Senate Chairman of Joint Education Committee addresses meeting of radical homosexual group

Says he’ll support homosexual programs

. . . and that he'll stop new parents’ opt-in bill.

This is the man driving the education laws in Massachusetts.

(POSTED Feb. 6, 2008) State Sen. Robert Antonioni (D-Leominster), the influential Senate Chairman of the Joint Committee on Education, (see his official webpage here) was the honored guest at the annual meeting of Massachusetts chapter of the notorious homosexual group Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) on Sept. 24, held at the Congregational Church in Needham.

PFLAG is one of the most aggressive groups promoting transgenderism and cross-dressing to children. The Massachusetts chapter, PFLAG-Boston, recently hosted a transgender conference promoting sexual sadism and polyamory (group sex). They’ve run at least one event with the New England Leather Alliance, a group devoted to sado-masochism.  Read more about PFLAG here.  Unbelievably, PFLAG-Boston is an official member of the taxpayer-funded Massachusetts Commission on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Youth, and they have a presence in public schools across the state.

(More about PFLAG: The World According to PFLAG: Why PFLAG and Children Don’t Mix by Linda Harvey.)

Sen. Robert Antonioni addresses homosexual activists at PFLAG annual meeting.

Stopping the Parents Rights Bill and pushing for pro-homosexual bills

Antonioni told the group that he and Rep. Patricia Haddad, the House Co-Chairman of the Education Committee, are working together to make sure that the Parents’ Rights Bill (S321) is “dead in the water”.  He also said that he is working to pass the bills which would expand homosexual programs and the Planned Parenthood curriculum in schools. 

Antonioni seemed very comfortable regurgitating the arguments of the homosexual activists and Planned Parenthood. As the homosexual newspaper Bay Windows reported on the meeting:

During his speech on the panel Antonioni told attendees that a piece of legislation filed at the request of MassResistance, which would change the state’s parental "opt-out" law on sex education into an "opt-in" law and expand the subjects covered by that law to include anything related to LGBT issues, is dead in the water.

"I think you’ll find that I and my co-chair, a very bright woman from Somerset, the southeastern part of the state, [Rep.] Pat Haddad, in the House, do not support that change, so I don’t think it’s very likely that bill’s going to be going anywhere," said Antonioni.

He urged attendees to ask their representatives and senators to support efforts this session to pass legislation that would add a health component to the state’s core curriculum. He said that many of the opponents of that effort object specifically to the sex-ed component of a health curriculum, and they fear it will include information on LGBT sexuality. . .

"Very often I find that people don’t want to discuss the facts, don’t want to discuss the proliferation of AIDS in our society or the danger to young people that engage in reckless behavior," said Antonioni. "They don’t want to talk about that and very often will deny evidence that comes from very learned people, well-respected studies, and all in the name quite candidly of defeating what they perceive to be the homosexual agenda. Very disturbing."

- Bay Windows newspaper, Sept. 27, 2007

Hostile toward traditional parents

At the meeting Antonioni went out of his way to attack MassResistance and traditional parents who voice their opinions in the State House. He has a low opinion of such parents and said that they are not getting smarter. “Give them enough room and they will defeat themselves,” said Antonioni.

He acknowledged that there is generally an “negative tone” in the State House toward expanding homosexual programs, but he is working to change that.

As a 49-year-old single man with no children, Antonioni is an odd person to be the Senate Chairman the Education Committee of the Legislature – a committee which focuses on children and the public schools – which he has been since 1998.  Moreover, Antonioni has consistently sided with the homosexual groups and Planned Parenthood to promote their legislation and block pro-family legislation.  During public hearings, Antonioni has been visibly hostile and even argued with pro-family people testifying.

Going public about his mental illness

At the meeting, Antonioni also discussed his personal struggle with clinical depression, which he acknowledges is a mental illness.  (In 2006, Antonioni was profiled in a Boston Globe article about his battles with mental illness. He even did public service TV announcements on the subject.)

Antonioni told the meeting that his depression blossomed in 1999 when his brother committed suicide. He said that he still sees a psychotherapist in Watertown and that he believes he will see his brother one day. He said he takes 100 mg of Zoloft a day.  “If John [his brother] took it, he would be here today,” he added.

There are rumors at the State House that Antonioni’s brother was a homosexual. There’s no question that he was deeply affected by it. In any case, one of Antonioni’s passions has been funding for “gay suicide” programs in the public schools, which have been widely criticized for simply being simply another front for homosexual activism with no medical or psychological legitimacy. “Thanks to Speaker DiMasi, they have tripled funding for suicide programs-from 1,25 million to 3.75 million. Massachusetts leads the country in suicide prevention,” Antonioni told the meeting. 

After speaking, Antonioni shakes hands with PFLAG-Boston president Stanley Griffith, to a standing ovation.

PFLAG announces goals for the year

Also at the meeting, PFLAG also announced their goals for 2008:

1. Train 175 schools, organizations, or work places about gay offenses.
2. Outreach to parents, portraying themselves as helping children.
3. Make every teacher a “mental health worker” and train the teachers to refer children to PFLAG.
4. Raise $$$ money.
5. Get a copy of the new homosexual “marriage” book Courting Equality into every public high school, using the gay-straight alliance clubs (GSAs).  The other high schools will be offered one for their library via activist teachers or parents.
6. Support the transgender movement
   

The meeting was held in this "welcoming" Congregational Church in Needham.