<\/p>\n
The national headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America has announced it discussing ending the national exclusion of homosexuals from the Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n
Some corporations have discontinued donations to the national scouts because of the ban on homosexuals.<\/p>\n
The national office claims that it would never require local units to accept gays; it would be entirely a matter for local decisions.<\/p>\n
I think lifting the ban is a bad idea; but more importantly the national office of the Boys Scouts is being very dishonest and, dare we say, Jesuitical.<\/p>\n
My four sons were in scouts; three are Eagle Scouts. I was a scoutmaster for many years and a member of the Baltimore Area Council. My family helped endow a position for Special Needs scouts.<\/p>\n
My substantive objections:<\/p>\n
There may be no connection between homosexuality and pedophilia, but there is strong historical evidence that there is a connection between homosexuality and pederasty. There may be many types of homosexuals, but at least one type fits Freud\u2019s analysis of homosexuality as a form of narcissism. This homosexual is in love with a younger, idealized version of himself.<\/p>\n
As part of our training we leaders were constantly cautioned not to forget that the scouts were children. They might be six feet tall and look like adults, but they were children, and could not assume adult responsibilities. When a leader saw a scout who looked like a young man, he would be tempted to give him responsibilities that should be limited to adults. Puberty comes earlier for boys than it to, and may are fully sexually mature at an early age.<\/p>\n
A homosexual scout leader would be like a male Girl Scout leader \u2013 not a good idea.<\/p>\n
Scouting, specially camping, necessarily involves physical intimacy, even if everyone is trying to be modest. Did you know that ticks love to go to the pubic area? We had to remove ticks from extremely delicate positions. When climbing there cannot be the slightest hesitancy about grabbing someone who is slipping. A homosexual leader\u2019s actions could easily be misconstrued.<\/p>\n
And some churches do not think that a homosexual is a good role model.<\/p>\n
But turning to the national office:<\/p>\n
When the Supreme Court decided 5-4 that the Boy Scouts could exclude homosexuals, it was based on the BSA\u2019s contention that the exclusion was part of its core mission.<\/p>\n
If the national office announces that the exclusion of homosexuals is not part of its core mission, that defense is rendered invalid, not only for the national office but for all subdivisions and troops.<\/p>\n
No, the national office would never require troops to accept homosexual leaders \u2013 it wouldn\u2019t have to. Lawyers will go after any division of the scouts that still excludes gays, and the division will have not have the defense that the exclusion is part of the BSA central mission, nor will the local units have the\u00a0 financial and legal resources of the national office.<\/p>\n
I disagree with the national office, but I am even more disappointed in their dishonesty in\u00a0 pretending that they are not in effect requiring all troops to accept homosexual leaders, no matter what moral, religious, or practical \u00a0objections the troop may have.<\/p>\n
And all this for the sake of corporate donations.<\/p>\n
The national headquarters of the Boy Scouts of America has announced it discussing ending the national exclusion of homosexuals from the Boy Scouts. Some corporations have discontinued donations to the national scouts because of the ban on homosexuals. The national office claims that it would never require local units to accept gays; it would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[699,1141,43],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homosexuality","tag-gays","tag-homosexuality","tag-scouts","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.podles.org\/dialogue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}