People for the American Way are reporting that now Fox News has published a long article detailing the attacks on Kevin Jennings, President Obama's appointee in the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools (OSDFS) and GLSEN founder. To make a long story short:
(It) is basically a collection of the greatest hits of right-wing attacks against him and features quotes from the likes of Peter LaBarbera and Peter Sprigg.
You know Fox News is desperately reaching if they are citing Porno Petey and Peter (gays should be deported) Sprigg.
I read the article and of course the same lies are repeated about Jennings, including:
Jennings encourages children to learn about gay sex (and yes the article does mention the alleged "fistgate" controvesy but inaccurately labels the conference which it took place as a GLSEN conference. The article also fails to mention that other than co-sponsoring the conference, neither Jennings nor GLSEN had anything to do with the alleged controversy. The article also seems to go for shock, making sure to give a verbatim account of the offending quote, but does not go into detail as to what happened afterwards. The official, Margot Abels, who gave the definition of "fisting" was fired but was reinstated with full back pay after an arbitrator ruled in her favor. Those interested in the full story can go here. )
Jennings hates religion,
Jennings has said ugly things about the religious right (which when you really think about who the religious right is composed of - Sprigg, LaBarbera, Matt Barber, etc - can you really blame him if he did).
But then there is a new lie courtesy of Peter Sprigg:
Sprigg countered that nobody has adequately answered the questions that are being raised about Jennings.
Speaking of Jennings' job, he said: "I think it's unfortunate that [it] is a position that did not require any sort of confirmation process, because there are a lot of serious questions about Jennings and there has not been any forum in which Jennings has been required to answer the questions."
I'm confused as to Sprigg's definition of adequately answering questions because several sources have addressed the "concerns" about Jennings's credibility.
Most specifically was this piece very long, very thorough piece by ThinkProgress which broke down all of the lies against Jennings. It was published on July 3rd of this year.
And while some folks may not think of my blog being in the "big leagues," I've run a series of posts addressing the lies thrown at Jennings (you can see my list of posts talking about the situation at the end of this piece.)
Let's break this down to the brass tacks. The only reason why the religious right opposes Jennings is because he is a gay man in a high level position that deals with the future of our nation's children; a position which he deserves based upon his successful past work.
They are willing to do and say anything to defame him and eliminate him from the Obama Administration.
Now while some folks may say that it is up to President Obama to not back down, I say let's take it further.
It's also up to us, the lgbt community, to defend him. It's up to us to make sure that Jennings keeps his position and President Obama doesn't blink in this rising tide of nonsense.
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A vaccine would be great, a cure would be fantastic. I would like to see HIV to go the way of smallpox and polio. When I was a child both were still around. Medical advances continue to amaze me.
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