The new attack on Kevin Jennings - he said something ugly about God

The religious right continues their attack on Kevin Jennings, President Obama's director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

After everything else they have thrown at him, the new thing is silly. From the Washington Post's religion blog:

Christian conservatives are up in arms over the appointment of Kevin Jennings as "safe schools czar." Or, more technically, director of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools.

Why the fuss? Well, it seems that Jennings wrote a remarkably frank book in 2007, "Mama's Boy, Preacher's Son: A Memoir," where he said some rather explicit things about homosexuality and some nasty things about God:

"What had He done for me other than make me feel shame and guilt? Squat. Screw you buddy--I don't need you around anymore, I decided." For years, he says in his book, he "reacted violently to anyone who professed any kind of religion."

Cue the controversy.

Americans for Truth About Homosexuality calls him a "vicious, anti-religious bigot." Catholic League President Bill Donohue calls Jennings' remarks about homosexuality and God "perverse." The Family Research Council has launched a "Stop Kevin Jennings" campaign, saying he is a "radical homosexual activist."

So Jennings has ugly words for God while having to deal with his sexual orientation . . . just like a lot of lgbts.

I guess if doubting God is reason to dismiss Jennings, then a lot of folks, along with lgbts, should be fired from their jobs.

The attacks on Jennings's reputation have ranked from the sublime (he said mean things about the religious right, he uses profanity) to downright ugly (he believes that children should be taught about gay sexual intercourse, he didn't tell the authorities about an alleged relationship between a supposedly underaged young man and an adult).

But this has to be the dumbest.

I hear there are now videos of him squeezing the Charmin and pulling tags off of mattresses. And if that doesn't cause a reaction, the religious right have witnesses who can place him at the grassy knoll on that fateful day in November of 1963.

Give me a break, people.

The most ironic thing is that these folks are implying that Jennings has indoctrinated children, i.e. turning them from God.

But if children and adults for that matter are being turned away from God because of this situation with Jennings, then maybe it's because they are bothered by the behavior of those claiming to be acting in God's service.

Since when is self-righteous and hypocritical character assasinations tenents of God's work? I never heard Jesus talking about tripping up your fellow man with lies and innuendo.

It's a lesson so bizarre that it sounds like an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents - the surprise ending being that the devils are the ones pretending to have the halos and wings.

The bottom line - Kevin Jennings is a good man whose struggle with his sexual orientation led him to found an organization that helped a great number of lgbt children with their struggles.

In any normal society, he would be hailed as hero.

I've written a lot about Jennings and the personal attacks against him; so much so that no doubt some folks may start asking questions about why I am so personally bothered by this story.

Well let me put it succinctly - it is very important to me that lgbt children be physically and psychologically protected so that they can grow into responsible adults.

If GLSEN had been around when I was in school, then maybe a person whom I loved dearly would be alive right now.

Related posts:

The continuing attacks on Kevin Jennings - now Fox News gets involved

The possible attack on the President's lgbt appointees

The tea party idiots - will they go after the lgbt community next?

Traditional Values Coalition attacks Kevin Jennings and . . . Tom Cruise?

Support Sean's Last Wish and Kevin Jennings

The religious right thinks that character assasination is a Christian virtue

The war against Kevin Jennings - now it's getting pathetic

Attacks on Kevin Jennings sleazy, un-Christian

More right wing lunacy on Kevin Jennings courtesy of Kevin McCullough

More attacks on GLSEN'S Kevin Jennings - Now the Family Research Council gets in the act''
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'Fistgate' and President Obama - religious right pushes a pitiful attempt of guilt by association

The dishonesty of some in Maine, possible AIDS vaccine, and other Thursday midday news briefs

Lies never change unless we stop them.




AIDS breakthrough as vaccine cuts infections - No big cause for celebration yet but hopefully we are close.

Huckabee and Five Members of Congress Will Attend Radical Right Wing Conference - People for the American Way have picked up on this bizarre happening. And I would advise all lgbts read what the organization has to say about this. We may get angry at President Obama as we should be. But never forget the alternative because it's scaary as hell.

Coming Out in Middle School - The children coming out of the closet these days are getting younger.

Muslim Prayer Rally Sets Off a Full-Blown Right Wing Crusade - From the Department of "See, I Told You That The Religious Right Are Hypocrites" comes news of what they really think of prayer. It's okay for them to do it but not for anyone of another religion.

The continuing attacks on Kevin Jennings - now Fox News gets involved

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.

Related posts:

The possible attack on the President's lgbt appointees

The tea party idiots - will they go after the lgbt community next?

Traditional Values Coalition attacks Kevin Jennings and . . . Tom Cruise?

Support Sean's Last Wish and Kevin Jennings

The religious right thinks that character assasination is a Christian virtue

The war against Kevin Jennings - now it's getting pathetic

Attacks on Kevin Jennings sleazy, un-Christian

More right wing lunacy on Kevin Jennings courtesy of Kevin McCullough

More attacks on GLSEN'S Kevin Jennings - Now the Family Research Council gets in the act''

''Fistgate' and President Obama - religious right pushes a pitiful attempt of guilt by association

Snippets from today's ENDA hearing

Today's Congressional hearing on ENDA went well.

There was so much testimony on why ENDA is needed, but to me, the testimony that stands out is this one:



Vandy Beth Glenn was fired from her Georgia state legislative job when she told her supervisor she was transitioning from male to female.

With last year's ugly and unnecessary disagreement about whether or not ENDA should be trans-inclusive fresh in the mind, Glenn's testimony brought it home for me. If we don't fight for all the rights of everyone in our community, then our fight is in vain.

Hearing clearinghouse page with links to PDF testimony, Chairman’s statement, archived webcast, and a photo slideshow of today's ENDA testimonies - http://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/2009/09/hr-3017-employment-non-discrim.shtml

The Committee on Education and Labor's blog post with plenty of comments - http://edlabor.house.gov/blog/2009/09/employee-non-discrimination-ac.shtml

The Committee on Educaton and Labor's YouTube playlist with more ENDA testimony- http://www.youtube.com/user/EdLaborDemocrats#play/user/D28E0BB6E4F36041

Phony public school teacher in Maine ad has no problem with distorting studies

As the fallout from the second Maine anti-gay marriage ad continues, we are learning more about the misrepresented public school teacher, Charla Bansley.

These are the facts about Bansley via Goodasyou.org:

Bansley serves as the Maine state director of Concerned Women for America, an anti-gay group I have talked about numerous times on this blog.

In 2005, she joined anti-gay spokespeople such as Peter LaBarbera, Diane Gramley, Gary Glenn, Scott Lively, and Brian Camnker (among many others) on a group letter to the Southern Baptist Convention, which called on them to pass a ‘Resolution on Homosexuality in Public Schools.' And in that letter, she's not credited as a teacher. She's one of the "leaders of almost 50 statewide pro-family organizations from around the country" who are "involved in public policy on a daily basis.

The letter criticized steps schools were taking to ensure the safety of lgbt students under false claim of "indoctrination."

But the thing that caught my attention was the words she delivered at delivered at the recent, media-closed Stand For Marriage event in Augusta. The speech was the usual nonsense about "marriage is needed to rear children, etc. etc." Then she makes this statement:

A study in the Netherlands found that the average duration of a homosexual marriage was just one and a half years certainly nothing to build a society upon. The same study found that committed homosexual couples were also intimate with an average of eight extra marital partners per year . . .

That statement is a lie.

The study Bansley was speaking of was conducted by one Maria Xiridou of the Amsterdam Municipal Health Service. Her study did not look at gay marriage but was to "access the relative contribution of steady and casual partnerships to the incidence of HIV infection among homosexual men in Amsterdam and to determine the effect of increasing sexually risky behaviours among both types of partnerships in the era of highly active antiretroviral therapy."

For this study, Dr. Xiridou received her information from the Amsterdam Cohort Study of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and AIDS Among Homosexual Men. To gain this information, researchers studied 1,800 gay men between the years of 1984- 2001. Same sex marriage was legalized in the Netherlands in 2001. More about the study from Box Turtle Bulletin here.

But basically this means that it is impossible for any gay man in the study Barnley mentioned to have been married at the time the study was conducted.

This means Bansley, whether intentionally or unintentionally, misrepresented the study.

So far, the Maine anti-marriage equality folks have lied about "homosexual marriage being taught to children," misrepresented studies, and misrepesented the professions of their spokespeople.

Okay, who is on God's side again?

Huge hat tip to Goodasyou.org and Box Turtle Bulletin.

The anti-gay marriage forces tell another BIG lie in Maine

Today is the hearings for ENDA. I hope to have video and commentary later. Keep your fingers crossed.

Via Goodasyou.org and Americablog Gay comes the news of lazy anti-gay marriage folks in Maine.

It appears that they are running the same fear stories about gay marriage and children with the same ad used in California's Proposition 8 fight:

California ad:




Maine ad:



And from Jeremy from Goodasyou.org comes the news that the woman in the Maine ad doesn't even teach in public schools:

Ms. Bansley is the state director of the Concerned Women For America of Maine, and has appeared onstage at many Stand For Marriage Maine rallies. She has made her interest clear time and time again.

And while she is a teacher, she doesn't teach at a public institution. She teaches at Calvary Chapel Christian School. A Christian school where she is already freely stifling pro-gay speech, at least according to one of her very own students. To identify Ms. Bansley as merely a "teacher" is like simply calling Barack Obama a CEO of an important entity.

In truth, Ms. Bansley is one of Stand For Marriage Maine's own (paid?) staffers who is motivated almost exclusively by her faith. It is almost unbelievable that the campaign would use her, a private Christian school teacher, to speak on this civil matter and and think that nobody would notice.

And by the way, the Wirthlins (the man and woman in the commercial) joined 'Mad Dad' David Parker in his ridiculous losing lawsuit against Massachusetts. I did not talk about them as much because Parker's antics attracted so much attention.

But don't be fooled because they are being as deceptive as Parker, especially in the part of the commercial when the father said:

"The courts said we had no right to object or pull him out of class."

Actually that is a clever misconception. Yes the courts did say that the reading of King and King was not an issue of human sexuality, therefore it had nothing to do with the opt-out policy.
But Mr. Wirthlin is clearly deceiving people when he said the courts said the parents could not pull their children out of class. The courts actually advised parents who object to do just that:

In the 38-page decision, Chief Judge Mark L. Wolf, of the U.S. District Court, said that families who don’t agree with the teachings of the public school, have the choice of private schools or homeschooling.

And no their case had nothing to do with gay marriage in Massachusetts. The courts affirmed the idea that not all families are the same two-parent heterosexual model.

It's good to remember that both the Wirthlins and Parker lost at every avenue of the courts. But now I am beginning to see why the religious right pushed the case to the limits despite losing at every turn. It has provided them with huge dividends in the court of public opinion.

It's religious right distortion technique #2 - repeat a lie no matter how many times it has been refuted.

Will the lies win in Maine? Let's hope not.

But like Americablog Gay says:

. . . if this pisses you off, donate to the No on 1/Protect Maine Equality here.

Related posts:

The Maine anti-gay marriage forces tell a huge lie in its first ad

What are the top religious right lies about the gay community?

Something sure to turn a gay man straight - Tom DeLay shakes his butt

Whatever you do, close your eyes at 3:24 or at least hold a cross tight.

SOMEBODY GET ME A BETTE DAVIS MOVIE!!!!