Something to offend everybody.
That is what 60 percent of 1,400 Boy Scouts of America did at their national meeting in Grapevine, Texas, on May 13.
This 60 percent actually approved a measure that said no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts “on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”
Can you believe this?
Believe it – and realize that this statement inevitably proclaims that the Boy Scouts will not reject any boy who has engaged in coprophilia, pedophilia, bestiality or any of the many other alternative sexual orientations.
Page 1 of the New York Times reported:
“The Scouts did not consider the even more divisive question of whether to allow openly gay adults and leaders. This drew criticism from advocates for gay rights, who called the decision a breakthrough but vowed to continue pressing the Scouts to allow gay members of all ages.”
Very possibly, the Scouts did not consider allowing sodomist Scoutmasters because of the extensive number of cases in the last century when Scouts were molested by Scoutmasters.
The Times quotes 27-year-old homosexual Matt Comer as noting:
“Gay youths will still be told they are no longer welcome when they turn 18.”
Continued the Times story: “Leaders of the conservative faction predicted that lawsuits would soon force the Boy Scouts to allow openly gay leaders, and they accused the top leaders of ignoring the beliefs of their members.
“‘The fallout from this is going to be tremendous,’ said Robert Schwarzwalder, a senior vice president of the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, and a father of two scouts in Northern Virginia. ‘I think there will be a loss of hundreds of thousands of boys and parents.’
“‘This great institution is going to be vitiated by the intrusion of a political agenda,’ he said.
“After the decision was announced Thursday, John Stemberger, an evangelical leader from Florida who organized a campaign to block the change, said that like-minded groups and parents would meet next month in Louisville, Ky., to discuss creating what he called a new ‘character development organization for boys,’ an alternative to scouting.”
The Washington Times quotes Stemberger as saying:
“It is with great sadness and deep disappointment that we recognize on this day that the most influential youth program in America has turned a tragic corner.”
This is “an impossible and unworkable proposal that, once again, will please no one,” Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote this week.
Baptist churches charter about 4,000 Boy Scouts of America units. The Assemblies of God, which sponsors 91 troops, said it was disappointed in the vote.
“We believe that the BSA policy change will lead to a mass exodus from the Boy Scout program, as Assemblies of God and many other churches can no longer support groups that are a part of an organization allowing members who are openly homosexual,” the church said in a statement.
“The Scouts count more than 2.7 million members and more than 1 million volunteers. …
“Amid emotional public demonstrations today outside BSA headquarters in Dallas and the nearby convention site, OnMyHonor.net posted a call to prayer today on the organization’s Facebook page.
“‘Would you join us in a time of solemn prayer for our country and for the future of America’s youth?'”
In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed the right of the Boy Scouts to exclude homosexuals, because that behavior violated the core values of the private organization.
In 1991, BSA stated, “We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be ‘clean in word and deed,’ and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.”
Maryland’s nationally syndicated religion columnist Michael McManus also noted:
“Behind that stand was a nationwide investigation of child molestation in the Boy Scouts from 1971 to 1991, which revealed that more than 2,000 boys reported molestation by adult Scout leaders. …”
Consider what happened in Canada when gays were allowed to be members in 1998. Membership plunged from 300,000 Boy Scouts to 100,000.
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