The New Sexualized BSA: Where Will They Go from Here?

I'll be honest, I think the BSA's policy change is a train wreck. No doubt they will survive in the short term, but their image as a group with principles is already badly damaged. And churches are already exiting. The new policy which begins January 2014, is touted as no big deal by some. It simply says that those who openly express same-sex attraction, but are not acting on it, will be welcomed in troops. That's like saying BSA welcomes scouts who openly admit attractions to shoplifting or vandalism but abstain from the behavior. Why announce it at all? Because of original sin, we are all "oriented" toward sinful inclinations. The challenge is to choose holiness. What is the point of admitting our sinful inclinations in public? Oh, there's a point all right. The new policy, no matter how you frame it, advances the gay lifestyle by legitimizing the inclination. Sinful inclinations are for the confessional, not the pack meeting. But that's the point. It isn't about just allowing gay scouts to join. It's about sexualizing the troop, the initial stage in transforming scouting into one more institution that feeds the lie that homosexuality is inborn and unchangeable and, therefore, acting on the inclination is morally acceptable.
Kids who self-identify as gay are sexualized kids. How does that happen to a child in the latency period before puberty? Abuse is always a possibility, but also exposure and suggestion by adults. That's why gay groups are so involved in schools even at the elementary level with sex ed, safe touch, diversity training, anti-bullying programs, gay-straight alliance clubs, etc. ad nauseum. These programs groom kids for sexual experimentation. Would you want a twelve-year-old, self-identified gay scout who's been exposed to all these things tenting with your cub scout? There's a reason the scouts are not co-ed!

From the gay activist's  point of view, the new policy is also about gay adult access which is inevitable. Once the gay scouts are 18, is BSA really going to just shake hands and say good-bye; you can't be involved any more? That's ridiculous! Of course, the next step is allowing gay leaders.

There are many reasons sexualizing the scouts is a serious problem? Think of the campouts. Will there be a policy to segregate the gay boys (who openly admit sexual attraction to other boys) from the straights? If not, isn't that like putting boys and girls together which scout policy forbids? Will there be segregated sleeping arrangements and showering facilities, for example. What if a troop has only one or two gay scouts?  Think of the logistics nightmare of dealing with the new policy. And can't you just hear the screams about discrimination and marginalization and making the gay kids feel like second-class scouts if any precautions are taken? No, the BSA battle is just beginning with the ultimate goal being gay leaders at all levels including national policy-development. All you have to do is look at the Girl Scouts which heavily supports feminism, Planned Parenthood, and the LGBT agenda to see where the BSA is going.

I couldn't disagree more with canon lawyer Ed Peters who makes the case for "tak[ing] the Boy Scouts at their word" and waiting. That's how the frog got boiled! Dr. Judith Reisman has a different take, outrage, and she backs it up with statistics on kids sexually abusing younger kids:

It is estimated that in the United States, juveniles are responsible for up to one-fifth of all rapes and up to one half of all cases of child molestation committed each year (CSOM, 1999).
Juveniles are 36 percent of all sex offenders who victimize children. Seven out of eight are at least 12 years old, and 93 percent are boys (Crimes Against Children Research Center, UNH, 2010).

Tlhe BSA's former policy excluding gays didn't stop child sex abuse. It was just hidden. Does anyone believe the new policy will make the situation safer for scouts, especially the youngest boys? And when (not if) gay scout leaders are allowed, things will get even dicier.

The good news is that the BSA is no longer the only show in town. Parents and leaders are already considering alternatives. I blogged a few days ago about Catholic Scouts of St. George and there are other choices springing up as well. See Fatih Based Boys. There's nothing in their statement of faith that a Catholic couldn't subscribe to. Troops that leave en masse can take their structure and just incorporate it into a new organization. Think of it as swarming bees. They leave the original hive and look for a new home. When they find it, they just move on in and keep doing what they do. Alternative organizations will provide the new homes for scout troops that see where the BSA is going and don't want to go there. Parents with any sense will dump the BSA and find an alternative. The risk to the physical and moral health of young boys  is just too great to be worth "tak[ing] the Boy Scouts at their word.".

Boy Scouts Need to Live in the Real World

They didn't just admit young boys who say they are gay. They acknowledge that same sex behavior is legitimate sexual expression. In 2000 when BSA was fighting the court battle against forced admittance of homosexuals as a civil right, they won a victory in the Supreme Court. Author Robert Reilly summed up that decision:

In writing for the majority, Chief Justice William Rehnquist said that the “presence [of the avowed homosexual] in the Boy Scouts would, at the very least, force the organization to send a message, both to the youth members and the world, that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” Forcing the Scouts to do this would have violated their First Amendment right because, as the Court noted, the Boy Scouts asserts that it “teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight,” and that it does “not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” 

This just changed. On May 23, 2013, the Boy Scouts of America’s national governing body voted to lift its long-standing ban on openly homosexual youth in the program. Effective January 1, 2014, “No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.” 

The organization, as Justice Rehnquist might express it, just sent a message. It’s the same message that the homosexual activist was trying to force the Scouts to send back in 2000—“that the Boy Scouts accepts homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.” Does this seem too harsh an assessment?... 

By now accepting openly homosexual members, the Boy Scouts are, at the very least, certainly going to be dealing with a major distraction (can homosexual Scouts bunk together?). But what is much worse, it is implicitly accepting the rationalization for homosexual sexual behavior as part of its moral formation. This will make the Scouts complicit in the corruption of youth.

Read the rest of the article here and start looking for an alternative for your boys. BSA, by caving in to the politically correct zeitgeist, teaches that when things get tough, give up your principles. Will the next principle to go be belief in God when an atheist boy wants to join!

The fact is that Boy Scouts is teaching that principles aren't principles at all, they are like children's pinwheels shifting with each shifting breeze. Is that what manly virtue is all about?  The BSA's collapse was an act of cowardice (and probably greed since so many groups were cutting off the money). But is moral cowardice the lesson parents want their boys to learn? Is that why they commit their time and money to the group? We'll find out in the months ahead as scouts and their parents make decisions about whether to continue in the BSA. I can't imagine any sane parent sending a young son on a campout with older gay scouts and ultimately gay scoutmasters. It's time for a BSA alternative.