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

Re-Election 2012 Rant

I have to admit that November 6^th was a very scary day for me. November 6^th was the day we either progressed as a nation and moved forward or set back the clock fifty or so years back into the past. No, November 6^th was not the day that Marty McFly came to us in a silver Delorian as prophesied to either take us “Back to the Future” or leave us stranded in 1955. It was Election Day 2012 and as a nation we all came together and voted on a multitude of issues including the big one, who would be our president. This was scary of course because for the presidential race we had to choose from a man we have known for four years that we sort of like (but lets be honest he hasn’t made us too happy lately), and a man who believes that his underwear is magic.

I was sitting in front of my computer all day anxiously awaiting the results, counting down each electoral vote as our county’s fate hanged in the balance of each one. Imagine the horror, I thought, the horror of a Romney America. Roe V. Wade over-turned, gay rights ignored (same-sex marriage federally banned, the reinstatement of DADT), civil rights trampled, women being on the bottom rung of corporate America, creationism being taught in public schools as science, religious zealotries, etc. It was very scary to think of and my heart pounded the whole night.

But thankfully the American people can be trusted to know what is best for themselves and they have voted to keep Obama in office for another four years essentially saying, “we don’t want a religious fanatic in the white house, thank you.” When I saw the electoral votes for Obama when he won I was relieved at first, and then I thought to myself, “Don’t fuck it up, man. We’re counting on you.”

But truth be told not too much has been happening with Obama as president. We all voted for him in 2008 with high hopes and dreams because we thought he was pro gay marriage and pro universal healthcare and that he would pull us out of all conflicts. When he was elected he really pissed us off big time, enough for liberal commentator Rachel Maddow to take shots at him on her show on MSNBC back in 2009 when he said that he did not campaign on a public option for healthcare. Maddow went right to the video clips of him doing what; campaigning on a public option for healthcare. As far as gay rights go…well we must have had pied eyed dreams of the future that blinded us because Obama said back in 2008 that he was against gay marriage. I guess we just really wanted a democrat in office so badly that we were willing to make up stories in our mind (Yes, the 8 years spent with George W. Bush was enough to drive us that crazy). And sure, Obama did propose a plan to get us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but it really wasn’t what a lot of us were thinking. But then again none of us regular folk can truly understand the complexities of withdrawing an entire military operation out of two counties, so who are we to judge? But then there is Libya. Who said Obama was against conflict? Did we have any right to be there? No. Why we were there beats the hell out of me.

Obama sure played his cards right politically though. When it came time he told all of us that he had a sudden change in heart and decided that homosexuals should have the right to marry one another and put his support into same-sex marriage. BOOM. If he didn’t have the gay vote then, he had it after saying that, and just months before the election too. He really started to do a lot more things once it got closer to election time, but lets remember that there are a lot of other tasks that the president completes on a daily basis that we really just don’t know about.

Mitt Romney would have certainly set this country back fifty years. No need for Marty McFly’s time traveling Delorian, Mitt Romney would have done it for us himself and with our own money too. Which is great really that is if you’re an out of touch, uneducated religious jerk that wants to go back to the days when homosexuals were unheard of or were arrested for public displays of affection, you think that life is just like “Leave it to Beaver”, and before America stopped being a “Christian Nation”. Back to the days where it was ok to look the other way and act like nothing else ever happened, boys only liked girls, Americans could never be wrong, women stayed at home and cooked and cleaned, and it was socially acceptable to call a black man a nigger, to his face, then order him to do something for you.

Here is why I don’t like Mitt Romney: Mitt Romney is in fact a religious zealot, as are most Mormons, he is against gay marriage and women’s rights because he believes they go against God’s wishes and thus those ideas unprogressive and in actuality set us back. That is how he would like us to see things, and by God he sure is going to make sure we do them, otherwise God’s actions against us as a nation (or him) may be severe.

Many years ago after the Mormon religion settled in Utah it was petitioning the US government to join the Union; however this never happened right away as the US government did not want Utah in the Union because the territory was being run as a theocracy, which obviously goes against what America actually stands for. Now imagine one of these people as President of the United States and think of what they would do. These people are so hell bent on making others follow suit to them the last thing they need is a man in their congregation who is president of the nation.

Romney actually believes in this Mormon dogma and even believes that the underwear he wears under his suit is actually more effective than a suit of armor and will protect him. This is another reason why a Romney presidency scares the hell out of me. I think this country needs a leader who is rational, not one who believes his underwear is magic and has the blessing of God himself.

When it comes to religion and the nation what would Romney have done to us in the long run? We would become a theocracy very quickly and I believe that hatred toward other religious groups within our own nation would grow as our own president tells the world that we are a Christian nation and we follow the only true religion, and all other religions are false, essentially persecuting all other religions. That right there is enough for some other religiously fanatic countries to want to terrorize us even more, but Romney would use that to his advantage saying, “See all these other people are trying to persecute us, we must fight back!” This religious dogma has to go.

Then there is the all too familiar argument that Obama is actually a radical Muslim and that he is trying to change the very foundation of America. But how is he trying to do that? Has he made any speeches decreeing that the country is a Muslim nation? What has Obama done that would prove these people like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck correct? How is Obamacare or gay marriage or civil rights or equal pay and fair taxes a socialist plot to take over the country? People like to say that Obama has made sweeping reforms to this nation which have completely change us but what are those reforms and how are they changing us? When did these things happen and can any of these people actually cite one of these happenings? When we have a new president changes are always made. Do you think in 1990 we were the same country we were back in 1950? Hell no. Democrats and republicans alike have changed and shaped this country far beyond what it used to be, and each time it happens there is always someone on the opposing side saying, “Oh my God, he’s changing the very fabric of our society!” The reason it’s a big deal now though is because our president isn’t just any man, oh no. He’s a black man, and his father was from Kenya, and he was born somewhere other than mainland America, and when he was a child he went to a Madrassa (Muslim school), and the number one reason he isn’t just any man is simply because of his name: Barrack Hussein Obama.

I’m glad that the people of this nation are awake enough to see this, because this recent election really showed how Americans are starting to pay attention that they know what direction this country needs to go in. Romney said that the only reason Obama won was because of the gifts he gave to certain constituents like young and minority voters. What gifts? Oh I know what gifts Mr. Romney means, he means human rights, equal opportunity for all and a place to live where I don’t have to be harassed and told how to live by religious zealots.

I don’t think Obama is doing a great job, nor has he made me really happy with the way he has been playing politics. But I can say this, he is much better than Romney. Wow, I really hope for our country’s sake that the Republican Party gets back in touch with reality.