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crossposted on Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters
With all of this “get Obama's czars” mania going around courtesy of Glenn Beck and company, it may be a matter of time before the lgbt community has to deal with an attack on the reputations on the President's gay and lesbian appointees.
The move from “save our country from socialism” to “save our children from perverts” isn't such an impossibility when one takes into account the ignorance and gullibility of some folks
If this starts to happen, first on that list will be Kevin Jennings, assistant deputy secretary for the office of Safe & Drug Free Schools in the U.S. Department of Education.
Even though they have been steadily pushing tea parties and town hall disruptions, members of the right (especially the religious right) have been covertly pushing the inaccurate information they compiled on Jennings, including:
he hates Christians,
his group, GLSEN, is teaching children nasty sexual behavior,
he covered up the sexual abuse of an underaged child.
None of this stuff is true and it has been refuted. Unfortunately, as we have seen consistently, refutations mean nothing when you have pundits, conservative activists, and bloggers constantly repeating inaccurate information without mention of the truth.
The newest “controversy” is that Jennings gave a speech in 1995 explaining how to introduce lgbt supportive groups in schools:
In 1995, he gave a speech in which he described how he has used the concept of “safety” in schools to promote homosexual advocacy in public schools in Massachusetts. He gave a speech called “Winning the Culture War” at the Human Rights Campaign Fund Leadership Conference on March 5 of that year.
Excerpts have been posted on the website of MassResistance, where chief Brian Camenker has worked to oppose the demands of homosexual activists.
In the speech, Jennings described how he was concerned about being described as promoting homosexuality, so he chose to campaign on the idea of “safety” instead.
“If the radical right can succeed in portraying us as preying on children, we will lose. Their language – 'promoting homosexuality' is one example – is laced with subtle and not-so-subtle innuendo that we are 'after their kids,'” he told the conference. . . “
Actually there is nothing wrong with the speech. In fact, it's a very good speech which should be remembered.
But in the hands of such right wing luminaries as World Net Daily and Mass Resistance (the organization officially declared a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center), even the words of a girl scout selling cookies can be twisted to mean a world take over.
How long will it be before you see Glenn Beck standing in front of a huge photo of Jennings and pontificating about the corruption of children's innocence?
It's definitely something to consider.
Related posts:
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
13 Comments
Hopefully the left wing will point out the HATE inspiredrhetoric and Obama will resist any attempts at backpedaling.
one can hope thatbut Obama has never failed to throw his allies under the bus for political expediency.
The worst thing about any of our politicians is that they are politicians.
Attacks for no reason other thantheir sexual-orientation.
Good post, and unfortunately I think you are correct. Sad.
How many “czars” did Shrub appoint?Of course, that was different: he was a Republican.
Obama doesn’t even mind itwhen he himself is the object of their hate, as witness the Joe Wilson mess. If, as he said, he doesn’t think Wilson’s actions deserve censure, how likely is he to stand up for his LGBT appointees?
Ask Van Jones how much loyalty Obama has to his people.
worst part,They don’t have spines, the Democratic ones any how.
According to CNN 35 Czars under Bush
There is a right wing conspiracy, based upon religion,to overthrow our republic and set up a theocracy. This is their ultimate goal and they are doing it by electing people to our Congress who have the same belief system. See Frank Schaeffer’s piece in the Huffington Post. Ladies and Gentlemen, these people are armed and prepared to go to war over this issue. We need to get prepared. Please don’t let your liberal sensibilities about war and death catch you at the end of one of their guns.
You know, that one really bugs mefor some reason. As I recall, the word Czar, was basically a Russian adaptation of the word Caesar (I think, I’m not a linguist, nor do I know the technical terms.) And not knowing latin, doesn’t “Caesar” mean something more lofty than “boss of some government agency”?
Like I said, I don’t know why, but calling these people “Czars” has always bugged the crap out of me. Not to mention, doesn’t being a “Czar” carry with it a certain amount of power to do whatever the hell you decide is right? It seems to me most of these “Czars” in any administration don’t do crap…..
linguistic noteIt’s from Caesar via Kaiser (German for emperor).
And that bothered the rightards not at allFunny how that works out.
and Caesar in Latin means “Dictator”
No, Caesar in English means “dictator”In Latin, Caesar was just the nomen or the family name that had been passed down from nearly the beginnings of the Republic.