By Ed Oliver
October 2000

It was billed as, "A Response to Acushnet's Middle School Controversy." 
Two hundred letters were sent out by gay activists to surrounding schools, inviting administrators and teachers to attend. 

The Standard-Times newspaper gave it a big build-up. 

However, the meeting held last night by the Unitarian Church at their church in Fairhaven, which is next to Acushnet, amounted to about 50 disgruntled gay activists and Unitarian supporters.

The only controversy of the evening erupted after this reporter announced he was from Massachusetts News and asked for a show of hands from any parents whose children attend Acushnet's middle school. 

Only three hands shot up. A group of people sitting together began shouting, "Leave here!" "Get out!" "Hater!" An audience member stood to challenge the shouters, reminding them that they were preaching tolerance and respect only moments before. One of the shouters then rose from his seat and stormed out of the building grumbling about "hate." The moderator quickly retrieved the microphone from this reporter and said the question was not appropriate.

A state employee, Kim Westheimer from the Department of Education's "Safe Schools Program," a skilled moderator who attends every meeting like this across the state, was on the panel. She expressed her pleasure at the questions from the friendly audience. She dodged most of the questions, however, except to quote from bits of DOE regulations. Later, she told Massachusetts News she could not be interviewed on orders from the DOE and all questions would have to go to their spokesperson. 

Westheimer presented a workshop at the controversial Fistgate conference last March at Tufts University.

Support Group
The rest of the discussion at the Unitarian Church resembled a support group with people giving personal anecdotes, exchanging platitudes, and bemoaning the apathy of homosexuals in the region. The moderator frequently tried to steer the discussion onto Acushnet, but without much success.

By far, the most interesting segment of the two-hour meeting was a slide show presented by Warren Blumenfeld, titled, "Homosexuals and the German Holocaust." Blumenfeld compared anyone who disagrees with him with the Nazis. He told how the Nazis passed criminal laws cracking down on homosexuals and gay bars, along with laws against prostitution, habitual sex offenders, venereal disease, incest, pedophilia and "unnatural fornication between people and animals." He admitted the allies passed similar laws, but he said they did not enforce them to the same extent.

Blumenfeld then said that the Nazis claimed homosexuals were recruiting school children, the Nazis opposed sex-ed in the schools, and they outlawed abortion. "Are we seeing a few connections here?" Blumenfeld asked, obviously implying that anyone who holds similar views is harboring Nazi attitudes.

Blumenfeld showed how Nazi racial ideology caused them to teach that homosexuality was caused by "Jewish blood." Interestingly, it is gay activists today who have been proponents of the "gay gene" theory. 

Massachusetts News asked Blumenfeld, who is listed on the program as an author and educator, if he is implying that pro-life people are Nazis.

"I'll be very frank. Many of the policies that the Nazis carried out: Anti-gay, anti-choice, anti-birth control and anti-sex education in the schools are the exact same four policies that the political right is perpetrating today in the states. I am not meaning to imply the political right are Nazis."

Massachusetts News asked Blumenfeld if the Nazis also had laws against murder and theft? Is there not going to be an overlap in some of the criminal code, and the only difference is the Nazis were a murderous regime with much harsher penalties?

"I will let you and your readers make of it anything you want by just saying those four policies are the same. I will not interpret that for you or your readers," said Blumenfeld.

Blumenfeld went on to say that when the state can control one's body, they can control one's mind too. He said the "political right" wants to control the bodies of women, gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgendered people. "The Nazis took away control of people's bodies. The political right is trying to take away control of women and GLBT people's bodies in this country and we are not going to allow you to do it."

Asked if it is not gay people, who are using the schools to push their agenda, Blumenfeld said, "Students have a right to an education. By withholding sex education and withholding history, we are not giving them the tools to live in this world."

Blumenfeld gestured toward his slide projector about Nazis and homosexuals. "This is history, and it is not allowed in the schools." 

Massachusetts News asked Blumenfeld about the book, "The Pink Swastika," and why he doesn't have it listed on the bibliography he handed out to the audience.

"The Pink Swastika is total lies, total innuendo. It is saying essentially that the gay rights leaders of today are the direct descendants of the Nazis. It is total distortion and total lies."

Scott Lively and Kevin Abrams authored the Pink Swastika. The book traces the homosexual roots of the Nazi party. It says " While privately tolerating and even promoting homosexuality, the Nazis denounced it frequently in public, using trumped-up charges of homosexuality to arrest and remove those who disagreed with Hitler's military and political goals."

The book is listed in a bibliography on the web-site of the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. 

Author and historian William Shirer wrote in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, that Ernst Roehm, who organized the brown shirt thugs which were instrumental in Hitler's rise to power, was "a tough, ruthless, driving man-albeit, like so many of the early Nazis, a homosexual...." He wrote further that German army generals were shocked at the tales "of the corruption and debauchery of the homosexual clique around the S.A. chief."

Blumenfeld admitted he knew Ernst Roehm was gay after it was pointed out to him. Blumenfeld had even shown a slide of Ernst Roehm to the audience but had not mentioned the fact he was a homosexual. 

"I had to cut out 45 minutes of it. Yes, a certain percentage of the Nazis were gay."

Blumenfeld said he does not think the "Pink Swastika" book is listed on the Holocaust Museum's web-site, although Massachusetts News had seen it listed there when researching another article.

Standard-Times Reports It Differently
The Standard-Times reported the story differently. It wrote:

Parents and students concerned about teaching tolerance toward homosexuals heard two sometimes-conflicting realities last night. At a meeting here sponsored by the local Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, a state official and educators dealing with homosexual issues told residents that Massachusetts is a national leader in protecting gay students' rights. But at the same time, it is up to local school committees and parents groups to pressure their school systems to include tolerance toward gays in the classroom.

Kim Westheimer, who works with the state Department of Education's Safe Schools Program, told the crowd of about 50 people at Fairhaven's Unitarian Universalist Church that 1993's state Gay and Lesbian Student Rights Law made discrimination and harassment against gay students clearly illegal in schools.

"Unfortunately, the rights law didn't deal with curriculum," she pointed out.

Last night's meeting was prompted by the recent fight over the inclusion of homosexuality in an anti-prejudice unit ati Ford Middle School in Acushnet.

Ford School Principal John Tavares eliminated speakers and research projects on homosexuality and gay rights after a controversial publication alleged that the school and its teachers were promoting a gay agenda at the school.

A man who identified himself as a reporter from that publication, The Massachusetts News, attended and audiotaped last night's meeting.

Parents and students last night worried that instead of advancing the issue of tolerance, recent local events heralded a backsliding.

Melissa Bliss, a 1999 Wareham High School graduate, who identified herself as a bisexual, said her school now has an active Gay Student Alliance - one of some 175 in the state. 

But for too many students, the subject of homosexuality is still taboo.
"When it would come up in class, some of the kids who weren't educated would giggle and say 'Oh, no, the H word,'" she said.

The state Department of Education has made recommendations to schools on how they might ensure their teachers and students do not run afoul of the Gay Student Rights Law.

Those recommendations include incorporating homosexuality in anti-prejudice classes and sensitivity workshops for teachers.

Penn Reeve, a Fairhaven resident who teaches sociology at UMass Dartmouth, wondered what kind of outreach the Safe Schools Program was doing with local superintendents.

"How could the superintendent (in Acushnet) eliminate that part of the curriculum?" he asked. Ms. Westheimer said the recommendations don't have the force of law.

"The law clearly states that harassment is not allowed," she said. "But I encourage parents to put pressure on their school boards to start programs in their towns."