Is Kevin Jennings Fit For Office?

Eric asks that in his recent post on Kevin Jennings in response to my post on Kevin Jennings (for sure the Google rankings are going up now). He says something to the effect of: "is it good to be demonizing Jennings because of one incident between a boy and an older man which on the face appeared to be consensual?" The question revolved around "should Jennings have reported the incident?" as appeared to be required by law? And further should that lack of reporting disqualify him from office?

I quoted Atlas Shrugs in my discussion who herself quoted some folks I'm not entirely comfortable with (rather an understatement). To put it plainly - the folks Atlas quotes don't like gays. And they don't like them a lot. Atlas makes it clear that is not her view. She just has a problem with Jennings being appointed to be the Safe Schools "Czar" in the Dept. of Education. In that respect I'm with Atlas despite the people she quotes.

Well needless to say I don't like it when Eric and I disagree. Besides his tolerating me on his blog (for which I am grateful) I consider him a friend.

So after I cooled down a bit on the subject I thought I'd look into it further. Was Jennings really just trying to protect gay kids (a very good thing IMO) or did he have another agenda?

My looking turned up this article in The Washington Examiner.

But failure to report what appeared to be a case of statuatory rape of a child may be the least of Jennings' worries. Lori Roman of Regular Folks United points to statements by Jennings a decade or more ago when he praised Harry Hay of the North American Association for Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which promotes the legalization of sexual abuse of young boys by older men.

Roman provides damning details and links here. She also notes that Jennings wrote the forward "to a book called Queering Elementary Education. And another fellow you may have heard of wrote one of the endorsements on the book jacket—Bill Ayers." Ayers, of course, is the Weather Underground bomber from the 1960s who is just an "acquaintance" of Obama.

You can get the links from the Examiner article.

I dunno. I could be all wrong. But it seems to me that endorsing sex between old guys and young boys is no better than endorsing sex between old guys and young girls. Now if Jennings was making music or performing some other useful service I suppose he could be forgiven for his opinions. But in the job for which he has been appointed opinions and attitudes are all he has to offer. And I have to say I'm not comfortable with him in that position.

Cross Posted at Classical Values