Fistgate Comes Back to Haunt Gov. Cellucci

Full text of letter to US Senators

February 23, 2001

The scandal of Fistgate came back to haunt Gov. Cellucci  after being identified as the Bush Administration's choice for Ambassador to Canada.

Twelve Massachusetts organizations joined in a letter to the head of the Foreign Relations Committee, Sen. Jesse Helms, who had scuttled Bill Weld’s appointment to Mexico a few years back.

The popular national TV program Hannity and Colmes on Fox News had several segments on the Governor’s problems.

The Boston Herald had reported earlier that “conservative family groups” were stepping up their opposition to the appointment.

After the Herald report, the Governor hinted that he might be willing to meet with the groups to head off a potential crisis.

“We’ll certainly take a look at that,” he told the Herald.

One of the groups, the Parents Rights Coalition, headed by Brian Camenker, revealed that the groups were sending tapes of Fistgate to all 100 of the U.S. Senators who must confirm the appointment.

Gov. Cellucci has refused to discuss the Fistgate scandal with anyone, even though Alan Keyes knocked on his door during a rally last summer. The Governor was in the office but declined to meet with Ambassador Keyes. Cellucci’s Department of Education fired two teachers who participated in the scandal last year.

“We’d love the opportunity to sit down with him,” Camenker told the Herald. “That’s what we’ve wanted all along. I guess the wheels move sort of slowly. People across the country are really outraged by this. There’s definitely going to be something pretty big [during the confirmation process].

“Some of these parents were very hurt,” Camenker continued. “If Cellucci had at least sat down with us…but his whole attitude was very arrogant, that we were these people beneath his dignity. I don’t think the Governor understands that this has caused a minor firestorm around the country.”

Camenker also told the Herald that Cellucci’s top policy adviser at the time, Abner Mason, a homosexual activist who was former head of the national Log Cabin Republicans, told him that Cellucci thought it was “a waste of time” to meet with them.

But Mason denied that he said that when he was questioned by the Herald last month. “I certainly didn’t use the term ‘waste of time,’” Mason said. “I spoke with Camenker on a couple of occasions. He wanted to come in and try to convince the Governor not to continue with the policy of making schools safe for all teens – including gay and lesbian teens. The governor is very committed to this whole safe school initiative. I told Camenker I didn’t think the Governor was going to reverse himself.”

Working Draft of Letter to U.S. Senators from Twelve Massachusetts Organizations

Mr. A. Paul Cellucci, sitting governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has been nominated to become the United States ambassador to Canada. As taxpayers, voters and community leaders and especially as parents, this troubles us greatly. 

A recurring characteristic of Mr. Cellucci's political career has been disregard for the concerns of those in Massachusetts and across America who see our society as adrift in profound moral crisis.

That concern has been identified by the leading public opinion pollsters as the single most widespread social and political concern in our society.  Mr. Cellucci's actions -- and his failures to act -- have revealed a political personality that is either unconcerned about the moral fiber of our society and of our families, or that regards mainstream values and morality as obsolete.

Among the most troubling examples are Mr. Cellucci's blithe treatment of partial-birth abortion as a minor moral issue. The American Medical Association supports federal legislation banning partial-birth abortions and Congress itself has voted overwhelming and with bipartisan support to ban it. Illinois' pro-choice Governor Jim Edgar signed a ban, describing partial-birth abortion as "a barbaric procedure that is repugnant."

Former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- no pro-life conservative -- called it "not just too close to infanticide, it is infanticide, and one would be too many."  Surveys indicate that that most doctors and laypeople are also unable to distinguish it from infanticide.

Can we decry infanticide in China and other less developed, less democratic countries if we appoint as our ambassadors persons who trivialize it in their own front yard -- and who regard it as a price worth paying for the political and financial backing of radicalized and unrepresentative groups?

Another profoundly troubling example of Governor Cellucci's silence on an issue that touches the gravest concerns of responsible parents is his involvement in the notorious "fistgate" scandal brought to public attention last year by The Massachusetts News and other news outlets. 

This involved taxpayer funds that Mr. Cellucci allocated to radical homosexual groups which have been used to explicitly encourage school children to celebrate and indeed to try anal sex, "fisting" and sadomasochism.  The evidence for this is irrefutably presented in the enclosed cassette recording of an infamous sex conference at Tufts University. 

The recorded evidence has circulated around the country and has been reported on radio, television and in print.  No doubts about the facts remain among those who have heard the recording.  Two homosexual activists on Mr. Cellucci's payroll have been fired.  His own Department of Education has apologized to the parents of Massachusetts.  Nearly a year has passed. 

Astonishingly, Governor Cellucci has steadfastly refused to address the public -- or even to admit that anything significant happened.  Until very recent articles in the Boston Herald, The Massachusetts News, on the website massnews.com and increasing  internet, radio and television coverage brought the issue back to public attention, he refused even to meet with concerned parents to reassure them that nothing like this will happen again on his watch. 

On the contrary, he has chosen to maintain his alliance with groups on the radical fringe of the homosexual community in Massachusetts -- even at the price of betraying the most basic right of parents to exercise final authority over the moral development of their own children.

We are aware that Paul Cellucci helped raise money for the Bush-Cheney campaign in the recent election.  But raising funds for a successful presidential candidacy is not the essential qualification for the job of representing the United States in a world beset with grave moral and ethical concerns -- including matters of life and death.

For the reasons described above and for other similar reasons, we urge every member of the United States Senate to reject the nomination of Governor Paul Cellucci as the United States' Ambassador to Canada.

Concerned Women for America, Massachusetts Chapter
The Eagle Forum, Massachusetts Chapter
The Christian Coalition of Massachusetts            
The Catholic Action League of Massachusetts 
Justice for Families                       
The Parents' Rights Coalition                                              
The Knights of Columbus (Council No. 94 Lexington, MA)
Mad Mass Mothers for Educational Reform (Roxbury, Mattapan and  Dorchester)      
Family Rights Inc.                 
Mothers Against Pedophilia                               
The Central Eastern Woodland Sokoki Band of the Algonquin Tribe   
EdUSA                                                           

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Other groups are sending their own letters of protest either to US senators or the governor himself, including the Massachusetts Family Institute and Newton Parents for Moderation. Ray Neary, President of Massachusetts Citizens for Life sent a personal letter to the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

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