Once people start finding out about Kevin Jennings, President Obama’s “Safe Schools” czar, he may end up going the way of Van Jones. Jones, the president’s “Green Jobs” czar, resigned September 6 amidst much rejoicing on the right. Predictably, Jones and his defenders blamed his demise on “a vicious smear campaign” by racist opponents “using lies and distortions.”
However, it was Jones’ radical record (he is a self-described communist) and his foul language and intemperate demeanor — not any smear by opponents — that did him in. The White House admitted as much, acknowledging that Jones had not been adequately vetted. What kind of “vetting” excuse can Team Obama offer for Jennings, who is, arguably, far more radical than Jones and boasts a much more extensive public record?
Like Jones, Jennings is given to spouting foul language when speechifying about the opposition. He also admits to using deception when pushing a subversive agenda that would be rigorously opposed by the vast majority of Americans if honestly promoted under its true colors.
What is Jennings agenda? Promoting homosexuality (in all its various permutations) under the guise of promoting “safe schools.” Jennings, whose official title is Assistant Deputy Secretary for Safe and Drug-Free Schools, is a career homosexual activist who founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and served as executive director for 14 years, until October 2008. For the past nearly two decades he has been a leading change agent for the cause of “queering” the nation’s K-12 curriculum, and is largely responsible for instituting annual pro-homosexual propaganda programs such as the “Day of Silence” and “No Name-Calling Week” in hundreds of schools. (In using the term “queering,” we are not disparaging or name-calling, but merely using a term adopted by Jennings and GLSEN & Company — when speaking amongst themselves, that is — to refer to their process of transforming society through the schools. Jennings wrote the foreword to Queering Elementary Education, an anthology by leading homosexual “educators.”)
Jennings served on the National Finance Committee of Obama for America and was the finance co-chair of the Obama campaign’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) finance committee. As a payoff for his fundraising efforts, Jennings was awarded the Department of Education post, through which he, no doubt, intends to greatly expand the GLSEN program of subverting and perverting their captive public-school audience. President Obama delivered another payoff on June 1, with a presidential proclamation of “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month”:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.
Obama even had the audacity to invoke the Lord’s name in furtherance of this abomination: “IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third. BARACK OBAMA”)
But then Jennings can teach even Barack Obama a thing or two about audacity. Like other leaders of the radical Lavender Lobby, Jennings piously intones the rhetoric of “tolerance” and “respect” to win public acceptance of the Lobby’s agenda. But he is decidedly intolerant toward Protestants and Catholics who oppose perversion in the classroom. Typical of Jennings’ respect and tolerance for “diversity” of opinion is this comment of his in a speech in 2000: “We have to quit being afraid of the religious right. We also have to quit — I’m trying to find a way to say this. 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!”
For the past decade and a half, Jennings and his GLSEN brigade — with abundant assistance from the Ford Foundation, the National Education Association (NEA), the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), IBM, PepsiCo, CitiGroup, and other sponsors — have been transforming our schools by their deceitful use of the “school safety” issue. Jennings and GLSEN & Company insist they are merely trying to make our schools safer by stopping bullying. No one wants to see children bullied, beaten, threatened, or bloodied at school; the classroom and the schoolyard should be safe sanctuaries. However, as Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, points out, this is a scam. He notes:
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.
It is this deviousness of Jennings and GLSEN & Co. that is most alarming, especially now that they have captured citadels of power inside the massive federal bureaucracy of the U.S. Department of Education and appear to have the full blessings of the Obama White House to work their way with our children. “Tolerance,” for them, is just the opening wedge, leading to affirmation, promotion, and celebration of LGBT “lifestyles.”
“I don’t want to be tolerated. I don’t want to be put up with. I want to be … celebrated,” says GLSEN leader Stephen Glassman. In his book Always My Child, Jennings proposes a “diversity policy that mandates including LGBT [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender] themes in the curriculum.” But Jennings and GLSEN & Co. have redefined tolerance and diversity to mean celebration and perversity; they have no tolerance, for example, for former homosexuals who now warn youngsters of the dangers of the “gay” lifestyle. Tolerance and diversity are a one-way street, says traffic cop Jennings, which must always lead to a LGBT destination. “Ex-gay messages have no place in our nation’s public schools,” Jennings has declared. “A line has been drawn. There is no ‘other side’ when you’re talking about lesbian, gay and bisexual students.”
A line has been drawn, indeed. Now it is up to American parents and their elected representatives to let President Obama know that his self-annointed school “Diversity” czar has crossed a sacred line, and that the Jennings-GLSEN cabal’s subversion at the Department of Education will not be tolerated. It is time for Jennings to be expelled from the nation’s classrooms.
Photo of Kevin Jennings: AP Images
