BAGLY and Kevin Jennings -- Outrages by a Favorite GLSEN Ally

Kevin Jennings, Obama’s “Safe Schools” Czar and founder of GLSEN, has long turned to BAGLY as an important community “support group” for “gay and lesbian youth.” 

BAGLY is the Boston Alliance of Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender Youth. It is a sexual radical organization currently promoting homosexuality, bisexuality, transgenderism, transsexuality, polyamory, sadomasochism, and even “sex work”(prostitution) to young teens.

 

As primary author of the 1993 education report for the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, Jennings recommended that state agencies, schools, libraries, and parents refer “gay and lesbian youth” to BAGLY. (MassResistance will soon republish Jennings’ 1993 report.) Jennings’ brainchild, the “Safe Schools” program in Massachusetts, has continuously turned to BAGLY as the model for effective youth “counseling”. 

Girls at Massachusetts Youth Pride 2007.

BAGLY’s first and current director, Sterling Stowell, was a member of the original Governor’s Commission along with Jennings in the early 1990s. Since then, Stowell and BAGLY staffers have been speakers at GLSEN-Boston conferences, as well as at National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) events. In January 2010, NGLTF announced its “longevity” award to Stowell -- alongside its “Leather Leadership” award to a homosexual sadomasochist.

Stowell accepting NGLTF award.

This is the world Kevin Jennings is a part of now, and has been for the past twenty years.

BAGLY’s Stowell, is now a male-to-female transsexual, and is still a member of the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth (and was recently co-chair). Now going by the name “Grace”, he gives workshops to young people on transgenderism and transsexuality. Until we exposed it, he posted prominent “resource” links on the BAGLY website to a male-to-female sex-change surgery site.

Stowell is listed in the infamous GLSEN-Boston 2000 “Fistgate” conference booklet as a member of its Board of Directors [p. 17]. At that conference, BAGLY led a session celebrating its 20^th year of service to “GLBTQ youth” [p. 13]. Stowell gave a workshop at the 2005 conference where the Little Black Book was distributed to young teens.

“Grace” Sterling Stowell (left), BAGLY director and long-time Kevin Jennings associate, cheering kids on at a Youth Pride parade.

In 2005, the Boston homosexual newspaper Bay Windows reported on BAGLY’s work with youth in its early days (1980’s-90’s). BAGLY mixed . . .

… college and high school students [with] runaways, hustlers and drag queens who lived on the street. That diversity made for some interesting discussions at the group's Wednesday meetings. Klein [a founding member] said during a discussion on hustling and prostitution, members of the group who were hustlers shared their own firsthand experiences with the other youth. The discussions could also get quite heated. Defrocked Catholic priest Paul Shanley, who was convicted in February [2005] of raping an altar boy, came to a meeting to discuss sexuality and religion. The priest, who had built a reputation of ministering to sexual minority youth, did not receive a warm welcome from the BAGLY youth. “He was attacked by the kids. People were all over him,” recalled Klein. “They kept asking him, ‘Are you gay? Are you gay,’ and he said, ‘I refuse to answer that.’ ”

In 1999, BAGLY was caught paying underage teen males to join adults at a lakeside resort for “counseling”.

Teen boy at Mass. Youth Pride.

Every year, BAGLY holds a prom for “GLBT youth”, capping the Massachusetts Youth Pride day in Boston. Stowell guards the door to keep reporters out. No wonder: By 2009, the BAGLY prom brazenly included a “gay” sadomasochism theme, with Mr. Boston Leather greeting the teens, handing them his “business card” as they arrived.

What Jennings and Stowell preach: Transgenderism at Mass. Youth Pride parade 2007. A huge "transwoman" mentoring trans “bois”.

This year at its prom, BAGLY promises to distribute dental dams, condoms, and lubricant, and “safer sex materials” as young people leave the event. From BAGLY’s recent email from Trevor Wright (4-13-10) inviting adults to chaperone the May 8 event:

BAGLY IS FREE OF:

·      Alcohol

·      Drugs

·      Sex

·      Violence

·      Weapons

·      Pressure/Harassment

We are strongly committed to upholding these rules. Anyone violating any of the above should be asked to leave. In addition, City Hall has stated that no condoms, dental dams, lube or explicit safer sex materials are allowed in the building. Anyone handing out such materials should be asked to leave. BAGLY will be distributing these items to all youth as they leave the Prom. [emphasis added]

Americans for Truth has just reported that this year’s National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) “Creating Change” conference (Feb. 2010) included a workshop presented by BAGLY called “Young and Poly”. From the NGLTF program:

Young and Poly - Sexual Freedom

Polyamory being one of the more marginalized identities of our community, young people need a safe space to be validated within their truths. Being young and poly even in the “queer” community is impacted by a hetero-normative model of family and relationships. This caucus is not designed as a poly 101 but is designed for young people that identify on the poly spectrum to voice shared experiences and learn from one another.

Presenters: Daunasia Yansey, BAGLY [Boston Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Youth], MA

Americans for Truth explains:

The above is taken from the program guide (p. 73) of the 2010 National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s“Creating Change” conference, held in Dallas, Texas, February 3-7, 2010. Presenter Daunasia Yansey is also an activist with the Boston Sex Workers Outreach Project (SWOP), affiliated with SWOP-USA, which advocates for the decriminalization of prostitution.

“Sexual Freedom” is a track at the Creating Change conference denoting the latest stage in the Sexual Revolution: rights and recognition for various “alternative lifestyles” beyond homosexuality-bisexuality-transgenderism, including sadomasochism, “swingers,” and polyamory and fetish “communities.” The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) was founded in 1973 and is the oldest national homosexual “rights” organization in the United States.

Good clean fun? Or practicing to be a sex worker? At the BAGLY prom, 2007.

In 2006, BAGLY sent youth to an NGLTF “Creating Change” workshop promoting “sex work” (prostitution) to young teens. AFTAH reported:

There were 77 seats available in the meeting room, very few empty, with an additional 8 or 10 people standing. In the front row, directly in front of the panel, sat teenage students from Boston Alliance of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth (“BAGLY” — “a youth-led, adult-supported social support organization”)….

One of the teenage boys on the front row raised his hand and asked: “How do you get started?” He explained: “We suspect that one of the youth in our group is leaning toward sex work. What should we do?”

The panelists did not suggest deterring the youth from pursuing sex work or encouraging the youth to think about a college education. They suggested listening, remaining non-judgmental, and perhaps discussing safety, “but not to the extent that he feels stigmatized.”

These are the people and organizations “Safe Schools Czar” Kevin Jennings and our Massachusetts government put in charge of student “safety”!

Stowell marching at Youth Pride 2007 in Boston:

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

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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.