Practicing Homosexuals as Leaders in the Boy Scouts of America.
Posted by Troy Eckhardt on May 31, 2012 at 9:35 pm
Another case has arisen in which an adult homosexual has been removed from a leadership position in the BSA. As I watch the videos of the woman protesting and sincerely crying in sorrow and frustration, I am greatly moved. I can see her anguish and, as Bill Clinton once declared, I feel her pain. I know intimately what loss is. After my young son died in early 2011, I became even more acutely aware of pain and grief than I had ever been before – and I wasn’t exactly calloused before the experience. I almost want to hug and comfort the poor woman.
She’s not really telling the whole story, though. Her son is welcome in scouting. She is welcome as a parent, too. She just may not be a leader. I’m sure she loves children, and I’m sure she’s a wonderful person. But there are rules in place, and she was aware of these rules before she became a leader. It’s not like the media hasn’t tried to crucify the BSA before.
I am very disturbed, however, by the reactions to news and blog reports about this situation which I have been reading and hearing. Sentiments such as, “It’s time that the BSA evolved to conform with contemporary thought,” and “The BSA should stop teaching hate and intolerance to young boys.” Such thought might lead one to deduce that homosexuality is natural, normal, and congenital. Frankly, I do not disagree with these opinions. Alcoholism is natural, normal and possibly congenital, as are kleptomania, misogyny, and anger issues. Unfortunately for some, these traits do not define morality, healthiness, and wholesomeness. Merely because one might be bent to act in a certain manner is not license to do so.
Members of the BSA are required to subscribe to some basic tenets, including a belief in God. This has come to the attention of the media several times in the past as various Eagle Scouts, former scouts, and others have voiced their opinions about theism, etc. Other controversy has been based on decisions that have been made to safeguard children, both from the immediate danger presented by sexual predictors and from damage due to longer-term exposure to belief systems that differ from those of the organization. The founders and current leaders of the BSA believe that homosexuality is immoral and detrimental to society. I share that belief. I do not believe that homosexuality is any more excusable than is alcoholism or violent tendencies, and I do not want a homosexual to lead my children any more than I want a wife beater, adulterer, serial monogamist, drunk, or other person who cannot control his proclivities to lead them.
I do not even want to be intimately associated with such people. That’s not to say that I hate them, or that I think they are worth less than others – just that I do not want them to influence my family in any way. So if you wish to call me a hater, then you are correct if you mean that I hate the sin. I hate it enough to keep it from my family at all costs. I also hate it enough to protest its presence in society. If you mean that I hate the people because I do not want them near my children, then you are very badly mistaken. You may call me intolerant if you’d like, just as long as you realize that you are intolerant of me and my kind as well. You can tell me that Jesus told me not to judge sin, and I’ll probably laugh out loud at your biblical ignorance. You can do to me or call me anything you want if it makes you feel more self-righteous and pious. I am bigger than any words you can throw at me, and my God is unfathomably bigger still.
I understand that this point of view is unpopular with many people. I am also aware that, as public schooling molds and shapes the minds of young people, popular opinion is rapidly shifting in favor of homosexuality. This does not matter to me in the least. I stopped forming my opinions of right and wrong based on others’ opinions sometime in junior high school. In fact, I usually assume that the majority are wrong. I believe, along with the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, that homosexuality is immoral. I believe that it is detrimental to society. I do not want my children or the scouts whom I lead exposed to the notion that it’s OK to be a homosexual. That’s the end of the story. Popular opinion will not change my belief. It will not cause me to forfeit the protection of my family from dangerous behaviors. I do not care that you love someone who is a homosexual. I love people with all kinds of issues – many who act out with horrific behaviors. I also do not let them lead my children. I do not care that you ridicule me because I base a portion of my beliefs regarding homosexuality on an “old book of Bedouin mythologies cobbled together over several millennia.”
As the courts have already decided, the Boy Scouts are a private organization. I am a member, and have been since 1976, because of our mutual values. I do not wish for those values to change – not to make you happy, not to make three million people happy, not even if 95% of the American populace thinks we’re all a bunch of haters, bigots, etc. I do not want homosexual leaders in my organization just as you might not want a Creationist teaching your child science. I want my children to learn different values than what those in the public schools (which I pay taxes to support) are willing to teach. So guess what I do; I teach them myself. Like-minded people have formed co-ops to band together, pooling resources and avoiding the public schools’ poison altogether.
It seems that you may want to avoid what you perceive as toxicity inherent in the values of the BSA. In that same spirit that leads me to home school, may I humbly suggest that you start your own damned club and leave mine alone.
