe schools for homosexuality is NOT the mainstream interpretation of safety in schools. The czars are outside of the scrutiny of fellow cabinet members.
We need to be honest here and admit that we, as a society, have been passive and lazy, and NOW realize that the czars need to go. Fire them, defund them and prohibit this circumvention of the constitution by calling and writing our representatives.
1. https://www.theglobaldispatch.com/kevin-jennings-the-next-czar-to-go-93613/
2. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=19357474
4. http://brandon7221.blogspot.com/2009/09/their-own-words-cass-sunstein.html
5. http://www.nea.org/tools/30428.htm
http://www.bookwormroom.com/2009/09/28/one-small-victory/3
http://www.cultureandfamily.org/articledisplay.asp?id=2580&department=CFI&categoryid=papers#ref
