The following excerpt comes from a July 18 story in the Los Angeles Times.
The Girl Scouts have vowed to not exclude gays and lesbians. So have Boys & Girls Clubs and Big Brothers Big Sisters.
But on Tuesday, the Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed its ban on gays, a decision experts say reflects the conservative values of many members and the influence of two powerful benefactors — the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches.
The Boy Scouts’ chief executive, Bob Mazzuca, says he thinks there is broad-based support for the policy, which the Supreme Court upheld in 2000.
“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 advisors and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” Mazzuca said Tuesday in a statement.
For those who want to scrap the policy, the decision was a sign that, if change does come to the Boy Scouts, it will be prompted not by outside groups but by members of the scouting community.
Zach Wahls, a 20-year-old Eagle Scout from Iowa with two lesbian moms, is among those hoping to end the ban.
“I respect the Boy Scouts’ rights as a private organization to dictate their own membership — it makes sense to me that they wouldn’t allow girls to join the BSA,” said Wahls, who helped found Scouts for Equality, a group opposing the policy on gays. “But we aren’t some outside group litigating, trying to get the Boy Scouts to change policy.”
The policy is essentially “don’t ask, don’t tell.” Although the group “does not proactively inquire about the sexual orientation of employees, volunteers or members,” according to spokesman Deron Smith, “we do not grant membership to individuals who are open or avowed homosexuals or who engage in behavior that would become a distraction to the mission” of scouting.
Tuesday’s announcement came after a confidential two-year review by an 11-member Boy Scout special committee formed in 2010, Smith said….
Wahls said he and other protesters had been encouraged in recent weeks to see at least two members of the Boy Scouts’ national executive board come out against the policy — Ernst & Young Chief Executive James S. Turley and AT&T Chief Executive Randall Stephenson. Stephenson is set to become president of the board in two years.
Turley and Stephenson did not comment on the announcement, but AT&T released a statement saying that “diversity and inclusion” are part of the company’s culture and that “our belief is that change at any organization must come from within to be successful and sustainable.”
Boy Scout membership has dropped in recent years but is still sizable: 2.7 million, Smith said. Of those, about 400,000 belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The church encourages members to become involved in Boy Scouts, and has its own section on the Boy Scouts of America Web page.
Unlike Girl Scouts, Boy Scout troops are sponsored by groups, including many Catholic and Mormon churches. When the Boy Scouts faced legal challenges to its policies excluding gays, girls and atheists in the 1990s, Scout leaders — many of whom belonged to one of the two churches — started to weigh the value of that sponsorship against the will of the membership, experts say.
Jay Mechling, a professor of American studies at UC Davis and a Boy Scouts volunteer, called retaining the policy on gays “a business decision based on religious pressure.”
“That’s not to say there aren’t leaders in the Boy Scouts who feel strongly about morality and homosexuality. But when they see a lot of the troop leaders are churches, they go the direction they think is going to be healthiest for having the most boys registered,” Mechling said.
Mechling, 67, is an Eagle Scout who spent 25 years researching the organization for his 2004 book, On My Honor: Boy Scouts and the Making of American Youth.
He said he saw firsthand how the Mormon Church became entwined with Boy Scout leadership, sponsoring troops and camps in the San Gabriel Valley and Catalina Island. He also saw troops and councils elsewhere in the state that quietly accepted gay leaders and members….
To read entire story, click here.
Parents must be alert to the dangers posed by any organization that does not maintain a God-centered philosophy. The Girl Scouts started waffling on God some time ago. If you look at the Girl Scouts national web site you will see great emphasis on “diversity” and “inclusion”. Yes, they mean including different races in their membership and leadership, but these two words have become code words for homosexuality acceptance. And, of course, Girl Scouts have aready shown their affinity for Planned Parenthood by allowing this immoral and culture-of-death organization into their programs……Another group to steer clear of is the Boys and Girls Clubs: They have been recruiting child mentors for years in homosexual publications.
I agree who heartedly with your post. I wanted to add one point. I find if of no coincidence that organizations for children such as boys and girls club and girl scouts that push the homosexual agenda have strong ties to planned parenthood. This is truly the work of satan to further the culture of death among our children. It is through hour prayer, sacrifice, education and unwillingness to accept this garbage that we will defeat death with life by the Grace of God. God Love You.
Good for the Boy Scouts. This is not surprising being that a lot of troops are sponsored either by a Catholic Parish or by a Knights of Columbus council. God Love You.
My granddaughter is going to GS camp this month. I am hoping that all
she will learn about is rope tying and outdoor cooking! One little known fact about the Boy Scouts is that they have every reason to be very grateful to Kate Smith, the wonderful singer from the ’30’s and 40’s. She was given the rights to “God Bless America” from Irving Berlin, and she in turn, left them to the BSA. They probably receive quite a bit of residuals from this inheritance and it is a lesson in how important it is to financially support those causes we believe in. Money talks!
Kate Smith was one fine lady.
Dana,
You have good reason to be concerned. The woman who recruited me for adult leadership in the Boy Scouts stopped her daughter from attending Girl Scout camp because she found out that openly lesbian females were counselors. This woman was active in both Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and her husband was a Mr. Boy Scouts of America type, Order of the Arrow, Woodbadge, Scout Master, etc. etc.
An alternate to Girl Scouts of America is Heritage Girls of America. If I were you, I would strongly urge your granddaughter to transfer.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
I wish I could, Kenneth, but my kids already tune me out about things like that. I’m just praying that because they’re living in a fairly conservative area, that the leadership reflects those values. Also, it is my fault that she is in scouts, really. I had not known at the time about what was going on in girl scouts, and I loved it as a girl. I even made my granddaughter an American girl 1940’s style girlscout uniform w/ beret & neckerchief. It’s rather difficult to say ‘Don’t join girl scouts’ They’re unwholesome!” at this point. Life is just too complicated anymore. A thousand evil hydra heads keep popping up in every direction. I can’t even buy a cuppa coffee at macdonald’s anymore as they’re into supporting same sex marriage big time. I think St.Paul reallly knew the nature of the beast when he described the ‘sodomites’ of his day…they are utterly devious and keep undermining society. If someone had the talent and research skills, that could make a really good book, how they have consistently been a negative force throughout history. They’re so anxious to have the history books rewritten…well, there is much to be said for doing just that!!
Something that I think BSA did very well, and which should serve as a model for the Church, is the way they responded to their own pedophilia scandal. BSA instituted training for all leaders and Scouts, and demanded two-deep adult leadership at all times. They took the issue seriously. There is no reason for anyone to be left alone with somebody else’s children during Scouting activities.
In my sons’ troop, we had many more problems among the adult “leaders” than with the Scouts themselves. We had philanderers, cheaters, drug users, active alcoholism and more. Explicit rules describing acceptable and unacceptable behavior are important for a troop to keep itself healthy; it makes it much more straightforward to keep offenders out of positions where their behavior sets a poor example for the kids, or worse yet puts them in danger.
Francis, if only leaders of good character are kept and the boys learn from them, the Scouts might be the salvation of their own parents. Quite often it is a little child, especially the Christ Child, who leads an errant parent to repentance. At it has been said, “Children are God’s watch dogs.”
Probably the best reason for boys to participate in Scouts is they get positive support as they separate from their parents and become men in their own right. They begin to make their own choices, and have definitely seen times when deciding not to “be just like dad” was the right choice. In that situation, the sons learn not only from the individual leaders, but from the way the troop comports itself as a whole.
I don’t expect a teenage son can lead a philandering or drug using father to repentance on his own. More likely the adults learn from each other, especially when they hold each other to higher standards of behavior.
BSA adult leaders MUST take a periodic (possibly annual, I don’t remember) “Child Abuse Prevention” class!
Because of the leaderships’ courageous stand, I have decided to re-continue my contributions.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Francis,
It sounds like yours son’s Troop should have been under National BSA investigation. We always weeded out any such leaders as quickly as possible.
I once found an untrained volunteer leader at Summer Camp innocently playing cards with the boys in a closed tent, and I quickly informed him that according to Scout Rules, the flap must be open!
Long live the Boy Scouts of America. I wore many uniforms in my time, and my Asst. Scout Masters uniform is the one I am the most PROUD OF!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Kenneth I am glad to hear, that my insane childhood did not allow me to join the scouts. As much as I love America (at least what it should be or was) I have to be admit my favorite uniform is that of the Legion the most fascinating, challenging and greatest time of my life. I have comrades all over the world, in fact I do have French citizenship who knows maybe I will move to Lourdes one day..
The no adult alone with a child policey not only protects the children, but it protects the adults against false accusations, too. There have been cases of false accusations also, I am not sure that that has happened in the Boys Scots, but it certainly has happened in other organizations. One mixed up young woman blamed just about every man in her life of molesting her. Luckily, the authoritites caught on to her lies.
I’m glad BSA is standing firm on this moral issue. Now if they would just abandon all their pagan rituals and symbolism.
When I was in the Boy Scouts, there was no scandal at all with any of the men, each of whom was a father of at least one scout. This group of men mostly served in combat in WWII, and I think that they learned how to look at someone’s character and get it right quickly and most of the time, maybe even all the time. They had suffered too much to provide any opening for some creep to sneak in and mess with the boys.
UCDavis is a feminist campus, and a leader in gay and marxist politics. What does this say about Prof Mechlings’ commentary on the Scouts? Notice how he tries to rationalize the barring of gays from it? Eagle Scout is an accomplishment, and at the same time it does not exhonorate homosexuality. Rather it shows how homosexuality is a choice that one can make at any age or stage.
The Supreme Court upheld the policy and it’s OK. I was a Boy Scout in a troop sponsored by our Catholic Elementary School. I don’t see the ban on gays as wrong in this context, though Scout educaiton should include the need for tolerance in our culture. Also, the Scouts are sitting on files of probably as many child molesters as the Church has….it just hasn’t been very public yet.
The ultra gay activists especially the women undoubtedly account for the Girl scouts approval. . The gay movement has infiltrated our public schools with the assistance of Obama HHS, Education czars and the unions. Thank God, the Supreme Court ruled private organizations can decide for themselves. Remember the fracas in Philadelphia when the Boy Scouts were thrown out of a public building after many years as the usual vendetta against Gay demands. Neither the Catholic Church or Mormon sponsored troops should have to put up with the 3% of population of US demands!
When was the last time that the Catholic Church has promoted the Boy Scouts, but, they will still allow the Girl Scouts to sell their over-priced cookies on Sunday mornings on Church property. The Boy Scouts don’t stop gays from being leaders, they are stopping the homosexuals, a really big difference. It is not surprising that the membership is dropping, as most of the young boys have two normal parents, and how many of our young boys can now say the same thing. GOD WILL NOT BE MOCKED, even by AT&T, and their blindness will only lead them into the pits of hell. Let us keep praying for the Boy Scouts of America, that they won’t be led into this very dangerous slippery slope of immoral activity when they get a new leader. God have mercy on us. +JMJ+
JMJ:
“When was the last time that the Catholic Church has promoted the Boy Scouts” doesn’t make any sense to me. Scouting is promoted by the Scouts themselves and by parents, not by churches. BSA coordinates several religious emblems specifically for Catholic Scouts with the Church. For many years, my sons’ troop was sponsored by a Benedictine monastery. In our local parish, the Scouts appear in uniform on Scout Sunday (most of them do it under duress!). There’s a lot more; maybe your local parish just doesn’t have very active parents. If you can’t find a local Catholic-sponsored troop, it’s because the parents are satisfied with the sponsorship they have.
You seem to think the Church gives Girl Scouts preferential treatment, but that isn’t at all what happens where I live.
Of course the vile NY Times called this decision “retrograde” of course the editorial board at this anti-Catholic newspaper can never fathom that allowing sodomites to openly lead boy scouts would possibly lead to young boys being abused… How I wish a Catholic billionaire would buy the NY Times then shut it down, demolish the headquarters and replaced it with a Catholic Cathedral….How the liberals would scream…
Yes. Too bad Rupert Murdoch bought the Wall St. Journal (which he has ruined) and had rather bought the gray and ghoulish hag, NYT. He couldn’t have ruined it anymore than it is…anything would be an improvement. What a pretentious portapotty of gunk and sewage waste collected from the gutters and latrines of prurient minds and souless ‘intellectual’ ghouls. I used to subscribe to that piece of garbage…now I wouldn’t sully my fish by wrapping them in it. ha! Gee, I think I’ve got what it takes to be a NYT editorial writer. I just need to forget everything I ever learned about truth, honor and the goodness of God and a future as a Times hack awaits me. (eyes glisten, cheeks redden, hands clasped as I look rapturously to the ceiling…fade out)
Is it great and yet funny that the BSA can make this type of decision yet our churchs seem to be confused as to what the GOD and Christ expect of us ? GOOD for the BSA……..Do people not understand that the gay community uses tolerance and understanding to forward their agenda, and that they direct their push toward our children, their schools, and their social/media groups ? Once they get their foot ( their agenda ) in the door, it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump to total acceptance>
So True, Phil check out what the tolerance sodomites did to Catholic protesters at the gay shame parade in Vienna Austria, you then see the unmasked Truth of the so called gay movement or as I refer it as the gay mafia
Good job Boy Scouts! True leaders!
This is the phone number of Office Depot Hdquarters. They’re sponsoring a song campaign with lady gaga to brain wash school children that they’re just born gay tel:561-438-4800
I haven’t shopped there in years, but if you have children you might want to give them a miss if you’re buying school supplies. There are so many companies trying to destroy our families and breakdown our society, that we need a list of the few good companies that support marriage and family.
I read in the news the other day about Delta airlines passengers that ‘just happened to find needles in their lunch’ . Fancy that, when Delta has been castigated by nazi gay groups for supporting marriage. Also, why would such a minor incident make national news? Just remember Anita Bryant folks, and this time we must support those who speak out!! We all let them destroy a beautiful, talented woman’s promising career without a bit of protest, though we all knew what happened. This has got to stop!
Thanks for letting us know Dana. God bless you. : ) It’s interesting that the Girls Scouts are the ones accepting gay crap. Like Eve mislead into sin. We woman have got to turn to God and embrace His ways in humility. All this modern stuff such as contraception, feminism etc etc…..is blinding us spiritually. Our daughters are being raised without any dignity in God’s eye’s, our sons are being stripped from their manhood! God have mercy!
jmj asked:
“When was the last time that the Catholic Church has promoted the Boy Scouts, but, they will still allow the Girl Scouts to sell their over-priced cookies on Sunday mornings on Church property.”
in my former parish, we had thriving boy scouts and girl scouts group, both led by dads and moms from the parish.
the boy scouts would sell certain things (christmas wreaths, i think) and the girls would sell other things (free-range cookies), but both seemed to be very happy and wholesome.
only children form the parish were involved, and all the leaders were parents of the kids — the big difference i noticed was that the dads often wore the uniform like their boys, which the moms did not do.
it was sort of funny, but many of the dads were police officersw and fire fighters, so maybe they were used to “being in uniform” or some such thing.
We donate to the Boy Scouts every year. Gay men like ephebi, as was demonstrated by the post-Vatican II church.
The most likely scenario to explain the “Vatican II Church” is that the ephebi pervs had become so entrenched that the only way to get rid of them would be to expose them. This is exactly what the Vatican II results have been.
the holy father seems to have a DIFFERENT take on the second vatican councial, as he recently said in talking about his work at the council as a ‘petitus’ for the Cardinal Archbishop of Köln:
“Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Jul 9, 2012 / 01:28 pm (CNA/EWTN News). Pope Benedict XVI has been reliving the happy days he spent in the Italian countryside with Bishop Fulton Sheen and others in 1965 as they prepared the Second Vatican Council’s decree on the missionary activity of the Church. “Thus,” said Pope Benedict, “these days gave birth to a good and beautiful decree” which was fueled by the classical idea of “bonum diffusivum sui” or “good has the inherent need to communicate, to give of itself, it cannot remain self-contained.”
but i’m sure JLS is right and the pope is wrong.
and the sky is falling.
oh — and i forgot to mention how the second vatican council led to teenagers being molested? (it’s often hard to follow the intricate mind of JLS and its meanderings…)
No, max, you’re projecting your own machinations. I agree with this Pope and with Abp Sheen in the passage you quote. Vatican II has given unblocked the need of good to communicate … largely by outing the sodomites and money grubbers. This is an ongoing process and is hardly completed yet. People of authentic faith are separating the chaff out from their midst by various means. This is exactly what I keep saying. So both myself and the Pope are correct and you’re wrong.
JLS, what a shock to see you being so adamant – you are usually very tentative in your posts!
but, just so i can benefit from your inestimable wisdom, what PRECISELY am i wrong about?
it’s hard to tell from your gentle words…
Exactly, max, my point … you don’t know what you’re wrong about. That is what happens when you base your beliefs on emotions; everything becomes relative to how you feel. For example, one man may feel pain and take steps to get rid of the source of the pain. Another does nothing but whine. But the guy trying to get rid of the pain may or may not make an effective decision … depends on what his reason is based on, whether on fact or speculation.