The Kevin Jennings Kerfuffle Gets Curiouser & Curiouser
It seems that just as soon as I start trying to verifying one story about Kevin Jennings and the conferences he sponsored when at the helm of GLSEN, another one comes along requiring verification. An undated clip on a conservative blog suggests GLSEN hired security to prevent parents from seeing what was going on a conference they sponsored. This appears to date back to 2001, but is it indicative of more recent conferences?
Jim Hoft has been all over a book that was distributed four years later:
The children who attended Kevin Jennnings’ GLSEN 2005 Conference also left with their own “Little Black Book – Queer in the 21st Century”.
While the guide provides helpful information about STD prevention and the perils of drug use, it all but avoids discussing the link between sexual expression and emotional attachment. Not to mention the fact that the repeated use of the word, “queer,” politicizes the whole endeavor. A good many, perhaps even an overwhelming majority of, gay people bristle at being labeled “queer” by overzealous advocates.
Although the booklet does include some essential information, it is entirely inappropriate for teenagers. And not just for the promotion of casual sex without emotional attachment — and even appears to countenance sex in public parks. The guide even provides a list of Boston area bars. Let me repeat that, the booklet that GLSEN distributed to teenagers, high school students, includes a list of gay bars in the Boston area. Now, I went to college in Massachusetts and I recall the drinking age there was 21 and also recall that it was illegal for minors to enter bars.
Doesn’t seem like something to include in a booklet distributed to high school kids, (nearly) all of whom are under 21.
The more information that comes out about Kevin Jennings and the conferences his organization sponsored and the information it distributed, the more it seems he wishes to define a gay identity in purely sexual terms.
It’s hardly anti-gay, as at least one left-wing web-sites has suggested, to call him out on this. Ask yourself this question, would it be appropriate for a straight man who had helmed an organization which provided tips for high school boys on cruising chicks and listing straight bars to work in the federal Department of Education (or any department of Education for that matter), much less at head of an office responsible for “safe schools.”
FROM THE COMMENTS: Beth, just south of Berkeley and just east of San Francisco offers:
Suggesting to gay teenage boys lit up by hormones that anonymous sex in public parks is an ordinary experience rather than something ill-considered (for any number of reasons) goes beyond (the very Nixonian) “mistakes were made.”
Well said, very well said.
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A good many, perhaps even an overwhelming majority of, gay people bristle at being labeled “queer” by overzealous advocates.
Could you quantify this?
And just out of curiosity, have you EVER been involved in any sort of health education? Again, people not at all familiar with the situation are making judgments. Yes, I’m sure mistakes were made, I would be willing to bet they don’t produce these pamphlets for different age groups. But that’s not really what you’re looking for, just reasons to feel outraged. You’ve gone way beyond any sort of relevance in this discussion.
And out of curiosity, if you’re just going to continue to repost other people’s work and put 2 paragraphs of shitty superficial analysis on it as your own, why don’t you just save us the time and link us to the people who are actually doing some research? All you’ve really done to thinking people in the past posts regarding this is show how much better other blogs are doing on researching and covering these issues. Maybe before posting another post on this, you could figure out if anything you’re saying is really relevant or adding to the discussion.
Comment by Tim — December 10, 2009 @ 6:38 pm - December 10, 2009
HEY DAN! AS A LOYAL READER WHO’S JOB IT IS TO SPELL CHECK YOUR WORK CAUSE YOU’RE JUST SO DARN BUSY AND IMPORTANT, “CURIOUSER” ISN’T A REAL WORD!
JUST WANT TO LET YOU KNOW SINCE YOU’RE TOO BUSY DOING SUCH QUALITY POSTS AND INTENSIVE, RELEVANT RESEARCH! LET ME KNOW IF YOU HAVE ANY MORE HEADLINES I CAN SPELL CHECK FOR YOU!
THANKS!
Comment by Tim — December 10, 2009 @ 6:41 pm - December 10, 2009
Um, Tim, “curiouser and curiouser” is a literary reference (from Alice in Wonderland).
I thought that maybe a guy as well-read as you might know that.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — December 10, 2009 @ 6:44 pm - December 10, 2009
Dan: For what it’s worth, Media Matters reports that the “Little Black Book” wasn’t distributed by GLSEN nor was it done with their approval.
http://mediamatters.org/research/200912090020
I don’t consider Mass Resistance to be a credible source either, but I must say that the audio is compelling and I’d like an answer on.
Comment by John — December 10, 2009 @ 6:47 pm - December 10, 2009
Oh, and, as to your first comment, if my pieces are so irrelevant with such shitty analysis, why are you so quick to read them, commenting mere minutes after I post it?
Jus’ wonderin’, that’s all. (Oh, should I spell check that expression too?)
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — December 10, 2009 @ 6:48 pm - December 10, 2009
John, Media Matters is not a credible source.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — December 10, 2009 @ 6:50 pm - December 10, 2009
Yet Mass Resistance is to you? Gateway Pundit’s source concerning the “Little Black Book” is Mass Resistance. Besides, note my use of the words “for what it’s worth” and “either” above, implying that I do not consider Media Matters OR Mass Resistance to be credible. But since one non-credible source is being used to make the charge it seems perfectly acceptable to me to cite the rebuttal from an equally non-credible source.
None of this says anything about the audio Mass Resistance provides. I find it to be disturbing. Perhaps it was taken out of context but I’d like to hear GLSEN’s explanation about this.
Comment by John — December 10, 2009 @ 6:54 pm - December 10, 2009
Dan,
I’m surprised that Tim doesn’t know Alice in Wonderland either.
Most kids watching it are in his age group.
Comment by The_Livewire — December 10, 2009 @ 6:58 pm - December 10, 2009
Fair points as per Mass Resistance. I find that Jim (at Gateway) tends to do a good job checking his sources. But, note that verb there, “tend”. I have him to have been lax in his fact-checking from time to time; it’s why I have been slow to cover the story. Been googling around to confirm it as best I can.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — December 10, 2009 @ 7:03 pm - December 10, 2009
With Jennings’ hook up info on the inside cover, no doubt.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — December 10, 2009 @ 8:04 pm - December 10, 2009
Say Tim, could you be an even bigger asshole and still say absolutely nothing? Would I be right in guessing that animals tend to sorta freak out in your presence?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — December 10, 2009 @ 8:09 pm - December 10, 2009
Why is Tim so hellbent on defending the creeps at GLSEN? Does he honestly find nothing objectionable in their attempts to sleazify teenagers?
Creepy.
Comment by V the K — December 10, 2009 @ 11:02 pm - December 10, 2009
Re that lead comment from Tim: what a completely disingenuous post! There are no end of self-identified “queers” out to put down people who are merely “gay,” whom they think they are putting down with the term “assimilationist.” If “queers” were a majority, would they have a need to be that angry that others are going their own gay-but-not-”queer” way? Nope. (Which is a word, by the way.)
As for experience in health education, anyone with any familiarity with the early years of the AIDS epidemic knows that the one thing healthcare professionals and health educators wanted to do was keep the highly sexually active gay men in desperate need of preventive information out of the anonymous public sex circuit. Ergo, the counterintuitive move to keep bath houses open instead of shutting them. (For a discussion, see Josh Sides’ new book, “Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco.”)
Suggesting to gay teenage boys lit up by hormones that anonymous sex in public parks is an ordinary experience rather than something ill-considered (for any number of reasons) goes beyond (the very Nixonian) “mistakes were made.”
I’ve seen this trick before: the incensed insistence that someone “prove” something obvious on its face–in this case, that GLSEN needs a new name so it can use the more appropriate acronym CLUELESS.
Yeesh.
Comment by Beth, just south of Berkeley and just east of San Francisco — December 11, 2009 @ 12:06 am - December 11, 2009
Okay, I’m just speaking as a parent here.
My stepson exhibits signs that he may be homosexual (he’s 9). His sisters, father, and I all acknowledge that this is a strong possibility. Does it affect how we feel about him?
NO!
We all love him, regardless of his orientation. What we want for him is a happy life with a committed partner.
This stuff about GLSEN scares the $hit out of me. I want my stepson to have a meaningful relationship(s) with people who care about him – not mindless, disease-laden sex with unknown individuals.
I don’t know what the solution is, I just want him to lead a happy life. I’m sure I’m not alone. Mindless sex with anonymous partners is NOT a prescription for a happy life.
Unless you’re a predator.
Comment by ElvenPhoenix — December 11, 2009 @ 12:18 am - December 11, 2009
Or, apparently, Gay Inc.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — December 11, 2009 @ 2:45 am - December 11, 2009
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