A Blizzard of Conservative Lies About Kevin Jennings

The wonderful thing about Conservatives is that they never settle for one smear when a Baker's Dozen will do.

In their frenzied attempt to discredit President Obama's Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, the Right-Wing has unleashed a barrage of attacks on Jennings -- all of them falsehoods and distortions. Media Matters for America has been kind enough to assemble fourteen of these lies, and has refuted each and every one of them -- one lie at a time.

Not that any of this will matter. The people to whom the Right-Wing is directing these smears have no use for the truth. They buy into any bull-poop the Right-Wing Noise Machine cares to feed them. Responding to these lies is a useless exercise in futility.

Even so, it is useful to read the following Media Matters compilation of Right-Wing Horse Manure just to get an instructive guide as to the Far Right's Modus Operandi.

Unfortunately, the Right-Wing Noise Machine is like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Just when you kill off a dozen pails of water, ten dozen more will grow to take their place. They have turned the technique of the Big Lie into the Big Lies.

Without further ado, here are 14 Conservative Lies about Kevin Jennings and 14 Point By Point Responses from Media Matters:

Unraveling the Right's false attacks on Kevin Jennings

Media Matters for America examines and debunks the wide array of falsehoods and distortions the right-wing media have used in their attempts to smear and discredit Department of Education official Kevin Jennings and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which Jennings founded and previously served as executive director.
1) MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information

2) Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay

3) Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student

4) Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"

5) Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA

6) Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service

7) Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"

8) Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"

9) Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"

10) Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance

11) High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference

12) GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children

13) GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago

14) Jennings is a "pedophile"

CLAIM: MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information

REALITY: MassResistance is an anti-gay "hate group." Accuracy in Media pointed readers to the website of the Massachusetts-based anti-gay group MassResistance to get "the facts on Jennings," stating that the group's longtime leader Brian Camenker "has covered the scandal of Obama's appointment of Jennings in much detail." Many right-wing outlets have relied on the group's false or misleading claims about Jennings in attacking him. MassResistance has been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center; even conservative commentator Dean Barnett has stated that the organization "verges on being a hate group." Camenker himself reportedly denied that gays and lesbians were targeted during the Holocaust and has compared the gay rights movement to the Nazis.

CLAIM: Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay

REALITY: Right-wing media unleashed anti-gay rhetoric in attacks on Jennings. In their attacks on Jennings, numerous conservative media figures have resorted to thinly veiled homophobic appeals to paint Jennings, who is gay, as a "radical" "gay activist" with an "agenda" of "promoting homosexuality in schools," and have misrepresented or distorted Jennings' previous comments about religion and tolerance. Moreover, in a blatant appeal to homophobia, the right-wing media have termed a series of allegations "Fistgate," even though several of those allegations have little or nothing to do with the sexual practice of fisting -- or, for that matter, with Jennings himself.

SMEAR: Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student

REALITY: Student was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent -- when he spoke to Jennings. Numerous right-wing and Fox News media figures advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Fox News host Bill Hemmer, knew of a "statutory rape" and "never reported it," based on Jennings' past statements about advice he gave to a student who told him about his relationship with an older man when Jennings was a high school teacher in the late 1980s. In fact, a 2004 letter from Jennings' attorney, as well as a statement from the former student and his Massachusetts driver's license definitively show that he was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts -- when he approached Jennings.

SMEAR: Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"

REALITY: No evidence supports these claims. WorldNetDaily, in at least four separate articles, falsely claimed that Jennings "counseled a 15-year-old student to keep quiet about being seduced by an older man." Likewise, Limbaugh accused Jennings of having "encouraged" and "facilitated the relationship," and claimed that he "urged" the "15-year-old" to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him. In fact, nothing in Jennings' 2000 speech for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, his 1994 book, or the student's own statement in any way suggests that the student told Jennings that someone was "forcing his way on" him or that Jennings "urged" the student to "further the relationship," nor do they support the claim that Jennings told the student to "keep quiet."

SMEAR: Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA

REALITY: Jennings once praised Hay for his pioneering gay civil rights work. Right-wing media sources including The Washington Examiner, The Fox Nation, The Washington Times, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove, have linked Jennings to the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) based on a 1997 speech in which Jennings praised gay rights activist Harry Hay. But like many obituaries written about Hay upon his death in 2002, Jennings was touting Hay as a gay civil rights pioneer for his role in helping start "the first ongoing gay rights groups in America" in 1948, and Jennings' comments had nothing to do with NAMBLA.

SMEAR: Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service

REALITY: Group credited with improving awareness, treatment of disease. Hannity and The Washington Times editorial board have insisted that Jennings' past involvement with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) somehow disqualifies him from serving in the Obama administration. But such arguments are absurd, given that ACT UP, an anti-AIDS activist organization, has been credited with both creating awareness of the AIDS epidemic in America and facilitating more effective treatment of the disease. For example, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reportedly stated that ACT UP played "a significant role in the whole idea of expanded access to experimental drugs."

SMEAR: Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"

REALITY: Exhibit actually features "posters, stickers, and other visual media" used by ACT UP's AIDS activists. Right-wing web sites attempted to smear Jennings by claiming that he, in the words of Gateway Pundit, "funded a pornographic anti-Christian art show." In fact, Jennings is listed on a Harvard Art Museum press release as providing a gift to the museum's exhibit ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993. According to the release, the exhibit includes "over 70 politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City" and "chronicles New York's AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) through an examination of compelling graphics created by various artist collectives that populated the group."

SMEAR: Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"

REALITY: Jennings' group recommended adults review books for suitability. Conservative blogs and The Washington Times editorial board have claimed that Jennings is unfit as "Safe Schools Czar" because he supposedly promoted "child porn" by allowing GLSEN to recommend for students in grades 7-12 books that included sexually explicit content. The organization, however, specifically stated on its book list website that "some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes" and recommended that "adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability"; further, schools regularly teach books that contain sexually explicit material. In a December 11 statement, Martin Garnar, chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, said: "Though Jennings' and GLSEN's critics claim to be upholding American morals and values by condemning the GLSEN book list, they are actually undermining the values of tolerance, free inquiry, and self-determination that inform and sustain our democratic way of life in the United States."

SMEAR: Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"

REALITY: Jennings criticized content of state employees' workshop at GLSEN/Boston conference. Several right-wing media outlets have claimed that Jennings is, in the words of Fox Nation, "linked to shocking teen sex talk," referring to a recorded exchange that occurred during a "Queer Sex and Sexuality" workshop during a 2000 conference sponsored by the Boston branch of GLSEN. In fact, Jennings reportedly criticized some of the workshop's content when the recordings were first released in 2000, and the people involved in conducting the controversial discussion were state employees and contractors, not GLSEN employees.

SMEAR: Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance

REALITY: Critics have presented no credible evidence that Jennings knew the specific contents of the workshop in advance. WorldNetDaily and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft have both claimed that Jennings knew about the controversial workshop's contents ahead of time, citing a MassResistance blog post which claims, "Of course Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the 'sexuality educators' would discuss with children at the 'fisting' workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself" [emphasis in original]. But the statements MassResistance cites Abels reportedly making indicate only that her immediate supervisors in the Department of Education were aware of her work -- not Jennings or other GLSEN officials. Moreover, while MassResistance claims that Jennings "worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee," Jennings left that commission years before the 2000 workshop took place.

SMEAR: High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference

REALITY: Planned Parenthood distributed safe sex kits including "instructions for how to make a 'dental dam.' " Conservative bloggers have followed Hoft's lead in claiming that "fisting kits" -- often placed in quotes -- were distributed at the 2001 GLSEN/Boston conference. But those bloggers have presented no evidence that the kits distributed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts were actually intended for fisting. Indeed, while the conservative newspaper Massachusetts News - cited by Hoft -- reported in 2001 that the kits were "intended for 'fisting' or oral sex," the paper described the kit's contents as "a single plastic glove, a package of K-Y lubricant and instructions on how to make a 'dental dam' out of the material," and offered no support for their claim that the kits were "intended for 'fisting.'" FoxNews.com has reported that Hoft "alleged that Jennings and GLSEN were involved in Planned Parenthood's purported distribution of 'fisting kits,'" but that the kit "was actually for making a 'dental dam' -- designed to prevent STD transmission during oral sex."

SMEAR: GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children

REALITY: Community health group -- not GLSEN -- says it mistakenly brought "about 10 copies" of booklet banned under GLSEN policy to conference. Conservative bloggers and the Washington Times editorial board have falsely stated or suggested that GLSEN had distributed to children an explicit safe-sex booklet which included "the addresses and phone numbers of Boston-area gay bars" and "Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers." In fact, a community health group -- not GLSEN itself -- reportedly said that it had mistakenly "left about 10 copies" of the booklet on an informational table it rented at a 2005 GLSEN conference at Brookline High School in Massachusetts; the group reportedly apologized for doing so; GLSEN stated that if it had known the booklets had been at the conference, it would have demanded they be removed; and the Brookline school superintendent reportedly said he believed no students had actually taken the book.

SMEAR: GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago

REALITY: Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced guide for GLSEN national conference. Hoft has claimed that GLSEN "passed out guides to gay leather bars in Chicago to students in 2000." But according to an October 7, 2000, press release from the anti-gay groups Americans for Truth, the Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced a visitor's guide for attendees of GLSEN's annual conference in Chicago. That guide reportedly, according to the press release, "contain[ed] a full-page ad for Steamworks, a homosexual bathhouse in Chicago" [Americans for Truth press release, 10/7/00 (from the Nexis database)]. According to right-wing WorldNetDaily, "Organizers said around 800 people, including teenage students, some of whom received financial scholarships, attended the event."

SMEAR: Jennings is a "pedophile"

REALITY: Even right-wing Accuracy in Media acknowledged there is "no evidence to support" that smear. On December 10, a blogger for Accuracy in Media, which purports to "set the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" falsely claimed Jennings is a "pedophile." Shortly after Media Matters brought attention to the blog post and noted that no allegations of pedophilia have been made against Jennings and that the only evidence the blogger appeared to cite to support her allegation was a false claim, the post was removed without comment. The following day, Accuracy in Media stated that it "regret[s] the publication" of the blog post and that it has "no evidence to support" that allegation that Jennings is a "pedophile."