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.
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