Why Do Conservatives Fear Gay Scouts?

With the decision to repeal a discriminating exclusion of homosexuals in the Boy Scouts of America coming up a lot of emotions are running in overdrive. Many people who are gay and straight are currently showing either their support or outrage toward lifting this discriminatory membership policy, which excludes homosexuals (and atheists) from being members of the BSA organization.

The BSA is a great organization that I was once a member of. Around my early freshman year of High School I started to realize that I was gay, and it was around the same time I found out that the BSA discriminates against gays. I felt so ashamed at first, like I had done something wrong, so I quit the scouts. But I also felt so ashamed afterward that I never came out. I was very confused about the way society expected me to be and how I was not meeting up to those standards. My self confidence deteriorated significantly, and my social skills became nearly nonexistent. Not to say that I was the most popular or well liked person in school, but there was most definitely a difference between the ‘Boy Scouts me’ and the ‘after Boy Scouts me’. All because some people decided that homosexuals do not fit the criteria of an organization that promotes good vales and teaches great life lessons. What a fucking shame.

My boyfriend was also a member of the Scouts, and his father was too, as well as a Scoutmaster. He knew he was gay and accepted it at an earlier age than I did. He completed everything the Scouts ask of him in order to obtain his Eagle Badge up to completing his Eagle Project. He came so close to being awarded with his Eagle Badge accomplishment when he told the BSA to fuck off, and that he was gay and that he wanted nothing to do with a discriminatory organization. Wish I had done it that way, but instead I gave into the belief that I was unsuitable to be a Boy Scouts because of who I was. Does anyone have a time machine I could borrow?

Seriously, if I had stayed with the Scouts I would have had much more self confidence in my High School years, plus I would have had more great times with my fellow Scouts, learning new ways to be self sufficient and self reliant, while at the same time having awesome and daring adventures across the United States.

I love the Boy Scouts of America, and I think that they teach young men the skills and values that are useful in nearly every aspect of life.

But the question has to be asked. Why would an organization like this discriminate against homosexuals? And why is it that when people try to put an end to this kind of discrimination that conservatives come out and act like it would be the end of the world?

“Oh my God, we could have gays in the Boy Scouts, Martha!”

Newsflash folks, we already have gays in the Boy Scouts! I was a Boy Scout who is gay; my boyfriend was a Boy Scout who is gay. As far as we know any volunteers we that we knew while we were in Scouts could have been gay.

Just like in the military, the ‘Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy was in affect, like majorly. That was good and all, I guess. But what happens to a soldier or a sailor when his commanding officers found out he was actually gay? He was discharged, end of story. And the same thing is happening to good gay men all across the nation. Men who never brought up their sexuality because it had no place in a Scouting or military atmosphere have been persecuted and discharged upon discovery of what they do in their own private time with the ones they are intimate with.

The BSA and proponents of this anti-gay member policy say that if homosexuals are allowed to be members of the BSA that they will be required to talk about sex with our children and make it policy that homosexuality be brought up during Scout meetings. They fear that once homosexuals are allowed in that we will have to explain to our kids that Scoutmaster Rick is gay and that means he likes other men.

But the Scouts have never been about teaching children about sex. It even says so, right in the Scoutmasters Handbook from 1972:

Rule number 1: You do not undertake to instruct Scouts, in any formalized manner, the subject of sex and family life. The reasons are that it is not construed to be Scoutings proper area, and that you are probably not well qualified to do this.

So with this rule being stated, why is it that the BSA has to exclude homosexual members? Do they believe that because they are homosexual they will undoubtedly indoctrinate children and teach them about sex?

The right-wingers make a great point on this too, and that is that Scouting is not about sex. They’re absolutely right, couldn’t agree with them more on that statement. But if that’s the case then why is it that the BSA is discriminating against a group of people because of their sexual preference? If Scouting is not about sex why do they make it an issue to discriminate against a certain group of people because of who they have sex with? Doesn’t that whole line of thought kind of go along the lines of saying, ‘Scouting has everything to do about sex’?

I guess what I am saying here is that homosexuals who want to be members of the BSA never wanted there to be an issue about sex, or their sexuality. They never wanted it to be brought up, nor did they want to bring it up. And why is that? Again, it’s because Scouting is not about sex (says so in the Scoutmaster’s Handbook of 1972), and it is certainly not about your Scoutmaster giving your kids any type of sexual education.

The people who made this issue about sex are the conservatives, mainly the Mormon Church. They are the ones who claimed that homosexuals would HAVE to be appointed to Scoutmaster positions and that they would HAVE to be allowed to talk about sex and sexual orientation. This can’t be further from the truth.

With the presences of homosexuals already in the ranks of the Boy Scouts, don’t you think this would have happened already? Like I said it’s just like Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, as long as no one knows you are gay you are fine, so just keep your mouth shut.

Well many people have done that but it backfired on them, big time, and they are released from duty unwarrantedly. There are many men who have been Scoutmasters, who kept their sexual orientation quiet, and did not talk about sex or their own sex life to their troops. But, once someone they knew saw them with another man, or at a gay bar (which makes me wonder why someone who went to a gay bar would try to blackmail someone else who went to a gay bar….politics…) and they get proof then it’s all over. That Scoutmaster is now fired for having a private life, a private life that had nothing to do with Scouting.

This is what is wrong with this whole thing. Not only does it cause young men who believe they are gay to think that they are wrong and sinful but it also persecutes those who worked hard to earn their position, only to have it stripped away from them because of their private life…which by the way, never came up in Scout meetings.

So what are they so afraid of? I have already shown that homosexuals are no more at risk of abusing children than heterosexuals, and I have already shown that homosexuals don’t want to take over and start teaching sex. So why is it that they have such a bug up their ass on this?

Well it goes back to the Christian God and organized religion in general. The Scouts have been hijacked by the Mormon Church, for all intents and purposes. And we all know the Mormon Church’s track record with gay and civil rights. They believe that homosexuality is wrong and against God. And since one of their laws is to, “Do my duty to God,” they believe that gays do not do their duty to God.

OK, being an ex-Boy Scout I know that the BSA allows people of all faiths.

FROM SCOUTING FOR ALL:

“The BSA, therefore, recognizes the religious element in the training of the member, but is absolutely nonsectarian in its attitude toward that religious training.”

Meaning that Muslims, Jews, Christians, Buddhists, etc can join the Boy Scouts of America, but what of the homosexual? And the biggest word there is “nonsectarian”, meaning that they will not relate to specific religious sect or political group. So then why are they trying to say that they can’t exclude homosexuals when they don’t relate to any specific religion? And even then, what if a member is homosexual and a Christian? Is it right to cast him out for his sin?

FROM BRIAN GRIFFEN:

“I thought only ‘he without sin shall cast the first Prius.’”

I have tried really hard to discredit many of the claims made by the religious right-wing on this issue in order to restore some type of sanity or rationality. But one voice doesn’t do enough. You need to speak out against this as well whether or not you’re a new reader, older reader, liberal reader, or conservative reader. You should at least look at the argument I’m trying to make and just for once step away from politics, and step away from that ‘I think along the party-lines’ type of rationale and start thinking for yourself a little bit. I mean, really, are homosexuals that much of a threat to society? We’ve been living with them for thousands upon thousands of years, and they are the ones out to destroy the fabric of society?

I had this discussion with my boyfriend and he said that if there existed a type of radar that could locate homosexuals (a gaydar if you will) than we would find homosexuals within every nook and cranny of our society. They are our neighbors, they are our friends, and they’re our cops, firefighters, nurses, doctors, teachers, and politicians. They make up the fabric of society like everyone else does.

Republicans often make the claim that citizens are paranoid, especially with this new gun control debate, and they like to say that people who are against guns just don’t trust their neighbors enough. And this is true to a degree. But can’t the same be said for them? They are happy to say that trust is a huge issue and that there should be more trust toward your fellow American, yet they discriminate against homosexuals teaching their children because they don’t trust them to not abuse children. Isn’t this the same argument?

SOURCES:

HUFF POST: WHAT ARE CONSERVATIVES AFRAID OF

SCOUTING FOR ALL

Boy Scouts of America Delay Decision on Lifting Gay Ban

So after I got all excited about the BSA making a decision on whether or not to lift the ban on homosexuals I found out yesterday that the BSA has decided to delay that decision. This doesn’t come as too much of a shock to me, as people on the right-wing tend to have a difficult time when making coherent and tolerant decisions.

The BSA released a statement today saying, "After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America's National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy."

That basically translates to, “We know it’s the right thing to do, but we have a very large group of religious members who are against the right thing. So, we will delay this decision for a while to see if maybe our religious members will allow this.”

I mean, really? How complex is this issue? Does it take a fucking rocket scientist to figure out that discrimination is bad, especially when it’s a public organization that’s discriminating? Let’s not forget to add that they are a public organization when they want those public funds supplied to them from the government then turns around and says it has the right to discriminate because they are actually in fact a private organization.

We already know that the BSA is given a government stipend to fund their activities. We also know that the government itself has acknowledged the BSA as a patriotic organization and that they are allowed to rent public land for little to no expense at all. So if the BSA wants to call themselves a private organization then I guess they can do without the public money and the neat usage of public facilities for free, right?

OBAMA QUOTE FROM THE ARTICLE:

"And you know the Scouts are a great institution, that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives. And I think nobody should be barred from that."

And you know something; the President is right about this. Why would you bar certain people because of the way they were born from being exposed to great opportunities and experiences that not only will serve them but the rest of the people of this nation? Oh, but the religious right-wingers have some excellent, incoherent defenses for that, of course.

Pat Robertson, the TV evangelist and host of the 700 club said that if the Boy Scouts allow homosexuals to join their organization that it will open the door to pedophiles who will target children.

Robertson said, "The question is, are there predators as boy scouts, pedophiles that would come in as scoutmasters? And if they are, then of course parents wouldn't want their sons being involved in the Boy Scouts, or their daughters in the Girl Scouts."

Well of course no one wants their Scoutmaster to be a fucking pedophile, but how does allowing homosexuals the change to be apart of Scouting going to open the doors to pedophiles?

This whole idea that homosexual men are prone to be child molesters is an old one and one that has been proven to be incorrect. But that doesn’t stop the religious right, oh no. You see they like to think that male-male sexual molestation means that the perpetrator is in fact a homosexual, and that all male-male acts of molestation are committed only by homosexuals.

FROM DOCTOR FRED BERLIN M.D.

“A man who is homosexual is no more at risk of abusing a boy as a man who is heterosexual at risk of abusing a girl.”

Fred Berlin is a professor of psychiatry at the John Hopkins Medical School, and he is one of the nations leading authorities on pedophilia.

“There is in our society still much stigma against people who are homosexual, and part of the stigma is the sense that somehow they must be more at risk to children. There simply isn’t any scientific evidence to support that.”

So what does that mean exactly?

“To put it succinctly there is no credible evidence that a homosexual man is more likely to abuse a child than is a heterosexual man.”

Thanks doc! That comes in handy when talking to this religious nut jobs that are out to discriminate against something they don’t even understand. I’m pretty sure that one of the leading authorities on pedophilia in this country would know more about sexual disorders than a guy who preaches about God and hosts a Christian television show.

And lets look at it from another angle while were on the topic. If that is a major concern of the BSA, to keep children safe from homosexual pedophiles, then what current policies do they have to protect their kids against heterosexual pedophiles? It isn’t just gay men who molest children; it is also heterosexual men and women who molest children. So what procedures do they have in place to identify these heterosexual pedophiles? The short answer is that they don’t have any procedures.

This is where the stigma comes in. Straight Scouts are “normal” and have no sexual disorders because they walk the path that God set for them. Whereas homosexuals do not walk that path according to the Mormons, and because of that they are sick, twisted individuals who are out to touch you’re children’s genitals. Yet they have no solid evidence, they just blindly back up their claim saying that homosexuals are pedophiles because homosexual men are attracted to men and the Boy Scouts is a male organization. So does that mean that males are not allowed to volunteer for the Girl Scouts? I mean, since heterosexual men are attracted to women does that mean they are a threat to young girls in the Girl Scouts? Even further, could you say that no straight man is safe to be alone with his own daughter because he is attracted to females? The logic simply makes no sense.

When I was in High School there was one gay teacher (as I can recall). You really didn’t know he even existed because he taught Advanced Placement Algebra off in some tiny little corner of the school. Aside from him all of the male teachers were straight, and you heard more stories about the straight male teachers having sex with students then the gay teacher.

A friend of mine on the track team admitted to having sex with her assistant coach multiple times until the actual coach caught on and had the two separated (and no, no reports were ever made as it was deemed ‘consensual’ by all parties involved). And one teacher (our favorite teacher because he smoked marijuana and drank all the time) was forced into retirement just a few years ago because an ex-student of his from 20+ years ago accused him of having sex with her while she was a teenager. The teacher did not deny the claims. Rather, he took the forced retirement ultimatum and is now collecting his pension. 

So again, how does allowing straight people to be in any sort of leadership position any safer than allowing a homosexual to be in the same position? The Mormon Chuch is humping the idea that the children in the BSA are completely safe because there are no gay Scoutmasters. But what about the straight Scoutmasters who are at risk to children? How do they even find that stuff out? I mean, I’m sure it has happened before, where a straight Scoutmaster molested one or more of the children in his troop. Did anyone find out about it? If so, what happened to that straight Scoutmaster?

What I’m saying is that there is no way on earth to tell if someone is a child predator or not. These people blend into society very well, and you most likely live next to or close to someone who is straight and has been convicted of a sex crime against the same sex. So why point the finger at one group of minorities and say that they are the cause of all sexual abuse cases? Why not let everyone join, and those who break the law will be dealt with accordingly. That’s the way it should be.

Just like the argument against guns. The right-wingers like to say that you shouldn’t punish the law abiding citizens who own guns because criminals use them for bad things. And they are absolutely correct on that one. But the same logic can be used in this topic of gays in the Boy Scouts. Why would you punish every single homosexual in the nation because there was an instance where one homosexual man molested a young boy?

 To punish all homosexuals and say they cannot join the organization because they are a molestation risk? Have there been any homosexual Scoutmasters who were caught breaking the law by molesting children? And if there have been, why would they persecute all homosexuals because of the devious act of one homosexual? Sure, they are all for it when it comes to guns. Just because one guy goes nuts and shoots up a school with an assault weapon doesn’t mean that all law abiding citizens who have assault weapons are dangerous people. The same thing applies here, and I wish they would use simple logic to realize this.

Pat Robertson had this to say as well, "Our prayers are with them (THE BSA) that they will do what they feel is right for them, not what the political [sic] correct crowd thinks is right for them."

OK, once again I am all for them being a private organization and excluding whomever they want, if they were truly a private organization. You can’t pretend to be a public organization to acquire government money, then turn around and say that you are in fact not a public organization. Pick one! If you don’t want to allow homosexuals into the group then stop accepting public funds.

In closing, I think that the Mormon Church is behind this, big time. Taking a look at some figures we see that the Mormon Church actually represents 15% of 2.7 million Boy Scouts. They represent more Scouts in this nation than any other group, religious or otherwise. And since 1999 (which was around the time I was about to leave the Scouts) the membership of the BSA has dropped significantly, making the organization smaller, but expanding its Mormon influence.

But the Mormon connection doesn’t end there. The Mormons have been vehemently attacking homosexuals and gay rights in general for years. A good example of this would be the millions of dollars they funneled into California’s Proposition 8 campaign, which made gay marriage illegal in California under the guise of protecting marriage and the family unit. This is what the Mormon Church had to say about the BS delaying their decision on lifting the ban against homosexuals, “We believe (the BSA) has acted wisely in delaying a vote on this policy issue until the implications can be can be carefully evaluated…we caution others not to speculate about our position or assume that individual Latter-day Saints inside or outside the Scouting movement speak for the Church. Neither has the Church launched any campaign either to effect or prevent the policy change.”

But we do in fact know that he Church doesn’t support any change to the BSA’s membership policy. Will they ever? That is what we will have to wait and find out.

The Mormons are trying to walk a very fine line here of course, because of their views on homosexuality and their high stakes in the BSA organization. Only time will tell how much influence they really have, and how much pressure they put on the BSA to delay this decision.

People like Pat Robertson and Rick Santorum would have you believe that this is a liberal political issue and that popular culture is trying to find it’s way into this great organization and destroy it for political causes. But this is not a political issue. As Sean Penn who played Harvey Milk in the movie ‘Milk’ said to Josh Brolin who played Dan White, “It's more than an issue. This is our life we're fighting for.”

Stand up with me and fight against this bigotry. Tell the BSA that you think they should lift their policy of discrimination and that if they wish to be a private organization that they need to stop accepting public funds.  Tell the Mormon Church to back off and stop discriminating against our fellow Americans. Together we can put an end to this absurdity and we can have the equality that every American has today.

 SOURCES:

ABC NEWS: BOY SCOUTS DELAY GAY DECISION

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA: MEMBERSHIP POLICY STATEMENT

HUFF POST: REACTION TO DELAY

HUFF POST: PAT ROBERTSON COMMENTS

CNN: SCOUTS DELAY GAY DECISION

PSYCHOLOGY UC DAVIS: FACTS OF HOMOSEXUALITY

IMDB: MILK MOVIE QUOTE

PENN & TELLERS BULLSHIT: BSA

Boy Scouts to Reconsider Ban on Gays Tomorrow

Last year, the Boy Scouts of America released a statement which essentially said that they had reviewed their “membership policy” and decided to keep it the way it was, despite what some people at the BSA itself actually thought. Since then, the BSA has experienced a large drop in membership as many parents are pulling their children out of the scouts while others just aren’t joining.

The “membership policy” that I’m talking about is one very discriminatory rule that the BSA has, which excludes certain people from joining their organization. It is a rule which bans homosexuals from joining the scouts, and after their decision last year many people have urged them to reconsider this move, which they will be doing tomorrow.

The Boy Scouts have a pretty bad track record with discriminating against homosexuals, and atheists. But this is all relatively new, though. The Boy Scouts weren’t always this way, it’s just that they have been hijacked by the religious right as of relatively recently. Many churches have Boy Scout troops of their own and have a high stake in them, but no one has a higher stake in the BSA then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. That’s right, the Mormons control a pretty large number of Boy Scout troops across America, more than any other religious organization in the country.

And of course, as usual, it’s become somewhat of a political topic as of late. President Obama as asked the BSA to repeal their anti-gay stance, and there is a whole movement out there to oppose them as well. One petition, which was delivered to the Boy Scouts of America headquarters in Irving Texas, had an astonishing1.4 million signatures, asking the BSA to end their ban of homosexual members.  

But the opposition to this ban on the ban is also out there, albeit their rhetoric on this one is illogical and completely incoherent (As usual…?). Especially statements made by Rick Santorum recently, where he is urging the Boy Scouts of America to keep their policy and continue to discriminate against homosexuals saying, “[W]hen I saw that the Boy Scouts of America executive board is convening on Wednesday to discuss abandoning the organization’s founding moral principles that nurture boys into men, I was saddened, but not surprised.”

Santorum went on to say that the Scouts are only doing this because they are caving into pressures from “intolerant liberal mind(ed)” people. But how is not allowing discrimination intolerance? Does he not see that the comment he made is absolutely asinine? Does this man even know what the meaning of the word intolerant is? 

He also went on to say that the Boy Scouts should stick to their moral roots on this one and not be forced to change to suit the popular culture. But the thing is that the Boy Scouts were never always like this. Their ‘founding moral principals’ are much different than what Santorum, or any other Republican would like to say they are. Once again, a case of politicians interpreting things in their own way to make a point.

FROM THE SCOUT MASTERS HANDBOOK 1972:

Rule number 1: You do not undertake to instruct Scouts, in any formalized manner, the subject of sex and family life. The reasons are that it is not construed to be Scoutings proper area, and that you are probably not well qualified to do this.

Yet now sex and family life are being used in the rules to exclude certain people that they don’t want to give equal rights to. And it’s not the BSA’s original policy to do this; it’s the right-winged religious folks who hijacked the BSA some years back and are now guiding its policies.

The BSA says that it has the right to be exclusive and not allow homosexuals the right to join because they are a private organization that can do what it wants. And this would be true, if the circumstances were slightly different. You see, in 1910 the Boy Scouts were recognized by the government as an American patriotic group, and because of that the BSA gets all kinds of great perks.

For one, the Scouts get public funding from the United States government. That’s public funding; the money that we pay into taxes goes to support the BSA and their bigotry. For two, the BSA can use public land for little to nothing. Most public buildings will allow Scouting troops to assemble for just one dollar a year or nothing at all. Fort A.P. Hill, where the Scouts hold their National Jamboree is rented for just one dollar. On top of that, active military personal are used to help set up the event, which costs the government around 5 million dollars every four years.

But let’s put all of that aside for a moment. I think the major hypocrisy of the BSA lies in their own law, a law that promotes trustworthiness, friendship, and kindness. It forces young people who are homosexuals to keep quiet about it and act like someone else, lying about who they are, thus breaking one of the Boy Scout laws? Do you think it is very kind or friendly to try to teach children hate and intolerance of this caliber?

Another great hypocrisy is that the BSA allows illegal immigrants to join their ranks, yet not homosexuals who are legally in this country. This is weird when you think about it. Why would the religious right be so strict on immigration, then turn around and say that you don’t have to be a citizen of America to join the Boy Scouts of AMERICA.

FROM THE BSA FAQ:

Citizenship is not required of youth or adult members.

Granted the FAQ goes on to say that if you are not a citizen of the United States they urge you to join a scouting organization in your own country. However, they will not turn you away from the group simply because you are not a US citizen. That translates as “Illegal immigrants? Yeah, their OK, but watch out for those subversive fucking faggots! They ruin everything!”  

I was in the Boy Scouts when I was younger. It was a very cool experience for the time that I was there. I learned how to start a fire and cook during a snow storm, learned how to use a compass to find my way back home, self reliance, and most of all self confidence.

Although that self confidence began to fade once I got older and began to realize who I was. Once I found out about the Scouts policy on homosexual members I thought that maybe I was a bad Scout. So I quit.

My boyfriend on the other hand nearly became an Eagle Scout, but for all intents and purposes he is an Eagle Scout. He finished out the entire program, even completed his Eagle Project. But before accepting the rank of Eagle he backed out, saying that he wanted nothing to do with a group that discriminates against gay people.

I’ve done a lot of Boy Scout bashing here, so I have to throw it out there and let it be known that I don’t hate the Scouts. I think they are a great organization that promotes great values and teaches young men a set of skills that will stay with them for the rest of their life. This is why I don’t understand why they won’t extend their hand and offer these skills, which every young man should know, to a certain person simply because they were born gay. As someone who cares about the community don’t you people think that all young men, regardless of who they are, should have these set of skills? Would it not make the world a better place?

Is it wrong to teach somebody how to tie a knot, or build a fire, or hike, or use a compass when they are born a certain way? Is this exclusive knowledge that only certain young people are allowed to know? I mean, should I be shunned for teaching a homosexual how to find his way home using a compass?

I would urge the Boy Scouts to highly reconsider this membership policy, and put an end to discrimination within their organization so that every young man, regardless of who they are, can join this great organization and learn all that the Boy Scouts has to offer. I have already sent them my feed back; I hope you will do the same.

Let’s hope that tomorrow they make the right decision and end this policy of discrimination, so that all young men will be treated equally and given the same chance to have an awesome experience like everyone else.

SOURCES:

RIGHT WING WATCH: SANTORUM COMMENTS ON BSA’S GAY BAN

USATODAY: GAY BAN PETITION

SPECTACLE: BOY SCOUTS

HUFF POST: SANTORUM COMMENTS

HUFF POST: BSA CONSIDERS DROPPING BAN

BSA SITE: FAQ

BSA SITE: OATH AND LAW

PENN AND TELLER: BS BSA VIDEO