Yesterday, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) voted to allow openly homosexual boys to join the ranks. A surprising 61 percent of the 1400 voting members voted to ax the longstanding policy prohibiting Scouts from openly professing homosexuality. However, voting members were strongly pressured and lobbied by the national organization to do so. The national BSA in turn, caved into pressure by gay political groups which believe that any moral compass is wrong and discriminatory. Human Rights Campaign, perhaps the biggest bully on the block pressured corporate sponsors of the Scouts to dismantle a core policy that requires scouts to remain “morally straight.”
Interestingly, the vote came against the wishes of a majority of scout parents and members. According to a survey sent out by the BSA in February, of the more than 200,000 leaders, youth members and parents who responded, 61 percent supported the current policy of prohibiting open homosexuality. Only 34 percent opposed it. So in the landslide of internal opposition against the change, the BSA leadership just buried itself deeper.
BSA chief executive, Wayne Brock said "This has been a challenging chapter in our history. While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they're in Scouting." Really Mr. Brock? You might as well believe that as much as you believe that commitments to duty, honor, God and country are interchangeable and minor elements of scouting. Why sign your son up for the Scouts to learn virtue if virtue is tossed out the window?
John Stembeger, of the group On My Honor, worked to oppose the policy change. "What kind of a message are we sending to young people about being brave when its top adult leaders don't even have the courage to stand up to the pressure of a militant lobby when the bullies in Washington D.C., Hollywood or even some of their own renegade councils start pressuring and harassing them?" Stembeger asked.
Liberal leaders in the scouts say the move didn’t go far enough since open homosexuality for scoutmasters is still prohibited. While the gay lobby will continue to press for openly gay scoutmasters, conservatives promise to exit the 105 year old organization en masse. Scouts from all over the country are planning to meet in Louisville next month to form a new organization. This move promises to bring scouting back to its conservative roots in Kentucky where the first troop in the United States was chartered in 1908 in Burnside.