Few Obama administration appointments have been as startling as Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s appointment of Kevin Jennings, the homosexual founder of the Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network (GLSEN), to head the Office of Safe and Drug-Free
Schools.

Jennings was undoubtedly chosen for this post (which does not require Senate confirmation) because the foundation of the
homosexual education agenda is the concept of “safe schools.” However,
“safe schools” as GLSEN defines them are like “hate crime laws” for
kids. GLSEN’s model legislation would create protected categories like
“sex, gender, . . . sexual orientation, [and] gender identity or
expression.” (Ironically, they don’t include protection for the factor
that GLSEN’s own research shows is the most common reason for harassment
of students -- “the way they look or their body size.”) Everyone
opposes violence, name-calling, and other forms of bullying. As with
“hate crimes,” though, GLSEN’s “safe schools” do not protect everyone
equally, but instead single out homosexuals for more protection than
others.

Despite this inequity, some might be tempted to support the “safe schools” agenda as long as it is limited to ending bullying,
and does not extend to actively affirming or promoting homosexuality.
However, in a 1995 speech, Jennings admitted that the rhetoric about
“safety” was a political device, saying that it “threw our opponents on
the defensive, and stole their best line of attack. This framing
short-circuited their arguments and left them back-pedaling.” In a 1997
speech he embraced the idea of actively “promoting” homosexuality,
looking forward to a day when “people, when they would hear that someone
was promoting homosexuality, would say, ‘Yeah, who cares?’” And an
unsigned article on the GLSEN website in 2000 declared, “The pursuit of
safety and affirmation are one and the same goal.”

While Jennings promotes tolerance toward homosexuals, he is unwilling to reciprocate by extending tolerance to those who disagree with him. His memoir, Mama’s Boy, Preacher’s Son,
seethes with bitterness toward Southern Baptists, the country’s largest
Protestant denomination (within which he was raised). Perhaps that’s
why, in a speech in a New York church in 2000, Jennings is reported to
have said, “We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. . . .
I’m trying not to say, ‘[F---] ‘em!’ which is what I want to say,
because I don’t care what they think! Drop dead!”

He wants homosexuality to be taught in American schools -- in his book Always
My Child, Jennings calls for a “diversity policy that mandates
including LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] themes in the
curriculum.” But he wants only one side of this controversial issue to
be aired, and apparently believes in locking sexually confused kids into
a “gay” identity. That’s the implication of his declaration, “Ex-gay
messages have no place in our nation’s public schools. A line has been
drawn. There is no ‘other side’ when you’re talking about lesbian, gay
and bisexual students.”

Jennings does not limit his promotion of homosexuality in schools only to high schools or middle schools. He
wrote the foreword for a book titled Queering Elementary Education,
which includes an essay declaring that “‘queerly raised’ children are
agents” using “strategies of adaptation, negotiation, resistance, and
subversion.”

Perhaps the most dramatic illustration, however, of Jennings’ unfitness for a “safe schools” post involves an incident when
he taught at Concord Academy, a private boarding school in
Massachusetts. In his book One Teacher in Ten (the title is based
on the discredited myth, now abandoned even by “gay” activist groups,
that ten percent of the population is homosexual), he tells about a
young male sophomore, “Brewster,” who confessed to Jennings “his
involvement with an older man he met in Boston.” But at a GLSEN rally in
2000, Jennings told a more explicit version of “Brewster’s” story.
Jennings here quotes the boy and then comments: “‘I met someone in the
bus station bathroom and I went home with him.’ High school sophomore,
15 years old. That was the only way he knew how to meet gay people.”

Did Jennings report this high-risk behavior to the authorities? To the
school? To the boy’s parents? No -- he just told the boy, “I hope you
knew to use a condom.” Sex between an adult and a young person below the
“age of consent” (which varies from state to state) is a crime known as
statutory rape, and some states mandate that people in certain
professions report such abuse.

I do not know if “Brewster” was below the age of consent, nor whether Jennings was a mandatory reporter
or violated mandatory reporting laws. When members of the National
Education Association protested an NEA award to Jennings because of this
incident, Jennings called the criticism “potentially libelous” and a
GLSEN lawyer demanded a retraction. But when officials at Concord
Academy -- the school where Jennings had taught -- were asked about the
scenario described in one of Jennings’ accounts, a school spokesman said
that such an incident should be reported.

In any case, public service requires adherence to a higher ethical standard than bare
compliance with the law. Instead of veiled threats, Jennings now owes
the public a thorough explanation of the “Brewster” incident. Regardless
of the law, a 15-year-old who meets sexual partners in a bus station
restroom requires more than a condom to be “safe.”

Kevin Jennings has neither the temperament nor the ethical standards needed for public
service. His history suggests a commitment to serving only one narrow
part of the student population, not all students. He is unfit for the
post to which he’s been assigned, and Secretary Duncan should withdraw
his appointment at once.