FRC's Hasty Smear Campaign Against Gay Appointee

Religious conservative in the bigot brigade are now smearing Kevin Jennings, President Barack Obama's appointment to the Department of Education.  In Wingnut World, a gay or lesbian person that has anything to do with schools - much less this important government post - is bound to engage in all sorts of nefarious perversions.  Amanda Terkel observes:  Jennings has had a distinguished career as a teacher, author, and founder of Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), an organization that works to make schools safe for all students, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.  It is primarily Jennings’ work with GLSEN that has so outraged the far right. The Family Research Council (FRC) launched the "Stop Kevin Jennings" campaign this week, warning that he is a "radical homosexual activist" who has "worked tirelessly to bring the homosexual agenda into our nation’s classrooms...  His history demonstrates disregard for our obligations to safeguard the health and well being of the student population,” writes FRC President Tony Perkins.  (Think Progress deftly dismantles all of FRC's malign talking points, exposing the organization's accusations as lies clumsily disguised as "facts.")

Kevin Jennings will begin his new job as Assistant Deputy Secretary to the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools on Monday.  Although his appointment was announced about a month ago, fundie fanatics, curiously, decided to wait until only a few days before he starts work to commence their orchestrated bleating.  Tony Perkins conducts the symphony of sheep.  Perkins is one of the high-profile right-wing hysterics that regularly attack, condemn, denounce, decry, and vilify LGBT individuals who refuse to cower inside a closet of shame.  He is the (sometimes) golden-haired boy that sparks joyful palpitations in the cold dead hearts of professional bigots like Sally Kern, James Dobson and the wizened Pat Robertson.  Perkins' followers use Scripture to persecute those who don't cleave to their mean-spirited religious beliefs.  They exhibit no sense of shame, and show no remorse over ruining lives.

The FRC's illustrated web petition that fundies are using to slander Kevin Jennings is comprised of out-of-context quotes from the GLSEN director's autobiography about coming of age as a gay youth in the American south.  And it poses this scary question:  Would you choose this man to guide your children?

Here's a better question:  Would any sane parents choose to have their youngsters' lives "guided" by the maniacs at Family Research Council?  To these wingnuts, education is all about force-feeding faith, promoting intolerance and enabling bullies.  Change - or evolultion, for that matter - is simply not an option.  (Pictured:  Jennings, Perkins)

Related Post:  The Sarah Palin Elementary School: A Short Story