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. (more…)

“Trying to shut down criticism in the name of science is the real attack on science.”

–Clive Crook via Instapundit

The Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) best efforts notwithstanding, criticizing the organization does not mean you harbor anti-gay attitudes. If such were the standard, gay bloggers of all different stripes, from Trig truthers (& Obama apologists) to principled leftists to yours truly would all be anti-gay. And while I have not minced my words when talking about the gay auxiliary of the Democratic National Committee the liberal gay rights organization, left-of-center bloggers have used language far more choice than mine to describe HRC.

But, it seems the Advocate editors have drunk the HRC Kool-aid, having headlined their report on the Maine journalist fired for sending an intemperate e-mail to the liberal organization, “Reporter Fired for Antigay E-mail to HRC“.  Here’s the text of that e-mail:

Who are the hateful, venom-spewing ones? Hint: Not the yes on 1 crowd. You hateful people have been spreading nothing but vitriol since this campaign began. Good riddance!’”

Hmmm.. . .  doesn’t sound anti-gay to me.  I’ve heard gay friends (not all Republicans) use equally harsh language (albeit with different words) to describe HRC.

Now, maybe the good folks at HRC think that when Larry Grard (the journalist in question) modified the epithet “hateful people” with the pronoun you, he was referring not to just the recipient of the e-mail, but to all gay people.  That would then be mighty presumptuous of HRC to assume they speak for all gay people.  They certainly don’t speak for me nor for most readers of this blog nor for countless others American gays, including a good number of left-wing bloggers. (more…)

I believe it was in an e-mail to Bruce sometime in the spring when I saw the first poll of popular sentiment about the newly former President George W.Bush (where that good man, but flawed chief executive saw an uptick in his favorables while the incumbent saw his in decline) that I suggested we have a contest to figure out when those numbers would converge.  Well, that day may been soon upon us.

Over at the Atlantic, Chris Good reports:  ”only half of Americans would rather have President Obama in the White House than his predecessor, while 44 percent would prefer George W. Bush to still be president.”

He cites a Public Policy Polling survey which found:

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama’s declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they’d rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that’s somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country’s difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

If Obama keeps reminding us of the “tough situation he inherited” (as he did again Tuesday), Americans might not think him up to the job.  You know, when a new CEO is hired to take over a company with declining revenues, he doesn’t blame the old management, but rolls up his sleeves and figures out how to fix the mess.  If he keeps blaming the old management while revenues continue to decline, the board will likely replace him at their next meeting.

Looks like the “board” of this organization is beginning to think more favorably about the old CEO, even though he has gone into a constitutionally mandated (and not entirely unwelcome) retirement.  And the Constitution prevents the board from meeting for another three years.  Looks like we’re stuck with the whiny CEO.

And his hapless predecessor begins to look better by contrast.

Michael Petrelis informs me that he’s organizing a vigil today, December 10, Human Rights Day from 12 noon – 12:30 PM “for Uganda’s gay community as they struggle to stop homophobic political and religious leaders pushing a draconian Anti-Homosexuality Bill.” Gather at the Uganda Lamp Post/Pillar (pictured below), UN Plaza, Market Street, Near 7th Street.

He encourages people to bring placards and rainbow flags.

In a private e-mail to the Human Rights Campaign, a tired reporter in the Pine Tree State responded to their assertion that those who supported Question 1 on the state’s ballot month were haters, echoing something we have said on this blog.

“They said the Yes-on-1 people were haters. I’m a Christian. I take offense at that,” [Larry Grard, that aforementioned sleep-deprived journalist] said. “I e-mailed them back and said basically, ‘We’re not the ones doing the hating. You’re the ones doing the hating.’

He may have been weary, but he did have a point. A lot of the gay marriage activists have been doing a lot of hating.

Shortly after sending this e-mail, Grard, a “reporter for thirty-five years, the last eighteen of them at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville [Maine]” was summoned to the office of Bill Thompson, editor of the Sentinel:

He was told that Trevor Thomas, deputy communications director of the Human Rights Campaign, had Googled his name, discovered he was a reporter, and was demanding Grard be fired. According to Grard, Thompson said, “There’s no wiggle room.”

He was immediately dismissed.

Wow, just wow. HRC gets an intemperate e-mail and instead of asking for an apology demands the writer be fired. And heck, the reporter didn’t even cover “the marriage issue or other gay-rights controversies for the Sentinel.”  But, to HRC, if you don’t have the politically correct mind-set, well, then you shouldn’t have a job in journalism.  Maybe it’s because of tactics like theirs that mainstream reporters don’t cover the hateful rhetoric spewing from some segments the gay left.

Has any mainstream reporter ever covered the thuggish tactics of HRC? (more…)

Familiar solutions dominate Congressional jobs meeting

Seems that when it comes to policy ideas, this new kind of politics is nothing more than the same old big-spending liberalism.

(More on this as time allows.)

While I think some of the coverage on conservative blogs about the latest Kevin Jennings hullabaloo (James Taranto might call it a kerfuffle) a bit overheated, I have not yet found any cause to rescind my earlier call for his resignation.  Simply put, he is not the kind of man who should be supervising a program for elementary and secondary schools in the federal Department of Education.

That said, while I think it’s highly relevant to study the content of the books he recommended for middle and high school students, I don’t know how relevant it is to bring up the “youth conference” his organization GLSEN sponsored at Tuft’s University in March 2000 where facilitators* taught the finer points of “fisting” and asked rather inappropriate questions of young teens. It appears that GLSEN did a better job policing its workshops since then.***  More recent conferences apparently have not included such seminars.  (At least I have seen no evidence that they have.)

Let us hope that they fired the individuals responsible for said workshops and the person who, by including them in the conference, deemed them appropriate for adolescents.*** Anyone who thinks it appropriate to teach such things to teens shouldn’t be allowed to teach teens (or facilitate workshops for them).  Such seminars have nothing to do with teaching adolescents responsible sexual behavior nor do they help them develop an adult attitude toward sexuality.

But, the “curriculum” there does seem to be part of a pattern for Mr. Jennings, wishing to impart to adolescents an attitude toward sexuality where indulgence is the operative idea and intimacy and affection are reduced to occasional (and perhaps welcome) side effects.  And the rules of safe sex are the only limits.

As I’ve said previously and it bears repetition, we can’t make a final judgment on the nature of the books on the GLSEN list without putting the sexually explicit passages in context.  That said, books with such descriptions are not appropriate for young teens (up to age 15 or 16) and should only be recommended to older ones after first consulting their parents.

What I find troubling in this whole story is something I have encountered all too often in my own experience coming out and living as a gay man, that our (gay) culture reduces our sexuality to its mere sexual expression.  Not just that, those who put themselves in positions of guidance to gay adolescents very often just mimic the culture; they don’t try to improve it by encouraging their charges to tether sexual expression to emotional connection or even to make them aware of the importance of that connection.   (more…)

Massachusetts Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, is using a slur some AGW zealots love to describe those critical or skeptical of their views. I heard him on TV today on the news calling them “anti-science.”

So, we’ve got a career politician (Markey was first elected to the Massachusetts House in 1972 when he was 26) telling scientists who have spent their lives studying the earth and its climate “anti-science.”  That’s rich.

If Markey calls opponents of cap and trade are anti-science, I wonder what he calls scientists who try to force data into a theory without accounting for how some data often undermine said theory. Or what does he call scientists who won’t release their data and disguise their methodology.  About scientists who “subvert peer review and prevent publication of papers that didn’t completely agree with the favored theory“.  About scientists who try to hide an inconvenient decline? (more…)

Just caught this while reading another post on the blog Conservatives4Palin; it speaks to do things our mainstream media has failed to explore (well, on the former, they are beginning to address said failure), Barack Obama’s rhetoric and Sarah Palin’s record.

Even now, after having presided over massive increases in the federal deficits, the Democrat still decries out-of-control federal spending.  During the campaign, he had promised us a “net spending cut”, matching an increase in one program with a cut in another.  Well, Mrs. Palin could teach him a thing or two about spending cuts.  Between 2007 (the last state budget signed by her predecessor Frank Murkowski) and 2010 ( the last budget she signed as Governor), she cut spending by  ”whopping 9.5% or $1,127,400,000”

Governor Murkowski’s last budget FY2007: $11,697,400,000

Governor Palin’s latest budget FY2010: $10,570,000,000

That is, she didn’t just cut spending in inflation-adjusted dollars, she cut it in real dollars.  With record deficits, we could use some fiscal discipline like that in our nation’s capital.

Generally, if I post on a matter where I indicate that I share even the slightest bit of common ground with social conservatives, critics will come in as if out of the woodwork, making allegations about my views both at odds with my actual opinions and even (on occasion) at odds with things I actually said in the very post to which they attach their comments. And  so it was, when, in the past ninety-six hours, I posted on Adam Lambert and the latest Kevin Jennings “scandal.”

As to the former, first let me say that I’ve never heard him sing or seen him perform (save for a brief clip of his sexual simulation at the American Music Awards); I offer no commentary about his vocal talents.  Simply put, I don’t have a problem with ABC canceling his appearance on their network because they fear a repeat of his performance at those awards nor do I think it appropriate for a gay organization to take ABC to task for its actions.

And while I share the concerns expressed by some conservative bloggers about the content of the books on the list GLSEN, Jennings’ organization, provided for adolescents on its website, don’t let that concern mean I share those bloggers’ views on every issue involving gays (and sex).  I know that some of them, for example, support “abstinence only” sex education, a idea I believe to be counterproductive and outdated, particularly given a culture saturated by sex.

Now, I do have problem with sex education curricula which discourage teen abstinence and encourage them to be sexually active.

That said, whether we like it or not, teens are going to be having sex.  They need to know about contraception and STDs.  They also need to know that sex can be infinitely more rewarding when part of an intimate and loving relationship.   There are benefits to abstinence–and not just form from the point of view of preventing pregnancy and STDs.  Those should also be taught.

If, however, kids are only taught about abstinence, they likely won’t learn about the risks which inhere in sex.  In this culture saturated by sex, with pressure from their peers, with their own human desires, they’re going to act out their urges.  So, let them know the risks, but also let them know that they don’t need to have sex to prove themselves. (more…)

Last week, he promised “bring down the deficit“:

Our new approach in Afghanistan is likely to cost us roughly $30 billion for the military this year, and I’ll work closely with Congress to address these costs as we work to bring down our deficit.

Today, he promised to increase it:

President Barack Obama called for a major new burst of federal spending Tuesday, perhaps $150 billion or more, aiming to jolt the wobbly economy into a stronger recovery and reduce painfully persistent double-digit unemployment.

Despite Republican criticism concerning record federal deficits, Obama said the U.S. has had to “spend our way out of this recession” with so many people out of work but insisted he was still mindful of a need to confront soaring deficits.

Mindful of the need to confront soaring deficits?   That’s nice, but doesn’t do anything to reduce federal spending.  I’m mindful of feminine beauty, but a hot chick still doesn’t do for me what she does for my straight male friends.

It’s too bad Democrats remain in Spenderland, believing that government spending is the solution to all social problems.  If the president really wants to help put people back to work, he needs to do something which makes it easier for those institutions which best create new jobs to do just that.   That means, he need remove regulatory and tax burdens on small businesses.

To that end, it might be a good idea for his EPA to reconsider its declaration yesterday about carbon dioxide.  That’s just going to give the federal government one more tool with which to interfere with American enterprises.  And small businesses are not readily equipped to adapt to meet federal mandates nor to do the paperwork to show compliance with said mandates — nor to hire attorneys to challenge edicts handed down by federal agencies.

Joy Behar called him one, so it must be so.

If he were such an icon, it would provide additional evidence of the politicization of gay culture, where a man is celebrated merely because he has spoken out against an approved villain of the gay establishment.  And the primary qualification for being such a villain is being a conservative politician with a popular following.

Ever since I reviewed the “news” segments where Katie Couric accorded different treatment to the Democratic and Republican nominees for Vice President last fall, I have been wondering if the reason the CBSNews anchor chose to include the clip of Joe Biden telling us how Franklin Roosevelt went on television right after the market crash (you know the one that, in combination with increased government intervention in the economy precipitated the Great Depression) was because, like the misinformed Democrat, she too was ignorant of American history.

If she had known that back in 1929, presidents didn’t go on television and that, well, FDR wasn’t then president (the market crashed more than three years before that Democrat’s election and longer still before his inauguration), she would have certainly asked a followup. (Okay, okay she may well have done that, but just edited it out–so we have another argument for her to release the raw footage of her interview.) 

Given that her segment was very favorable to the Delaware Democrat, it seems she wouldn’t have included the bit where Biden demonstrates his ignorance of American history.  So, maybe she too is ignorant of American history.  She didn’t know he got his facts wrong.

And if she did not that he was wrong—and didn’t press him on that, well, then we have another piece of evidence of her incredible bias.  Any good reporter would have asked a politician to follow up on such a strange statement.

That is, if she knew it to be strange.

Caught this as I was about to turn in, seems that in lashing out against Republicans who oppose the kind of health care reform Harry Reid has been proposed, the Nevada Democrat has been attacking his own constituents.

As he compares “Republicans who oppose health care reform to lawmakers who clung to the institution of slavery more than a century ago“, he seem to be oblivious to the growing number of Americans opposing the type of health care reforms he and his fellow partisans have been pushing.  If Republicans who oppose health care reform are akin to those clinging to “the institution of slavery”*, wouldn’t then Nevadans who oppose Obamacare also be a akin to those bitter clingers?

And as Michelle informs us, a “majority of Nevadans now disapprove of Democrats’ plans for healthcare reform“:

Fifty-three percent of those polled say they do not support reform legislation, wich 39% in favor. In October, 49% opposed it and 40% favored it.

Seems then that by Harry Reid’s own logic, he was elected by a bunch of people similar to those who once clung bitterly to slavery.

———–

*Does one cling to the institution of slavery like one clings to guns, religion and antipathy to people who aren’t like them?

Guess it helps when you can get your own message out without the active interference of the mainstream media, well, with greatly reduced interference.  I mean, during her book tour, the media isn’t letting up, just not attacking her with the ferocity of their campaign coverage last fall.   If any of the internet news aggregators offer headlines about the former Alaska Governor, they tend to be critical of that accomplished reformer.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll (which tends to lean Democratic) released earlier today found that

Americans are split on Palin, with 46 percent saying they have a favorable opinion of her and an equal amount saying they have an unfavorable view of last year’s Republican vice presidential nominee.

Looks like she’s doing just a tad better than the president.  The current pollster average has 48.4% of Americans disapproving of the job he’s doing with only 47.8% approving:

Wonder what his numbers would look like if the media treated him as they do her.

UPDATE: Come to think about it, maybe I should have picked a different title.  While Palin’s poll numbers are on an upward trend, Obama’s are heading south.  Not quite parallel that.

When Barack Obama started telling us about jobs that his economic policies would “save or create,” many noted those first two weeks.  I mean, how can he measure the number of jobs saved?  He can tell us that, well, his economic program is succeeding because if we hadn’t had it, we would have lost 3,500,000 more jobs than we did.

Now, touting the success of his program, he’s asking to do it all over again.  So, maybe that’ll help save another few million jobs because the last one sure didn’t create any.  We’ve lost over 2.8 million jobs since the first one passed in February.  Apparently convinced that  more government money will help continue the progress made by the first “stimulus”, “President Obama will propose using $200 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to support creating jobs“.

His own words notwithstanding, guess the Democrat is not really aware of the private sector’s capacity to create jobs.

As Jim Geraghty puts it, “Obama’s plan to deal with unemployment at 10 percent is exactly the same as his plan to deal with unemployment when it was 7.6 percent.”

Some people just never learn.

I had to run a few errands this afternoon, the first at the Staples on Wilshire.  After picking out my purchases, I went over to wait in the checkout line.  Traditionally, at this staples, people gather near a certain display cabinet and wait their turn for the next available cashier.

Well, one guy, maybe in his mid-20s, seeing no line behind the one open checkout lane, rushed to stand behind the woman having her purchases rung up by a hapless clerk.  I moved my lips to protest, but was just not in the mood to fight him.  Well, this cashier seemed to be quite new on the job and was taking her time ringing up that shopper.  I was getting frustrated, this being the third time in as many days where, at fast food restaurants or other stores, I dealt with such service.

I felt like letting my would-be purchases drop onto the floor and storming out when, all of a sudden, this one Staples employee with a smile on her face, while walking over to the adjacent checkstand, said to me (then the only person in line), “I’m opening up over here” or some such. As I was placing my purchases in front of her, she said, “Sorry to keep you waiting, sir.”  She sounded like she meant it.

Not only was she polite, but she was she was also efficient.  She had rung up my purchases in no time.  Soon, with a cheerful smile, she was wishing me a pleasant afternoon and I was rushing out the door, off to my next errand.  Only then did I regret not getting her name so I could e-mail the store to express my appreciation.

Oh, and, one more thing, the last thing I saw in the store was the guy who had cut in front of me still waiting while the hapless clerk (at his register) struggled to ring up his purchases.  And a woman was having her purchases rung up by the kind and efficient clerk.

Some little things do make a big difference.  And some moments like this are to savor.

While all too many on the left (and in the MSM) continue to ridicule the Tea Parties being held across the country this past year, they represent the largest grassroots phenomenon of 2009.   If the GOP can tap into the energy of these parties, Republicans will repeat the results last month of elections in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the counties surrounding New York City and avoid the mistakes of New York’s 23rd Congressional Districts.

Republicans continue to improve their standings in generic party matchups against Democrats, leading in the Gallup survey  for the first time in years:

Today, however, Rasmussen finds that a hypothetical Tea Party candidate would run ahead of a Republican:

In a three-way Generic Ballot test, the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds Democrats attracting 36% of the vote. The Tea Party candidate picks up 23%, and Republicans finish third at 18%. Another 22% are undecided.

Among voters not affiliated with either major party, the Tea Party comes out on top. Thirty-three percent (33%) prefer the Tea Party candidate, and 30% are undecided. Twenty-five percent (25%) would vote for a Democrat, and just 12% prefer the GOP.

This shows that voters still remain skeptical of the small government bona fides of the GOP, or, as law professor William A. Jacobson more ominoulsy puts it, “the Republican establishment needs to understand that it has lost its base.”  People still remain skeptical of the GOP’s commitment to the principles which helped Republicans win the White House in the 1980s and Congress in the 1990s, but at the same time embrace those principles. (more…)

Reid Compares Opponents of Health Care Reform to Supporters of Slavery

(Well, actually, most Republicans don’t oppose health care reform, they just oppose Reid’s version of health care reform.)

Recall when White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said those comparing Democrats to Nazis were standing “on thin ice”. Wonder if he’ll offer a similar reprimand to Ol’ Harry?