Media Show Their True Homophobic Colors with Kevin Jennings “Controversy”

Kevin Jennings

Winston Churchill once said, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

It’s never been truer than in the case of last week’s much-hyped but ultimately completely false "controversy" over Kevin Jennings, the openly gay founder of the Gay Lesbian Student Educators Network, or GLSEN and the Obama administration’s choice to head the Department of Education's Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools.

Even in 2009, the degree of anti-gay bias in the traditional American media is shocking – and not just on Fox News.

In 1988, when Jennings was a 24-year-old schoolteacher, he briefly counseled a depressed gay student. In a 1994 book, he told of the encounter with “Brewster”:

On a hunch, I asked, “What’s his name?” Brewster’s eyes widened briefly, and then spilled out a story about his involvement with an older man he had met in Boston. I listened, sympathized, and offered advice. He left my office with a smile on his face that I would see every time I saw him on the campus for the next two years.

Later, when receiving an award, Jennings writes of running into the kid as a happy 22-year-old man. “In that moment, I remembered why I had gone into teaching in the first place,” he writes.

From the dates given in the book, it can be inferred that the student was at least 16 at the time.

But because of Jennings’ work on the behalf of GLBT students, Christian conservatives have long been gunning for him. Over the years, his books have been fodder for a variety of dubious accusations: that he’s “anti-religion” (despite attending church regularly) because he’s criticized the religious right, or that he’s unfit for his current position because, as a teen, he experimented with drugs himself.

But by far, their most serious accusation is that he failed to report the “sexual abuse” of Brewster. For months now, they’ve trumpeted an audio tape of Jennings talking about the student at a GLSEN event in 2000:

So I said, “What were you doing in Boston on a school night, Brewster?” He got very quiet, and he finally looked at me and said, “Well, I met somebody in the bus station bathroom and I went home with him.” High school sophomore, 15 years old. That was the only way he knew how to meet gay people. I was a closeted gay teacher, 24 years old, didn't know what to say. Knew I should say something quickly, so I finally -- my best friend had just died of AIDS the week before -- I looked at Brewster and said, "You know, I hope you knew to use a condom." He said to me something I will never forget. He said "Why should I, my life isn't worth saving anyway."

It matters if the student was 15 or 16 years old, because of the age-of-consent laws in Massachusetts where the incident took place. If the student was 16, no laws were broken. If he was 15, Jennings was obligated to inform authorities about the sexual contact.

For the record, the age of the other man – who Jennings refers to as “older” in the book, but not in the audio tape – is never identified.

But when, in 2004, a leader of the NEA Republican Educators Caucus accused Jennings of ignoring sexual abuse, Jennings corrected the record, sending them a cease-and-desist letter claiming the boy was, in fact, 16 – which is consistent with Jennings’ book, if not the speech.

Next Page! Fox News: unfair and unbalanced.