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Kevin Jennings, "safe schools" czar, hosted Barack Obama in his home—and was member of Act Up

Radical homosexual group profaned churches, vandalized homes and businesses, disrupted public events

by Amy Contrada

POSTED: October 15, 2009

(NOTE: We have also posted a shocking report on an ACT UP exhibit at Harvard University which Kevin Jennings helped to fund.)

Kevin Jennings was a member of Act Up, according to his long-time “partner” Jeff Davis. At the GLSEN "Respect" awards presentation in Beverly Hills, CA on October 11, 2008, Davis described his early "dates" with Jennings fourteen years ago: "The first few interactions were challenging for both of us. He was a member of Act Up. Act Up! So it’s like – you know -- here’s a big gay activist. BIG gay activist! And he was this really big liberal."

Jeff Davis Part 1

Davis could not contain his enthusiasm as he introduced his squeeze at a recent GLSEN fundraiser. And he just had to drop the fact he and Jennings “hosted Barack Obama in our home.”  (See news story HERE about Obama's fundraiser at Jennings' New York City apartment.)  

Jeff Davis Part 3

That should answer any doubts over whether Obama “vetted” Jennings before his appointment as Safe Schools Czar in the Department of Education. The following video shows Jennings speaking at a New York GLBT community fundraiser for Obama, along with Bill Clinton.

Perhaps the more shocking revelation was Jennings’ membership in the extremist gay activist organization Act Up, which Davis revealed to the knowing laughter of that savvy pro-gay audience. Even to the GLSEN crowd, Jennings’ membership in Act Up was edgy.

Jennings’ association with Act Up is further corroborated by his help with a new Harvard University exhibit entitled, “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987–1993” (Oct. 15-Dec. 23, 2009 at the Carpenter Center). Jennings is publicly thanked for his help with the exhibit, so must have some standing in the group. (Just for context, also thanked for contributions to the exhibit is “Fierce Pussy - a collective of queer women dedicated to creating public art and direct action addressing issues of lesbian identity and visibility.”)

As with Jennings’ praise of the radical homosexual activist Harry Hay (who was openly associated with NAMBLA), Jennings’ Act Up membership is highly revealing of his mindset.

Harry Hay -- admired by Jennings -- at a 1984 NAMBLA conference in San Francisco, on far right in cap and glasses. See ZomBlog for more info.  In a 1997 speech Jennings declared, "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay."

These two associations help us to understand Jennings’ agenda behind his major accomplishments: founding GLSEN, and pushing the Massachusetts law banning “sexual orientation” discrimination in the state’s schools. (See video of Jennings at Equality Utah dinner.

Jennings worked closely with another Act Up radical, David LaFontaine, who convinced Massachusetts Governor Bill Weld to establish the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth -- which directly promoted homosexuality in the schools. (See Jennings, Mama’s Boy, Preachers’ Son, p. 196, excerpt online.) LaFontaine appeared at a 1990 Act Up protest in Boston (the mob reportedly numbered 700),  “in which homosexual militants pelted newly ordained Catholic priests (and their relatives) with condoms as they left a church induction ceremony.” (Peter LaBarbera, “William Weld and Homosexual Indoctrination”; also WorldNetDaily and Boston Phoenix.)

Jennings was apparently informed enough about Act Up in 1995 to include it as a focus in a speech he gave entitled, “From the Arapaho to Act-Up: A slide survey of America’s lesbian and gay history” (based on his book Becoming Visible).

Act Up: "A lot of terror and anger"

Act Up is perhaps most famous as the group that invaded St. Patrick’s Cathedral by the hundreds during Mass in December 1989, screaming, “Stop killing us! Stop killing us! We’re not gonna take it any more! You’re killing us! Stop it! Health care is a right!” Their placards read, "The Cardinal lies to his parishioners," "Cardinal O'Connor won't teach safe sex," and "Stop the murderous AIDS policy." Demonstrators lay down in the aisles and even smashed a communion wafer at the altar.

See videos of the “Stop the Church!” action here:


and here (at 6 min. 15 sec): 

Act Up founder Larry Kramer noted, “There was a lot of terror and anger by a younger generation who were much more comfortable with their homosexuality.” He said, “That was the demonstration that made Act Up… Suddenly we were no longer limp-wristed fairies, we were men in black boots and black jeans and tough, and that became our image … And people were suddenly afraid of us.”

Act Up covered Senator Jesse Helms’s home with a “giant condom”. They threw ashes of dead AIDS patients on the White House lawn as they chanted, “Bringing the dead to your door! We won’t take it any more!” They invaded the evening news broadcasts at CBS (yelling, “Fight AIDS, not Arabs!”) and PBS.

Also during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, Act Up groups:

  • Demonstrated outside the Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross to protest Cardinal Law's opposition to Mayor Flynn's proposed needle-exchange program and condom education (1988). 

  • Staged a "die in" at Mass. General Hospital in March to protest the unavailability of PCP drug AP. 

  • Protested Astra Pharmaceutical Products’ refusal to release the experimental antiviral drug Foscarnet.

  • Disrupted opening night at the San Francisco Opera.

  • Protested design of clinical trials planned by Harvard School of Medicine.

  • Jammed phone lines of health insurance database company protesting their use of "sexual deviation" classification.

  • Halted Boston’s trolley service and traffic in front of Harvard School of Public Health to press the federal government into approving two new AIDS drugs.

(Sources:  Democracy Now, Boston Phoenix (1) and (2), Act Up New York (1), (2), and (3).  See videos HERE and HERE.)

Act Up founder Larry Kramer: It's all about hate (and porn)

Kramer is consumed by his belief that all straights hate homosexuals. From his interview with Democracy Now:

Larry Kramer: It’s wrong that there’s this hate. The straight world, for the most part, does not like gay people. And we have tried every tactic known to man to somehow change this. You know, there is 65% of this country, according to the Gill Foundation, basically hates us. And I don’t know how you deal with that, short of slamming as many pies in their faces as we can...

Interviewer: Yet, you’ve written all straights hate gays.

Larry Kramer: I sort of am a little angry with you that you’re making that statement, because obviously the article is written with a certain perspective in mind, that if straight people don’t hate gays, they’re also—they’re voting for people who hate gays, so what’s the difference, basically? … Nobody [re: politicians] has come out for gay equality. They’re terrified of doing it, because they lack the courage and because of this 65% of the country, which basically does hate us: the right wing, the religious right, whatever they’re called these days…. I happen to think that gay people are better than straight people. I think we’re more courageous and more loving, and we’re better friends, and all of these things. If I can just instill the kids with that and that they have to fight their place in the sun, and a day at a time.

Act Up routinely played the blame game. Their view was that AIDS victims were really being “murdered” by the Catholic Church, Reagan, Bush, Koch, Giuliani, or the drug companies. Kramer has said that Ronald Reagan [was] “a monster … he was responsible for more deaths than Adolf Hitler…. Hateful, hateful man.” (Kramer extends his rage to Reagan’s pro-family advisor, Gary Bauer.) The drug companies were said to be immorally ripping off AIDS victims or denying them deserved remedies. But Act Up seemed to be in denial that their chosen sexual practices were a big part of the problem. (It’s not surprising that Act Up has always demanded a single-payer health system.)

Act Up founder and porn writer Larry Kramer.

Kramer is well loved in the homosexual community for his writings, especially his pornographic novel FAGGOTS, “graphically sexual and one of the all-time best selling gay novels” (claims its back cover). We can assume that Kevin Jennings has it somewhere in his library. Its racy cover says it all. This movement is primarily about the love of sodomy. The opening passages are available at Amazon for all to read.

Book FAGGOTS by Larry Kramer

The book begins in a gay bar in New York City:

“…Is there indeed a God who would understand such as: ‘Baby, I want you to piss all over me!’ … ‘Or fuck my friend and I’ll suck your come out of his asshole.’ This suggestion Fred recognized as ‘felching’. … [He] began to wonder if he might be sick if Master did as advertised, polished everything off by protruding his tongue into Slave’s rectum to felch.” 

A man we want around young people?

Now that we understand Jennings’ young adulthood associates better, we should re-examine his devotion to the young people of America. Jennings’ partner Davis said that when Jennings taught at Concord Academy he was very close to his students, who came to “worship him”. They called him “Kevin”: “He disrespected the entire, like, Mr. Jennings thing that we all had to grow up with.” He adds, “No stories were ever forbidden when he was there.” Davis went on to describe how after starting GLSEN in 1990 in Massachusetts, Jennings left teaching in 1994 to become its Executive Director, mesmerizing kids at school speeches around the country. (After all, the subject was sex.)

Davis added, “I became known as the First Lady of GLSEN.” He revealed that Kevin was quite the flirt at their first meeting. The night of this speech, Jennings was wearing the necktie Davis wore on “their first date” -- with a monkey and bananas. The audience was urged to think about the hidden meaning.

Such endearing details do not clear Jennings of the import of associations with Act Up and Harry Hay. Nor of the damage done by the 4,200 gay-straight clubs in high schools and junior highs across the U.S., thanks to GLSEN. And thanks to the candidate he hosted in his home, Barack Obama.