From the "The New American"
"Teach Out": Out of the Closet
by Thomas R. EddlemA Massachusetts state government-affiliated workshop for educators and teenage students promoted pederasty, homosexuality, and sado-masochism.
The March 25th Massachusetts state government-affiliated "Teach Out 2000" at Tufts University for educators and teenage students promoted pederasty and homosexual teenage sex as acceptable, and presented graphic descriptions of homosexual sexual practices and at least one sado-masochistic practice. State employees making the obscene presentations tried to suppress taped evidence of the offensive "Teach Out" with a court restraining order. But the word got out anyway. By the time of the restraining order, the audiotape had already been circulated to state legislators by the Parents Rights Coalition of Massachusetts.
One workshop, presented by three officials of the Massachusetts state government, each of whom described himself as homosexual, was entitled "What They Didn't Tell You About Queer Sex & Sexuality In Health Class: A Workshop For Youth Only, Ages 14-21." The workshop, attended by 20 children, included descriptions of homosexual acts that are far too graphic and disgusting to be quoted in The New American.
Margot Abels, a coordinator with the HIV/AIDS Program of the Massachusetts Department of Education, told students in a different lecture that the "Teach Out 2000" program was about promotion of sex: "We always feel like we are fighting against people who deny publicly, who say privately, that being queer is not at all about sex.... We believe otherwise. We think that sex is central to every single one of us and particularly to queer youth." In another lecture, "Struggles & Triumphs of Including Homosexuality in a Middle School Curriculum," pederasty was championed. According to Massachusetts News, the class watched a videotape in which the seventh-grade girl narrator stated that the ancient Greeks "encouraged homosexuals; in fact, it was considered normal for an adolescent boy to have an older, wiser man as his lover." The workshop presenter, Christine L. Hoyle, then informed the assembled students and teachers that it was acceptable for an older man to approach adolescents for sex. Condoms were also distributed at the conference, free to all students - some as young as 12 or 13 according to some reports. The condoms were provided courtesy of Planned Parenthood and a local birth control clinic.
By mid-May details of the conference had been widely distributed on the Internet and the Massachusetts establishment was in full retreat. Massachusetts Commissioner of Education David P. Driscoll admitted in a May 16th press release that the "workshops were of a prurient nature, and not educational" and that "there is no question that the comments of the Department of Education staff … go beyond the boundaries of what our staff should have done." Driscoll also tried to deflect criticism from his department by stating that "this conference was not sponsored by the Department," despite the fact that two of their employees were key presenters at the state-sponsored "Teach Out." Several days later the Education Department employees were terminated. (Another state agency, the Department of Public Health, also sent an employee to make presentations at the conference.) Nor should it be overlooked that the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Educators Network (GLSEN) - the organizational sponsor of the event - is a state contractor on homosexual issues with the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay & Lesbian Youth.
Even Kevin Jennings, GLSEN's executive director who was appointed co-chair of the Education Committee of the Massachusetts Governor's Commission on Gay & Lesbian Youth in 1992, appeared to be backtracking in the midst of the controversy. "From what I've heard, I have concerns as well," said Jennings for a news story published on page B2 of the May 18th edition of the Boston Globe.
But Jennings did attack parents concerned about "Teach Out 2000." "What troubles me is the people who have the tape know what our mission is," he told the Globe, "they know that our work is about preventing harassment and they know that session was not the totality of what was offered at a conference with over 50 sessions." Indeed, Jennings suggested in 1995 a very sophisticated means of injecting the homosexual agenda into the schools. "In Massachusetts," he explained, "[w]e immediately seized upon the opponent's calling card - safety - and explained how homophobia represents a threat to students' safety by creating a climate where violence, name-calling, health problems, and suicide are common." This strategy reframes the homosexual agenda in the terms of some acceptable and commendable social norm. "Finding the effective frame for your community is the key to victory. It must be linked to universal values that everyone in the community has in common. In Massachusetts, no one could speak up against our frame and say, 'Why, yes, I do think students should kill themselves'; this allowed us to set the terms for the debate." Jennings noted that his strategy "automatically threw our opponents onto the defensive and stole their best line of attack."
Jennings revealed his hand in 1995, but he complained to the May 18th Boston Globe that GLSEN's "mission is being misrepresented" by parents. At that very same moment, his allies in the homosexual movement were using the courts to suppress information about exactly how that mission was being fulfilled. And as news of the firing of the Massachusetts Department of Education employees came out, Deb Levy of GLSEN complained to CNSNews.com that "We absolutely do not think this was the appropriate response. These women are getting reprimanded for doing work that needs to be done, but that no one else wants to do." More careful observers of the "Teach Out" are well aware of who is doing the misrepresenting.