Fifteen years ago I was raising a little boy I adored.  I was a single mom, with his father rarely seeing him.  Nothing was or is today more important to me than raising a decent young man.

Ultimately the goal for parents, of course, is to get our kids to heaven.

We've all heard the sad statistics on young men raised without a dad around. I knew they're far more likely to commit crime, end up in prison, drop out of school, use alcohol and drugs, be depressed and angry, earn lower incomes, experience more social and psychological problems, and become unmarried (and uninvolved) teen fathers.

But I was also aware of another tragic correlation with boys raised without a dad around: Compelling research shows they're far more vulnerable to sexual abuse and other attacks on their innocence. We shouldn't be surprised when victims are then only naturally more likely to experience same-sex attraction later.

And so it wasn't just for fun that I signed my seven-year-old son up for Cub Scouts through our parish. I knew I couldn't provide everything he needed emotionally and psychologically and that positive male role models could at least help mitigate the effects of an absentee father.

My son wasn't the only boy in the Pack without a dad. Another little boy had a father who had died a few years before. These two precious boys were the only two without their own dad along on many camping trips.

Sadly today we're at a point where some debate what a 'positive' male role model is, as those who succeeded in bullying the Boy Scouts into allowing openly gay men to be Boy Scout leaders insist these are positive role models. But men who engage in homosexual acts are not positive role models. 

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2357) says:

Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

Without exception, every father of every boy throughout my son's twelve years of Scouting was a committed husband and father. They believed in God, went to church with their family, participated in endless Boy Scout activities and events. They gladly jumped in to help my son regularly. Would the image of manhood not have been drastically different if my son experienced his adult leaders having various other men in and out of their lives, or if this lifestyle were portrayed as the moral equivalent of traditional marriage? 

Other research has found a far higher likelihood of homosexual men molesting minors. Predictably these studies are strongly rejected and suppressed by the gay rights lobby groups.  But it shouldn't be surprising that disordered behavior leads to other disordered behavior.

I offer some excerpts from an article entitled "Child Molestation by Homosexuals and Heterosexuals" by Brian W. Clowes and David L. Sonnier (Homiletic and Pastoral Review, May 2005):

• “In fact, a number of studies performed over a period spanning more than half a century—many of which were performed by homosexuals or their sympathizers—have shown that an extremely large percentage of sexually active homosexuals also participate in child sexual molestation. This is not ‘homophobia’ or ‘hatred,’ this is simple scientific fact.”
• “A very recent study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior found that ‘The best epidemiological evidence indicates that only 2-4% of men attracted to adults prefer men. In contrast, around 25-40% of men attracted to children prefer boys. Thus, the rate of homosexual attraction is 6-20 times higher among pedophiles.’”
• “A study by sex researchers Alan Bell and Martin Weinberg found that 25% of white homosexual men have had sex with boys sixteen years and younger.”
• “A nationwide survey of school principals showed that they received 13 times as many complaints about homosexuals sexually molesting students than they did about heterosexuals molesting students.”

Which boys would naturally be the first target for gay men with such compulsive habits? Surely it would be the ones without their own dads around.

I would never for a moment have considered putting my son in Boy Scouts with all these risks. The recent decision by the Boy Scouts, following years of pressure by gay groups, now leaves the most vulnerable boys without the strong character development Scouting offered for over a hundred years.

No one knowingly places their child at risk of either becoming homosexual or of being sexually abused.  Now single or widowed moms are forced to choose between leaving their sons out of Scouting altogether, or placing them in harm's way. It was hard enough for single or widowed moms with the cultural swamp we're in, but the Boy Scouts always stood against the tide. Now they too have caved. What a shame.  

The only bright spot on this topic: A new Christ-centered alternative to the Boy Scouts called Trail Life USA has sprung up (mostly Evangelical but quite a few Catholic troops now too) and already has over 500 troops nationwide. The Knights of Columbus has long offered its Columbian Squires program, and a new Catholic scouting group to be called the Troops of St. George is in the works.