Saturday, February 27, 2010

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.
Gay Liberation button. Location no. 1998.105.11

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.

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