Reprinted from our May 1, 2014 email.

The day after Governor Dayton signed Minnesota’s Bullying Bill, HF826, the Gay Lesbian, Straight Education Network (GLSEN) stepped forward to take credit for their victory. GLSEN had been discreetly low profile in Minnesota’s public battle to pass HF826, letting OutFront Minnesota do their front work.

During the House floor debate on April 8th, Rep. Peggy Scott warned members in the House that GLSEN was behind this legislation, but the Democrats vehemently denied it. Rep. Davnie, author of the Bullying Bill, denied numerous times that any harmful and explicit curriculum would be introduced into schools through this new law.

Yet GLSEN blasted an email out across the country with the following statement (emphasis added):

  • Minnesota is now the 16th state plus Washington, DC to enact an LGBT-inclusive anti-bullying law.
  • GLSEN is working hard in the remaining states that do not protect LGBT students from bullying to ensure that ALL students are protected under law. Like we did in Minnesota, we’re forming statewide coalitions, mobilizing support from corporate and legislative partners, and most of all working with friends like you to make sure legislators know their constituents support efforts that protect all students.

They like to talk about all students, but it’s obvious all students are not what interests them. Theirs is an LGBT victory, not an all student victory. But GLSEN stands to gain the most from the Minnesota Bullying Bill, since they seem to be writing the lesson plans. GLSEN portrays itself as a leader in safe schools initiatives, curriculum and teacher training. Their materials are already used in some Minnesota schools.

Researchers who have delved into GLSEN’s reading materials describe them this way:

“We were unprepared for what we encountered. Book after book after book contained stories and anecdotes that weren’t merely X-rated and pornographic, but which featured explicit descriptions of sex acts between pre-schoolers; stories that seemed to promote and recommend child-adult sexual relationships; stories of public masturbation, anal sex in restrooms, affairs between students and teachers, five-year-olds playing sex games, semen flying through the air. One memoir even praised becoming a prostitute as a way to increase one’s self-esteem. Above all, the books seemed to have less to do with promoting tolerance than with an unabashed attempt to indoctrinate students into a hyper-sexualized worldview.”

We will be making more information about this research available to the public soon, and we will inform you as soon as it is out.

In questions to Rep. Davnie, Rep. Peggy Scott explained in great detail that GLSEN was involved in several of the key documents that the Governor’s Task Force on the Prevention of Bullying studied. She reminded Rep. Davnie that he sat on that Task Force, out of which this bill came, the bill of which he is the Chief Author.

Rep. Scott listed the books on a reading list GLSEN promoted on its website and the reprehensible and obscene content of those books. Rep. Scott then asked Rep. Davnie: is this the kind of material Minnesotans can expect to show up in the Safe School Technical Assistance Center, and do you approve of this kind of so-called “developmentally appropriate programmatic instruction” being shown to 7th graders?

If you listen to the archived floor session, [Watch the exchange here, beginning at 9:43:05] you will hear Rep. Davnie try to say these decisions would be left to the local school district, even when he was confronted with the clearly defined duties of the centralized School Assistance Council to establish norms and standards, best practices, and develop resources and training materials and the clearly stated intent of the law in the Governor’s Task Force to impose “norms and standards” on the schools in understanding human sexuality.

Of course these were questions the author was unwilling to either answer or acknowledge. So he avoided a straight answer. But taking them at their word, GLSEN was, in fact, deeply involved in pushing the Bullying Bill in Minnesota. Rep. Scott put it mildly when she concluded by saying there is absolutely no guarantee that GLSEN won’t be providing the materials our schools will obtain when they seek help from the newly named Assistance Center.

A few days earlier, on April 4th, the Minnesota House, on a voice vote, had rejected an amendment to the Education Policy bill that would have removed schools’ exemption from Minnesota’s current anti-obscenity laws. On April 22nd the Senate also rejected that amendment. The roll call vote may be viewed here .

Schools in Minnesota will therefore continue to be exempt, leaving them wide open to sexually explicit, pornographic stories and GLSEN-type curriculum to comply with “age appropriate strategies and “developmentally appropriate programmatic instruction” mandated in the new Bullying Law.

Look for our coming analysis of GLSEN and its connections to the Governor’s Task Force on Bullying, the authors of the Bulling Bill, and offensive school curriculum already being used in many schools under the guise of “anti-bullying” and “diversity training.” While some of this material is disturbing, you must be informed, because this, and other materials like it, may very well be coming to your children as the mandates for inclusive curriculum that promote an “understanding of human sexuality” are implemented into every subject, pre-K-12th grade in the name of bullying prevention and remediation, as the Bullying Law states. Please be forewarned that we include excerpts from the reading books, and these excerpts are highly offensive. You will be appalled and disturbed. However, you must be informed, because this material and others like it may very well be coming to your children as the mandates for inclusive curriculum that promote an “understanding of human sexuality” are implemented into every subject, pre-K-12th grade in the name of bullying prevention and remediation.

And please take a moment to thank Rep. Scott (651-296-4231) for taking on this difficult subject matter and getting Rep. Davnie on record.