Gay Mafia Slapped Down

[dgs49]

NEW YORK – After a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics.

An 11-member special committee, formed discreetly by top Scout leaders in 2010, "came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts," the organization' national spokesman, Deron Smith, told The Associated Press.

Smith said the committee, comprised of professional scout executives and adult volunteers, was unanimous in its conclusion — preserving a long-standing policy that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and has remained controversial ever since.

As a result of the committee's decision, the Scouts' national executive board will take no further action on a recently submitted resolution asking for reconsideration of the membership policy.

The Scouts' chief executive, Bob Mazzuca, contended that most Scout families support the policy, which applies to both leaders and Scouts.

"The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers and at the appropriate time and in the right setting," Mazzuca said. "We fully understand that no single policy will accommodate the many diverse views among our membership or society."

The president of the largest U.S. gay-rights group, Chad Griffin of the Human Rights Campaign, depicted the Scouts' decision as "a missed opportunity of colossal proportions."

"With the country moving toward inclusion, the leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have instead sent a message to young people that only some of them are valued," he said. "They've chosen to teach division and intolerance."

The Scouts did not identify the members of the special committee that studied the issue, but said in a statement that they represented "a diversity of perspectives and opinions."

"The review included forthright and candid conversation and extensive research and evaluations — both from within Scouting and from outside of the organization," the statement said.

The announcement suggests that hurdles may be high for a couple of members of the national executive board — Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson — who have recently indicated they would try to work from within to change the policy. Both of their companies have been commended by gay-rights groups for gay-friendly employment policies.

Stephenson is on track to become president of the Scouts' national board in 2014, and will likely face continued pressure from gay-rights groups to try to end the exclusion policy. Asked for comment on Tuesday about the Scouts' decision to keep the policy, AT&T did not refer to Stephenson's situation specifically.

"We don't agree with every policy of every organization we support, nor would we expect them to agree with us on everything," the company said. "Our belief is that change at any organization must come from within to be successful and sustainable."

A statement from the executive committee of the Scouts' national executive board alluded to the Turley-Stephenson developments.

"Scouting believes that good people can personally disagree on this topic and still work together to achieve the life-changing benefits to youth through Scouting," the statement said. "While not all board members may personally agree with this policy, and may choose a different direction for their own organizations, BSA leadership agrees this is the best policy for the organization."

Since 2000, the Boy Scouts have been targeted with numerous protest campaigns and run afoul of some local nondiscrimination laws because of the membership policy.

One ongoing protest campaign involves Jennifer Tyrrell, the Ohio mother of a 7-year-old Cub Scout who was ousted as a Scout den mother because she is lesbian.

Change.org, an online forum supporting activist causes, says more than 300,000 people have signed its petition urging the Scouts to reinstate Tyrrell and abandon the exclusion policy. The petition is to be delivered to the Scouts' national headquarters in Irving, Texas, on Wednesday.
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Who, exactly, is harmed by this ban?

[Scooter]

Referring to pre-teen and teen boys who want to join the Scouts as members of a "mafia" is moronic even for you.

Of course, the ban was never about "excluding gays", since obviously there have been thousands upon thousands of gays who have been with the Scouts over the years. What the BSA is teaching its members is that lying (in this case, about your sexual orientation) will bring rewards (in this case, not getting kicked out). Now isn't that a wholesome message to impart on impressionable young minds.

[dgs49]

Exactly wrong. It's not the pre-teen boys who constitute the "mafia" but rather the "gay rights" organizers and their supporters in the media who conspire to condemn and ostracise people and organizations who have the audacity to hold to their Biblical beliefs in spite of the tornado of criticism that the Mafia generates.

In their world, you are free to believe and think anything you want, as long as it doesn't offend their heightened sensitivities.

There is no need for anyone to "lie" about their sexual orientation. Scouting has nothing to do with copulation or copulatory preferences. If someone is subject to removal from the scouts, it is generally because THEY have made their orientation an issue, the rare cases of someone being involuntarily "outed" notwithstanding.

[Scooter]

It's not the pre-teen boys who constitute the "mafia" but rather the "gay rights" organizers and their supporters in the media who conspire to condemn and ostracise people and organizations who have the audacity to hold to their Biblical beliefs in spite of the tornado of criticism that the Mafia generates.

The BSA are free to hold to whatever beliefs they choose, and others are free to pass whatever judgments upon them they choose because of it. It's called freedom of speech. Try it sometime.

There is no need for anyone to "lie" about their sexual orientation. Scouting has nothing to do with copulation or copulatory preferences. If someone is subject to removal from the scouts, it is generally because THEY have made their orientation an issue, the rare cases of someone being involuntarily "outed" notwithstanding.

Anyone whose sexual orientation becomes known to be something other than heterosexual will be expelled. How is that not encouraging those who are gay to lie about themselves in order to stay in?

edited for quote tags

[Big RR]

Indeed, why does the national BSA have to take a position on this issue at all. I haven't seen them saying that illigitmate children/adults could not participate, nor have they taken a position on divorce; why is homosexuality such a big issue? I think the BSA has done great things in supporting young men over the years, but their insistence on taking a position on an issue which does not affect their program at all has made them ridiculous. Idiots!

[Sue U]

Scouting organizations in Canada, the UK, Australia, Europe and Scandinavia don't have any problem with gay members or leaders, nor do the Girl Scouts of the USA. But for some reason, it is a major big-deal huge uacceptable issue for the BSA that a Cub Scout's mom who volunteered to be a den mother (now called "den masters," apparently) is a lesbian. This is about the dumbest, most mean-spirited and self-defeating thing I have ever heard of.

[Gob]

I haven't seen them saying that illigitmate children/adults could not participate, nor have they taken a position on divorce; why is homosexuality such a big issue?

"Because gays are pedophiles. My Catholic priest told me so. [/right wing religious idiot]

[loCAtek]

Not that I agree with that BSA special committee at all, but I do know of such a right wing religious person; who was nearly abused by a male pedophile.
By traumatic experience, he did [wrongly] develop that 'gay/pedophile association'; without anyone telling him anything.

That was not a deliberate indocrination, but a sad accident of fate.




...meanwhile, other real-life priests teach compassion to all.

[Big RR]

I haven't seen them saying that illigitmate children/adults could not participate, nor have they taken a position on divorce; why is homosexuality such a big issue?

"Because gays are pedophiles. My Catholic priest told me so. [/right wing religious idiot]

Thanks Gob; now I've seen the light--Hallelujah!!!!

God hates gay sex so much, he made it the basis of pedophilia (pediasty?), and made most gay men pedophiles so we would properly revile and reject their sexual acts. Tat's what put the "BS" in the "BSA".