The trouble for practicing homophobes is in the justification.
Boy Scouts this week illustrated that dilemma when they reiterated their long-standing assertion that homosexuals are unfit to be Scout leaders because they are immoral. In trying to defend themselves against the growing onslaught of criticism for their shameful bigotry, they only embarrassed themselves further by making it clear it is this venerable organization that is unfit to shepherd kids into adulthood.
This is an organization that wouldn’t allow the prime minister of Iceland, Malcolm Forbes or Jerry Sandford Smith to run a Scout meeting.
According to Boy Scouts officials, those homosexuals are unfit to help Scouts keep their pledge to be loyal, helpful and trustworthy. Much to the disinterest of the rest of the world, Iceland’s Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir is a lesbian. Malcolm Forbes never had any trouble impressing people as a competent leader. And NFL giant Jerry Sanford Smith was hailed as real team leader before and after his death from AIDS in 1986.
None of this makes any sense, unless you take a closer look at the history of the Boy Scouts. One of the most infamous incidents involving Boy Scout bigotry was in July 1974 when a federal court went after a Utah Boy Scouts group for discriminating against a black boy trying to become senior patroler. It wasn’t actually the Scouts that said “rules were rules” about blacks not taking leadership positions, it was the Mormons.
The Mormon Church said certain Boy Scout leadership roles could only be held by Mormon leaders, who couldn’t then be black. See where this is going? Mormons and Boy Scouts have been as tight as a Webelos’ kerchief for decades. And for those who would like the country to forget, the Mormon church only a few decades ago relented in keeping blacks from leadership roles in their organization.
In trying to defend its policy of homophobia by making clear that God doesn’t like gays in leadership positions, and what God says goes, Boy Scouts get into sticky situations when it comes to who’s talking for God. They get all squirmy when they’re faced with the fact that the same God portrayed by Muslims doesn’t like women in leadership roles either, or showing their hair, or driving cars for that matter. Well that shoots the Cub Scouts all to hell, which is dependent on ovary-toting females, who can bake cupcakes for the pack, teach them how to make birdhouses, but can’t join the group as girls.
So it’s pretty to easy to see that a group that has long tied itself to the Mormon church, discriminated against girls and the unholiest of unholy, the agnostics, would have no trouble in continuing to snub homosexuals on the basis that they are not morally straight nor clean in word and deed.
If this sounds like so much modern-day Jim Crow crap to you, you’re not alone.
Big-city United Way groups have cut the Scouts off of cash because of their bigotry. Big, national funders and even filmmaker and former-Scout enthusiast Steven Spielberg have publicly pushed away from the Scouts because of their homophobia. Membership is down, too, more than 20 percent over the last decade, almost 30 percent for young Scouts.
It’s too bad. Parents and others should welcome a way to get kids off their couches and away from TV and video games to discover the real world of participation, good deeds and laughing all night at fart jokes in a freezing tent.
No one’s asking Boy Scouts officials to embrace homosexuality any more than they’re being asked to embrace heterosexuality, single parents or being Korean. But as a community, we can insist that this public organization accept all Americans the same way as the U.S. military, most modern churches and even former Vice President Dick Cheney.
If BSA leaders are going to act like Brown Shirts instead of real Scouts, they need to be treated that way. Aurora school and city officials should publicly shun this group and end any support until they practice the oath that they preach. We all should.
If generations of bigotry in the South has taught us anything, it’s that standing silently by is just as vicious as being the bigot. Scout’s honor.
Reach editor Dave Perry at 303-750-7555 or dperry @aurorasentinel.com
Bravo, Mr. P!
Right on Mr. P. We should all be tired of the scout organization hiding behind their “private organization” to continue their bigotry.
Excellent commentary. Thank you!
Well said!
Why are people who support and endorse heterosexuality called homophobes when people who support and endorse homosexuality are never called heterophobes? The Boy Scouts have decided their stance based on their principles. I applaud them, whether I support their decision or not.
I get what you mean but I doubt people are actually trying to “endorse” homosexuality. It’s not like they’re saying being hetero is wrong and everyone should be gay, they just don’t want the gay people to be treated differently because of their sexual preferences.
It’s just a different story. If the gay people wanted to take over instead of the straight people because they think being straight is immoral.
If they did THEN they would be bigots.
The word “homophobe” basically means that you are “afraid” of gay people and don’t like them.
People “supporting homosexuality” aren’t supporting homosexuality, they are supporting not judging ANYONE for their sexual prefence. Straight or gay.
Conclusively, calling them heterophobes wouldn’t make much sense as they are not against hetero people.
Well of course they are 94, they just don’t advertise that fact, they would like everyone to be just like them, hence, the hue and cry over ‘rights’ for homosexuals.
Thank you for bringing up that point, there isn’t white racism either, only black. Can you imagine ‘White Miss America’?
In Cub Scouts the parents are there all the time. In Boy Scouts the leaders are the ones there. Camping, doing outside activities etc. Parents don’t go. They are trying not to be sued. Because some idiotic parent is going to find out that the leader is gay and then sue the organization. You know it is going to happen.
They do background checks on leaders. You wouldn’t want your child going camping in the wilderness with a known pedophile would you.? If something were to happen the public outcry would be “How did you let this happen?”
They don’t tell the gay parents of kids not to come to the meetings. They welcome them. They want the boys to have fun and learn. The parents are supposed to be helping the boys.
I have gay friends. One of my best friends from college is gay and he was in my wedding party.
Yes, but… I don’t understand what being gay has to do with being a pedofile.
Perversion.
Funny thing about that argument is that pedophiles are usually heterosexual (or, usually priests). Even your buddy Jerry Sandusky was a baby-producing hetero.
I wonder how many christians are happy to know that the monies they tithe go to lawyers and victims of pedophile priests (and all those closed cathedrals, the property sell off including treasures hundred or more years old.). The shame of all the hypocrisy …..
I make a correction. I just read that they don’t allow gay scouts. Strange I never thought about a gay seven year old. Leaders I can understand but the scouts themselves????
Immoral is immoral, abnormal is abnormal, got it?
NO…NO….your wrong…your the biggot to think you can shove your immoral B.S. down someone eles’s throat.
DUMB BIAS WRITER ALERT>>>>READ BELOW.
If a group of kids in the neighborhood start a club…say 6-7 kids and decide they only will allow people that like the opposite sex…somehow they are bigots??…thats what your sayin…see you don’t think things thru…your still in your monkey stage all emotionally riled up all the time…you should put your head in the sand and.shut your big fat ugly lips before they pollute the thoughts of others with your hatred…..ahh ahh ahh ah…just shut up.
Hoorah for the Boy Scouts! They stood by their rules, no queers and men who think little boys are sexual. They got it right, you got it wrong with your ‘anything, anywhere, anytime’ attitude and platitude. The Boy Scouts wasn’t intimidated by the Federal government when they were told their ‘stipend’ would be taken away, they are a private organization and told the government to butt out and keep their money, they did and the Boy Scouts are all the better for that decison.
You and yours are not going to change their minds, do you know why? Because you are wrong, there is a place for common sense, and it’s not to allow predators to council young boys.
You can have your opinion, but for me and many others, yes many others, the Boy Scouts have made the correct decision, they stand near alone, and I highly commend them for being honest and not blind-folded into the herd, not the droves of brainwashed public school attendees who are taught the ‘anything, anywhere, anytime’ thinking of the progressives, I include you in this group too, the latter.
SEE…it’s dave perry the writer of the story thats the biggot….when you have person after person agreeing with the boyscouts just means that this dave perry should be fired for bigotry…he certaintly isn’t a writer.
OR IS IT DAVE “FAIRY” ?
When I was a boy scout it was someone’s dad that was the scout master. Now since homos are not dads by definition why don’t one of you homo -loving people tell me exactly why a grown man without childeren would have an interest in going camping with a group of litttle boys and why parents with little boys should be comfortable with that especially if he’s an open homosexual. Duh!! Heck, I would be suspicious if heterosexual non father had an interest in camping with a group of little girl scouts. Perry is so busy supporting gays he doesn’t even bother with the reality of anything.
I really wonder how many folks commenting have really been involved within the Boy Scouts. I was for 13 years. I earned my Eagle through the program. Its a good program that gives in excess back to every community in which it is involved. Find me a natural disaster big or small that they weren’t the first volunteering to lend a helping hand. How many lives have they saved through their first aid training? How many parks have be restored, projects completed, neighbors helped, communities improved by their willingness to help? How many boys have become good men who contribute to society?
In all my years in the scouts, never once did anyone have prejudice towards homosexuals or atheists. In fact, talking bad about either group would not have been tolerated and could easily be grounds for removal. Boy Scouts are tolerant of other groups even if they don’t agree with them. They are not tolerant of hate and bigotry. They simply don’t agree with homosexuality and choose not to associate with those who do. Why is that so hard for people to accept? Why is it so hard for others to have a different opinion. Boy Scouts do not force their beliefs on anyone, despite many people trying to force their beliefs on them.
I encourage the gay community to form their own groups, and make them successful. Teach young boys and girls how to be good members of society. Teach them right from wrong, how to give back to their community, and how to be tolerant of other groups. Teach them to love this great country which grants us the freedom to have our own opinions. I’m quite sure you can be just as successful as the Boy Scouts, and I hope you are.
Jason
Eagle Scout 1996
Hi dave, Jim here. Just had to respond to your editorial last week castigating the Boy Scouts for being homophobes. Take of your ideological glasses and look at the problem through the lens of reality. One need only turn to your sports page and your coverage of the Penn State debacle to understand why the Boy scouts of America is reticent to embrace gay leaders. One bad guy can open the door to years of sensless litigation and blame for wanton disregard of our childrens safety and promoting child abuse. Who wants to take that chance? And we are not bashing gays!
Why do you ridicule the Scout Oath and the Scout Law, which for more than 100 years, have served as guideposts for boys as they transition from boyhood to manhood and to take their place as community leaders who respect the environment, participate in community affairs, and learn to help other people? That is hardly acting like “brown shirts” Aren’t these the values you would like to see in your sons?
In addition, you trash the Mormon Church for embracing scouting to instill right living in its boys. I smell more than a little political motivation in these comments. Asking our elected officials and the Aurora Public Schools to shun this group is irresponsible and in a category by itself. Maybe that is why many people shun the sentinal! As for me, I would prefer to see my sons as members of the Boy Scouts than members of NAMBLA.
Just drop the phony homephobe crap!!
Jim Parker
Eagle Scout, Former scoutmaster, and not a Mormon
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