Brian Camenker Discusses Confession of Margot Abels, Fistgate Teacher

Brian Camenker Discusses Confession of Margot Abels, Fistgate Teacher

Interesting Items

By Ed Oliver
October 2001

A teacher at Fistgate, Margot Abels, recently confirmed what Brian Camenker has been saying all along about what she and others taught to Massachusetts school children.

Abels was fired from the state Department of Education for what occurred at Fistgate. But an arbitrator recently awarded her all of her back pay and ordered that she get her old job back. He said she had not been acting on her own but with approval from her superiors to teach this material.

She now says that she “flew sort of below the radar screen for a long time,” as no one in the public realized what was happening.

Brian Camenker spoke with MassNews recently to discuss his organization, Parents’ Rights Coalition and the issues surrounding the recent revelations from Abels.

MassNews: How did the Parents’ Rights Coalition get started?

Camenker: We started in 1994 when I was chairman of a group that Cardinal Law had started called the Interfaith Coalition, which had a lot of the major civic and religious leaders from the Massachusetts area involved. We wrote the “Parents’ Rights Bill,” which we introduced in the state legislature early in 1995. What happened was, we knew it would take a real activist movement to get it through, and the Interfaith Coalition preferred not to be quite so activist, so we sort of changed the nature of the organization and it became the Parents’ Rights Coalition. You can learn a lot about what we’ve been doing on our web site at www.parentsrightscoalition.org. Our mission and purpose has always been to protect the parents’ rights, which have basically been trampled on for years by the liberal education establishment in Massachusetts Public Schools.

MassNews: Haven’t you followed up with another bill?

Camenker: Yes, what we found was that in order to get the Parents’ Rights Bill through, we had to make a few compromises. We made it an opt-out. In other words, in current law, parents have to be notified by the schools and they have to be allowed to opt their children out of these kinds of sexuality and homosexuality classes. The many school districts including my own are largely ignoring it. They just go ahead and enroll kids in these classes without notifying the parents. They also teach this stuff at assemblies or in parts of classes and they invite speakers – completely ignoring the spirit of the law. The current law only says classes and does not include things like assemblies.

We have a new Parents’ Rights Bill that is strengthened considerably by making it an opt- in requirement. That’s like it should be. These sexuality courses should be like any other elective course, like French. So if you want to sign up your kid to weird gay sex 101, you can do it, but if you don’t want it you can ignore it. That’s very simple and very fair to every one.

Of course, the reason it’s still being viciously opposed is because the sex-ed industry knows that if parents have the choice of either having their children learn about homosexuality or learn about something that’s useful and not destructive, they would choose that just about every single time. They know that, so they have been lobbying against our bill, which is currently in committee. We have also exposed a lot of the terrible abuses towards the children, particularly by the homosexual movement in the public school system, such as the Tufts Fistgate conference and many other things.

MassNews: What did your people try to do before Fistgate that led to the taping? How did you know what the homosexual movement was teaching the kids?

Camenker: Well, the interesting thing about that is we had actually been to the previous two GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) conferences. In fact, one year we had let the word out that we might be protesting and the president of GLSEN called me at home to harass me about it.

MassNews: Who was that?

Camenker: His name was Kevin Jennings. He actually got my home phone number and called me at home to harass me.

MassNews: Harass you how?

Camenker: Oh, he basically yelled and screamed at me a little bit. The way he found out about it interestingly enough is I had mentioned it to a Channel 5 News Reporter. The news reporter called him in New York and warned him about this. The way we found out was Jennings did an interview with Bay Windows and said that a Channel 5 Reporter had warned him. When I asked Channel 5 about it they said they called him up to do an interview. I asked how is it that a TV station would do an interview on the phone. I’ve never heard of that. Well, they didn’t have an answer for that.

MassNews: And that happened when?

Camenker: I think that was in 1998.

MassNews: Wasn’t the Parents’ Rights Coalition trying to approach the Dept. of Education before the taping incident at the Tufts conference in March of 2000?

Camenker: Yes. Before the Tufts conference in 2000, we approached the Dept. of Education. Scott Whiteman told them, “This is what is happening in the schools and you need to know about it.” This was in December, several months before the March 2000 conference. We were saying we had been to the last one or two of these conferences and we had seen everything that was going on there. I mean, the literature that was being handed out, everything was absolutely disgusting. The State Board of Education, which includes some people that you would consider conservative like Abigail Thernstrom and Jim Peyser, completely ignored him and in fact laughed at him. They treated him very badly and suggested that he might be homophobic or something and ignored us.

So we knew we had to prove what was going on. The interesting thing is that when Scott went to the March 2000 conference he brought a tape recorder really as an afterthought. If I remember correctly, the idea was if anything interesting happened turn on your tape recorder. It wasn’t planned all that intricately. He just sort of happened to wander into a couple of workshops and it was absolutely horrifying. And you know, I think even more horrifying than what we got out of there was the fact that the people there didn’t think that there was anything abnormal about what they were doing to children. I happened to listen to the tape again recently and it is really, really gross and disgusting. And the fact that these people didn’t think so is very troubling. And in fact Margot Abels is quoted in Bay Windows as saying that she thought it was a very positive experience for children. I mean, this person is a lunatic. These people have no business being around children at all.

MassNews: When you read that interview you must have felt vindicated by what she said. Abels said they flew below the radar screen for some time with the support of DOE supervisors. It sounds like she knew the public wouldn’t support what they taught the kids behind closed doors.

Camenker: Well you see the DOE tried to paint her as this anomaly, someone who just came in and did something bad. The department is made up of people just as radical as she is and in many cases more radical. And so, when Driscoll, the Commissioner, and the others tried to say that what she had done was unusual and said it would never happen again, they were a bunch of liars. In fact, they weren’t shocked at all. They knew what was going on. They helped her plan it and they approved it at every level. When the people there heard about what she was doing when we first told them about it, they weren’t surprised. This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the DOE knew about it and planned it and was actually very comfortable with what she did. The only reason that they fired her was because of the immense public outrage. And you know an interesting thing? Right after the tape became public, Alan Safran, who is the deputy commissioner right under Driscoll called me up and asked me if he could listen to it. We met at an elementary school in Newton. They gave us a room and I played the tape for him in this room.

The fascinating thing was to watch the expression on his face. It was completely blank. He had no emotion about this at all. Most people when they hear this are sickened by it and outraged. Here is the second highest-ranking person in the DOE and his only comment at the end of the tape was, “Boy, it’s time for lunch.” That is literally what he said. He had no emotion at all. He could have been listening to the news for all we know. I think that he was just a little aggravated that we had made it public and he wanted to do what he could to keep the outrage down. You could tell by the look on his face, he was very comfortable with it and had no outrage at all.

MassNews: Abels says the tape you made is horribly distorted. What’s on the rest of the tape that we haven’t heard? Was the rest of her class about safety and disease prevention as she says?

Camenker: Well, you know, this is the interesting thing. Their spin on this thing from the beginning is that we have distorted this and we’ve taken it out of context. Well, the words are there; they are not distorted. The words are there exactly as they were spoken. And how do you put this in any kind of a context that makes sense. I did not attend this, but according to Scott Whiteman who did attend there was maybe 5 seconds of discussion about AIDS prevention out of an hour. There is no possible distortion of what they actually said and there is no possible context of what they said that is positive.

MassNews: Abels also said that you are a very hateful man who is trying to dismantle programs that are trying to save the lives of kids. Do you want to respond to that?

Camenker: Save the lives of kids? She is essentially causing kids to possibly kill themselves with these extremely dangerous behaviors. The only thing that the homosexual activists can do is call us names. They have no other defense for the horrible things that they are doing to children. Anybody that exposes them gets called names by these people. They are not helping children but harming them. These are very dangerous people and should be nowhere near children and should certainly not be on the payroll of the state of Massachusetts. We have some big problems when we have people like her working for the state.

MassNews: Abels also says she’s hearing that since her firing, educators are more cautious in their approach to answering children’s questions. Also MassNews reported this spring that GLSEN almost couldn’t find a home for their conferences this year because of the fall-out from last year’s Fistgate disaster. That must give you some satisfaction.

Camenker: Well, yeah, it’s good that we are having an effect, no question about it. Now, the fact that teachers feel that they have to be more careful when they are answering kids’ questions is still troubling because if what they really want to do is to push kids into the homosexual lifestyle, then we’ve got the wrong people as teachers. And this whole business of answering kids’ questions of course is completely bogus. What they do is put the words into kids’ mouths like they did at this conference. They claim that the questions come from the kids because they will collect pieces of paper from the kids with questions on them. Then they make up their own questions. This whole idea that a child would ask about how to get your hand stuck in a rectum, no child asks that question. The fact that they feel they’d like to even do this kind of thing is very, very troubling. Now the fact that GLSEN had trouble finding a venue is wonderful. I’m very sorry that Tufts decided to give it to them and that the Mass. Teachers Association stepped in to help fund it. You know this shows what an odious group the teachers union really is the way they put their political agenda above the health of children.

MassNews: Abels says the PRC and MassNews, the so-called “far right,” used Fistgate to leverage “incredible power and control over state agencies.” Do you think that is accurate? Who is more in control of state agencies in your view, the parents or the gay activists?

Camenker: Well, I just wish that she were correct. The truth is that we have almost no power over state agencies. This is the usual rhetoric of the homosexual activists. It’s laced with the most ridiculous lies and distortions. In fact the state agencies are as powerful as they ever were in regards to pushing the homosexual agenda. We’ve had an effect because they do know now that what they do is liable to be exposed to the public, and they might have that problem, but we certainly don’t have the power that she claims we have. It would be nice, no question about it, if normal people had control over their own state government like it should be. I’m always interested in the way they characterize anyone who disagrees with them as the “far right.” That’s always a real laugh. It’s their tactic to scare people. This woman, again, has no business being in the employ of the state government and representing the taxpayers if this is how she describes the people that are paying her salary.

MassNews: Tell us about the lawsuits that resulted from the taping. What are they about and what is the status?

Camenker: Well, the gay groups both on a national and local level absolutely do not want the public to know the horrible things that they are doing with children. This is their worst nightmare. In order to stop this they have pushed this lawsuit against the PRC, Scott Whiteman and myself in order to attempt to keep the tape from being distributed. And in fact, they got Superior Court Judge Allan Van Gestel to issue a ridiculous and unconstitutional restraining order, which will be overturned eventually. It was even criticized by such people as Alan Dershowitz as being ridiculous.

The other thing they want to do is punish us. They are trying to drain us of financial resources in any way they can. So they are trying to make this as expensive an undertaking as possible and they have actually said that they want to punish us. They want to drain us and ruin us because they don’t want anybody else to even think of exposing what they’re doing. What is particularly disgusting about this is the fact that this group GLAD, the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders is funded with public dollars. It is a complete outrage that this is happening.

MassNews: Attorney Chester Darling told MassNews that if he’s prevented from using all of his defenses, both Fistgate lawsuits could go to the SJC.

Camenker: Yeah, well we are not feeling too good about that given the fact that the SJC routinely rules in favor of homosexual activists. Several members, including the Chief Justice, have spoken at homosexual fundraising events and have expressed sympathy and support for what the homosexuals are doing in a very, very partisan way. We have a very radical group of judges at the high levels in this state. The only place I think we would really win is on the federal level. This was proven when Chester Darling defended the South Boston parade people. He lost in every court in the state, including the federal courts, but in the U.S. Supreme Court he won 9 to nothing. This state’s judicial system is largely considered a joke on the national level.

MassNews: Darling also told MassNews that the revelations by Abels in the Bay Windows article compels an overview of the entire HIV Safe School program. He said it’s “clearly been a corrupting and dangerous force directed at Massachusetts school children for years.”

Camenker: Right. I mean the whole program has been a fraud. It is a front for the homosexual agenda to capture children and try to push them into homosexual behavior. In fact, they have admitted that from time to time in their own writings and speeches. If they really wanted to save children’s lives they certainly, certainly wouldn’t be doing this.

MassNews: Fistgate put the PRC and you personally on the map. You seem to be the go to guy now for comment on gay issues in the schools. What is that like?

Camenker: I’m certainly not the only person who is active or has ideas on this. The problem is they do their best to intimidate anybody from speaking out in public. And what happened is, I’m almost the only one left. It’s amazing how many people, even leaders of organizations, are afraid of the gay movement and the gay activists and particularly public officials. Somebody has to be able to tell the truth.

MassNews: How can people contribute to your organization?

Camenker: Contributions can be sent to the Parents’ Rights Coalition P.O. Box 175, Newton, MA 02466. And they’re encouraged to visit our web site at parentsrightscoalition.org.

MassNews: If people want to help with the lawsuits, should they make a special note of that on their contribution?

Camenker: To help with the lawsuits make a check out to the Parents’ Defense Fund and send it to the same address.

MassNews: Will that help Scott Whiteman also?

Camenker: Yes, it’ll help both of us. We are committed to beating this, whatever it takes. We don’t have the kind of funding sources that the gay groups do, so we depend on help from the public.