In Defense of Obama’s Safe School Czar (Sort Of) – or I Was A Teenage ‘Lolito’

by Charles Winecoff

When I was 17 and desperate to get out of the house (and away from my parents), I wrote a crafty, fawning letter to a teacher whom I had admired from afar (a gay man 20 years my senior, who looked like a teddy bear), then sat back and waited.  It didn’t take long to get a response, a phone number, and then a meeting that I managed to turn into a date.  He thought I was very “mature” for my age.  I thought so too. 

kevin-jennings

As soon as I turned 18, I moved in with him.  (Note: he was not my first target; I had a terrible crush on my American History teacher in high school – another gay man – but he was partnered and I scared him off.)  Needless to say, we did not live happily ever after.

Married life brought out my true immaturity.  He was set in his ways, I had no discipline.  He liked dinner parties and lectures, I liked wearing silver lame’ pants to discos.  He had plenty of friends, gay and straight, some of whom he’d known since I was an infant.  They were very nice to me – but I was jealous of them all.  I threw tantrums.  “You love them more than you love me!” 

Finally, he made me move back home.  It was the most humiliating day of my young life.

The relationship dragged on for a couple of years after that.  Then I started to take an interest in people my own age.  He went on to marry someone his own age.  He was not a pedophile; he was a vulnerable man I happened to zero in on (at the peak of my adolescent invincibility) at the right time.  Of course, looking back, he should have known better.  What did he think he was getting involved with?  It was a very foolish – and potentially self-destructive – choice for a grown-up to make.

Then again, when writer Christopher Isherwood fell for the youthful Don Bachardy, they ended up staying together for thirty years.  But that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.  I’m not saying pedophiles don’t exist – they certainly do (and most of them are straight).  But these things happen.  At least I didn’t meet “Teach” in a rest stop.

Which brings me to the fracas over Obama czar number five hundred and… well, who’s counting.  The conservative blogosphere has been in an uproar because Kevin Jennings – the (deep breath) Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug Free Schools at the U.S. Department of Education, or “Safe School Czar” - failed, in 1988, while still a mere teacher, to advise a 15-year-old boy (according to some reports, he might have been older) to stop having sex with adult men (in particular one man the teenager had met in a public restroom).  Instead, Jennings reminded the boy to “play safe,” and use condoms.

To be honest, I don’t see what the big deal is.  Based on his own experience, Jennings probably figured it was no use trying to convince the boy to stop seeing the man – take it from me, that would have had the exact opposite effect – so the more practical tack was to urge the kid to at least protect himself, ASAP, as Jennings did.  Let’s not forget the high suicide rate among gay youth; twenty years ago, that teenager surely needed somebody to talk to.

Don’t get me wrong: I am no fan of NAMBLA, and I don’t care if the ancient Greeks thought it was a-okay to sleep with young boys.  If I had been that kid’s father, I probably would have grabbed the nearest shotgun and gone after the offending adult myself.  That’s a natural reaction - for a parent.  Not for a teacher.  A teacher has to walk a fine line between entering into his students’ world in order to gain their trust – something most parents fail at, miserably (and kids don’t want) - while at the same time watching them like a hawk (no pun intended).

My question is: where were this boy’s parents while he was picking up men in bus station lavatories?  If Jennings should have alerted anyone, it was the teen’s family.  But, of course, then ”Lolito” would have felt deeply betrayed by the “role model” he had confided in.  So it’s a lose-lose situation.

Of more concern to me is Jennings’ s CV (as posted on KevinJennings.com).  Talk about an over-achiever: Jennings graduated magna cum laude from Harvard, won a Klingenstein Fellowship at Columbia University, holds an MBA from NYU, founded the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), was the LGBT Finance Co-Chair for Obama for America – and to top it all off, he’s published five books!

Not bad for a guy from a North Carolina trailer park.  Clearly, Jennings is no slouch – he’s Super Gay!  So where’s the red flag?

Call me cynical, but I’ve noticed too often that homosexuals who find monetary and social success in activism – “career gays” - often start to manifest the same intolerance towards others that motivated them to fight homophobia in the first place.  In other words, they become so invested in battling bigotry that they begin to view almost anyone who isn’t gay as a potential enemy, losing sight of what (one hopes) was their original intent: to bridge gaps, promote understanding between disparate groups, and enhance Americans’ freedom to enjoy love relationships with whomever they want without suffering any unfair or negative repercussions.

You know, the same thing Dick Cheney wants.

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Jonathan Crutchley

But, as evidenced in the outings, threats, and blacklisting of California’s Proposition 8 supporters last fall, there’s a tendency in the LGBT community to go overboard, and confuse “approval” with “diversity,” and ”equality” with “freedom.”  As one grown man I know rejoiced when openly gay McCain supporter Jonathan Crutchley was forced to resign as chairman of the gay pickup site Manhunt – because of his politics –  ”It’s democracy in action!”

No, it’s not – it’s McCarthyism, plain and simple (and ugly).  But in the gay ghetto, it’s easy to forget that your fellow countrymen exist – so get used to it!  (To their credit, gay groups in California have since toned down the rhetoric and seem to have realized that a new approach is needed re: gay marriage.)  Meanwhile, blind adoration 0f a President who adamantly opposes same-sex marriage and bows and cow-tows to the worst anti-gay despots on earth has also become a litmus test of one’s gayness.  But hey, he’s got a “D” after his name – so who am I to ask questions?

That said, Jennings’s now-famous anti-Christian rant, part of a speech he gave at (of all places) Manhattan’s Marble Collegiate Church, nine years ago – “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! [audience laughter]  Drop dead!” – well, it doesn’t surprise me.  It’s typical gay knee-jerk stuff.  Tired, and uninspired.

You can bet money Mr. Jennings would never dare make the same statement in a mosque.

Christians, like Mormons, continue to be easy punching bags – they don’t go in for strap-on explosives – and putting them down gives everyone a cheap and easy thrill.  But Christians and Mormons don’t have a dangerously homophobic, 57-state voting bloc in that international club of creeps called the UN that our fearless leader has been quivering to be a part of.

I wonder when Jennings and his ilk will realize that “Christianophobia” is, well, just so forever ago.

Much has also been made of the fact that Jennings contributed to a book of essays entitled Queering Elementary Education: Advancing the Dialogue about Sexualities and Schooling (Curriculum, Cultures, and (Homo)Sexualities).  Far more dangerous than a possible dialogue about homosexuality – in an era when any eight-year-old can turn on a re-run of Will and Grace - is the tricky, academic gobbledeegook that presumes to pass as English in the “product description” on Amazon:

Queer elementary classrooms are those where parents and educators care enough about their children to trust the human capacity for understanding and their educative abilities to foster insight into the human condition… Queer teachers are those who develop curriculum and pedagogy that afford every child dignity rooted in self-worth and esteem for others.  In short, queering education happens when we look at schooling upside down and view childhood from the inside out… explore taken-for-granted assumptions about diversity, identities, childhood, and prejudice.

Gee, whatever happened to milk and cookies?  Do politically-correct, post-modern nuggets of Romper Room moral relativism prevent childhood obesity?  The use of the word “queer” is certainly troublesome here.  Would black activists use the “N-word” in such classrooms?  Why does elementary education need to be “queered” anyway?  Grade school isn’t supposed to be some sort of experimental, off-Broadway art project.  Would the gay community please just call itself “gay” and be done with it already?

But I digress.

Which brings us to the infamous “Fistgate” scandal of 2000 (not Jennings’s best year).  At a conference called “Teach-Out,” sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education and Jennings’s GLSEN, students were invited to participate in “dialogues” (don’t you just love that word) about some usually unspoken (at least in polite society) aspects of homosexuality.  One workshop, “What They Didn’t Tell You About Queer Sex & Sexuality in Health Class: A Workshop for Youth Only, Ages 14-21,” encouraged students to ask questions about gay sex.

Not gay history, or literature, or art.  Gay sex.

So when a curious female student asked what “fisting” was, Margot Abels, Coordinator of the HIV/AIDS Program for the Massachusetts Department of Education, replied that the practice, well-known in S&M clubs – and to anyone who saw the movie Cruising - was simply “an experience of letting somebody into your body that you want to be that close and intimate with.”  Then, when a 16-year-old stated the unthinkable – that “fisting” didn’t sound too appealing – Abels quickly pointed out that it “often gets a really bad rap” and that it usually wasn’t about pain, “not that we’re putting that down.”  (Seinfeld, eat your heart out.)

Maybe it’s just me, but whatever happened to love?

Most young people realize they’re gay because of crushes, romantic feelings that crop up for another person of the same sex - not because of kinky fetishes.  (Those come later.)  Kids aren’t born little Roman Polanskis.  Why not focus on the similarities we all share rather than the differences?  Wouldn’t that be the best defense for gay marriage (now passed by legislative vote, as opposed to judicial decree, in at least three states)?

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Harry Hay

But back to the Safe School Czar.  Much has also been made of his glowing praise for gay rights pioneer Harry Hay.  The right-wing blogosphere has its panties in a wad because Hay was a supporter of NAMBLA.  Hay was also a Communist – as a gay man, he really should have known better – and a militant hippie who founded the “Radical Faerie” movement, a group that rejected Western sex roles in favor of pseudo-Native American spirituality and paganism, with a little cross-dressing thrown in (that would have gone over real well in Mao’s China, Soviet Russia, or Cuba).

The gay couple on Desperate Housewives these guys ain’t.  No sports jerseys, football games, or suburban barbecues for them – that would be just too bourgeois.

To be blunt, the Radical Faeries were a bunch of back-to-nature, communal, moonbat kooks for whom everyday was Halloween.  So it’s not surprising that Harry Hay lent his name to NAMBLA – anything to challenge the status quo, and mock traditional sex roles (even for gay men!).  None of that who’s-the-husband /who’s-the-wife / let’s adopt a baby stuff for him.  He would have supported the San Francisco Transgendered (and Questioning) Higher Primates-Gerbil Brotherhood (SFTQHPGB) if there’d been one.

But Hay also founded the first American gay rights organization – in 1950 – way ahead of his time.  That took cojones.  Hence, he remains a hero to today’s LGBT community, a figure gays and lesbians are tacitly expected to admire.  The fact is most of us had no clue he had anything to do with NAMBLA – until now.

I had the pleasure of meeting Hay once at a party.  Getting on in years, he was polite, soft-spoken, and rather sweet – a harmless old man who had stirred up enough trouble in his day.  That said, I think Kevin Jennings would be wise to clarify which of Hay’s accomplishments he admires, and to denounce NAMBLA outright.  After all, Jennings may be a radical flack, but a Radical Faerie he definitely is not.  (In fact, he wouldn’t look so out of place on Wysteria Lane.)  Radical Faeries don’t bother working the system. 

After everything he’s accomplished in his 46 years – all the power and prestige - Kevin Jennings should be done rebelling against his Southern Baptist upbringing.  Yet I fear that he, like legions of emotionally-stunted Bush bashers, may be just another gay man who can’t let go of his anger at mommy and daddy – and God - yet can’t stop stubbornly yearning for their absolute approval.

Newsflash: 100% of the world is never going to love you.  Isn’t it enough that some people do – and that the entire mainstream media’s got your back?  Sooner or later, you have to fess up to the fact that Utopian notions of ”equality” don’t mesh with actual human capability.  Nor do they bring happiness.  Rather, it’s our differences that make us interesting - and our ability to accept them that make us strong. 

In four fast decades, gay and lesbian Americans have gone from being shadow people afraid to speak out to the absolute monarchs of the popular culture.  If you don’t believe me, just look at Rachel Maddow.  (And we wonder why the rest of the world still hates us.)  What worked for the gay vanguard of the 1970s doesn’t work anymore, not in colorful, mixed-up, religious/progressive America - where most companies now offer same-sex benefits and law enforcement workers must undergo extensive, mandatory sensitivity training. 

Did we learn nothing from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy? 

It’s high time that gays changed their strategy and started thinking of themselves not as some kind of LGBT Special Victims Unit, but first and foremost as Americans.  We’ve been given so much, the ball’s in our court to reach across the proverbial aisle (as The One is so fond of saying), and not just demand our worth – but prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

It’s called give and take (as opposed to just take).

Yes, there are still old-time anti-sodomy laws on the books in many states - making America, in theory, the bigoted backwater of intolerance that the grievance-mongers (D) love (because it keeps them in power).  But in day-to-day reality, gay life in the USA is full of possibility, and palpable hope.

With our failing dollar, our PC-handicapped President – and a globe full of ruthless, homophobic, homicidal totalitarian enemies - now more than ever, we who live in this massive melting pot of honest-to-God diversity need to stick together.  As the Democrats like to say, do it “for the children” – so that future generations of Lolitas and Lolitos can live, freely, without having to look for love in bus station toilets.

Oh, one last thing: why do we need a “Safe School Czar” again?


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Posted Oct 9th 2009 at 5:03 am in Culture, Featured Story, Politics | 205 Comments