Kevin Jennings, the Obama administration's openly gay safe-schools czar who previously ran an organization focused on normalizing homosexuality in public schools, declined Monday to directly say whether the U.S. Department of Education should promote teaching school children that homosexual behavior is morally good.
UPDATE 3/16/10: Obama recruited homosexual activist for job
-- From "Safe Schools Czar Ducks Questions on Past Statements about Homosexuality, Says Department of Education Won’t Dictate Curriculum" by Fred Lucas, CNSNews.com Staff Writer 3/9/10
Instead, he pointing out that Congress has prohibited the department from interfering in the curricula of local schools.
Jennings, the assistant deputy education secretary for the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools, made a rare public appearance Monday, speaking to a gathering of school teachers at the National Press Club.
Jennings’ appointment to the safe-schools czar post has been controversial because of his past advocacy of teaching homosexuality in public schools, and for how he admittedly handled a 1988 incident by advising a 15-year-old boy to use a condom in his affair with an older man, rather than reporting the incident of to authorities.
During Jennings’ speech Monday, he stressed that the Obama administration sought him out for the job because of his background.
For a decade, he ran the organization Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), of which he was also a founding member. He described GLSEN Monday as a group that “works to make schools safe regardless of sexual orientation or gender identification.”
Because of his role in promoting homosexuality in public schools, 52 House Republicans last fall signed a letter to President Barack Obama calling for Jennings to be removed from the safe schools post. Rep. Steve King (R.-Iowa) circulated the letter.
After his speech on Monday, CNSNews.com asked Jennings “about issues raised by congressional Republicans.”
To that, Jennings responded, “I’m not going to talk about that. Thank you. … You can ask what you want, but I’m probably not going to answer it.”
In the forward to the 1999 book Queering Elementary Education, Jennings wrote, “I often find myself confronted with people who attack me for ‘bringing this issue into our schools, How laughable this statement is, I think. The reality is that this issue--anti-gay bigotry--is already in our schools. Little kids are learning to hate, and they’re learning it right now in elementary schools across America.”
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More about Kevin Jennings:
Obama Education Adviser Recommends Pornography to Children
Congressional Power to Obama's Gay Agenda