WASHINGTON — News that the Boy Scouts of America may soon approve of openly homosexual members and leaders has sparked a wave of concern and criticism throughout the country.
Eagle Scout Andrew Hill, who lives in Philadelphia, said that he is “disappointed” that the organization’s leadership appears to have “caved to external demands.”
“The Boy Scouts are now just another organization or public figure that has given in to societal pressure,” Hill said Jan. 31. “These are the times we live in, and, as Catholics, we need to go forward aware of this reality.”
He added, however, that even if the policy change is made, he does not “expect this to have a significant effect on the majority of current and future scouts.”
“With so many troops being organized by and supported by churches, these troops will continue on as they were,” he explained.
Hill’s comments came in response to an announcement by the Boy Scouts of America that a ban on openly homosexual leaders and members is being reconsidered.
Deron Smith, director of public relations for the organization, announced on Jan. 28 that the group “is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.”
He explained that the removal of a national policy would allow each local unit to set its own guidelines, permitting “the religious, civic or educational organizations that oversee and deliver scouting to determine how to address this issue.”
The announcement drew criticism from both religious and secular sources concerned about the well-being of future scouts.
“Boy Scouts leaders are exactly that — leaders,” said Greg Quinlan, president of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays. “Boys watch them very closely. Boys also look up to older Boy Scout members and want to imitate them and follow their examples.”
Quinlan, who identifies himself as a “former homosexual,” said that a gay man “who gently eases boys and young men into exposure of homosexuality by his own personal example promotes homosexual behavior as normal, natural and healthy.”
“This paves the way for youth to question their own sexuality and be affirmed into homosexuality,” he explained.
Quinlan — who attributes his past homosexual behavior in part to the experience of being sexually molested when he was young — also raised concerns of increased sexual abuse with a change to allow openly homosexual scout leaders.
He speculated that the Boy Scouts’ decision to reconsider its policy is due to financial and political pressure.
“It seems that one or more of your major corporate donors is pressuring you, and others are bullying you, to change the Boy Scout policy to admit homosexuals,” he said, adding that “money with dangerous conditions attached is not a donation — it's a bribe.”
In recent months, several significant donors — including Intel, UPS and Merck — have stopped giving funds to the Boy Scouts of America due to the ban on homosexual members. The organization had previously defended its policy, explaining that it aligns with the group’s values, respects parental rights and avoids distractions.
The Diocese of Arlington, Va., which has 68 parishes and sponsors about 50 Boy Scout troops, will be watching the situation closely, alongside other parishes and dioceses around the nation.
“The clarity and courage of the Boy Scouts of America over the years in the face of considerable cultural, political and legal pressure has been a blessing,” said Michael Donohue, director of communications for the Diocese of Arlington.
Donohue said that the diocese “is pleased to sponsor Boy Scout troops in its parishes, as are many Catholic dioceses across the nation.”
He explained that diocesan officials are awaiting the final results of the upcoming Boy Scouts meeting.
He said, “Obviously, any substantive changes in the mission or policies of the Boy Scouts of America would require the diocese’s careful consideration.”
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In the Catholic cnurch the John Jay study showed that sadly 80% of those abused were on boys and the priests involved had at least a bisexual if not homosexual orientation. So does BSA want to follow in the sad experiences which we Catholics have sadly learned from?
The RCC time and again asserts that in and of itsel being gay is not a sin/sinful and that there should be respect for and no discrimation against gay people. But when the BSA begins to think about dismantling its ban against gay scouts/leaders, etc, the RCC is the first to object.
And the writer of the writer of this article cites only the bizarre opinion of Greg Quninlan. What about citing the facts—that being gay is NOT the same as being a pedophile.
If RCs want to protect children, let them be Scouts, but keep them away from RC priests.
(Some) Catholics have already abandoned the Girl Scouts of the USA because of associations with Planned Parenthood. Why is this any different? BSA is not a Catholic organization, nor is participation in it required of Catholics. Additionally, the Church doesn’t teach us to shun gays and lesbians. How would Catholic participation in groups with gays and lesbians actually violate Catholic teachings? It wouldn’t.
The Boy Scouts will learn what the Church already knows, its protestations to the contrary. Putting homosexual men in a position of leadership over boys and young men WILL result in the sexual abuse of many of those boys and young men. It would be better for the Boy Scouts to be marginalized as a politically incorrect private organization, but a moral one.
Lisa and Grace, the “RCC” teaches that homosexuality is intrinsically disordered. The word “gay” is a loaded term that is political. The BSA has been courageous in it’s fight against the culture. As Bob Gravlin wrote, the BSA should learn from the experience of others. Allowing open homosexuals into leadership positions would be a huge mistake.
CONTACT THE BSA and let them know you disapprove of this decision:
1. Send an email to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) (this is the email address at the BSA National Office)
2. Call 972.580.2000.
3. Send a letter to the following: National Executive Board,Boy Scouts of America, 1325 West Walnut Hill Lane, P.O. Box 152079. Irving, TX 75015-2079
Grace, it’s the bad example these men give to the young boys. You obviously are not aware that one of the scout’s law is to be “morally straight” - the homosexual lifestyle is anything but moral. And it set’s a horrid example to the young boys, who are in scouts to learn to become real men. We need to do all we can to protect our young boys and help them become men of honor and moral standards. No homosexual men should be allowed in the BSA -
The unfounded fear that some people have of homosexuality bears a striking similarity to that which was held for centuries against Jews. It is therefore shameful that such responses should be found among some Roman Catholics, particularly since Jesus was born, raised and died as a Jew.
Following years of in-depth research by the North American medical profession shows from numerous recognized North American has shown that homosexuality is simple due to natural hormonic variation that takes place during pregnancy instead of ‘choice’ by the individual. Please note that Dr. O’Hanlan’s qualified observation is widely supported by numerous recognized medical organizations: http://whenreligionfails.blogspot.ca/2012/09/homosexuality-real-cause.html
The second falsehood maintained by some involves the tragic matter of pedophilia by priests in the Catholic Church when it is attributed to homosexual clergy. As late as 2010 Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone claimed that the Catholic church’s sexual abuse crisis was linked to homosexuality and pedophilia and not celibacy among priests.
We have a God given responsibility to seek the real facts which can easily be obtained on line and reading the psychological results provided by one of the world’s most recognized Catholic expert Dr. Richard Sipe. See: http://www.richardsipe.com/
His credentials read as follows: A.W. Richard Sipe is devoted full time to research into the sexual and celibate practices of Roman Catholic bishops and priests. That path now leads him to the study of the sexual teaching of the church and its effects on behavior—especially sexual abuse of minors by clergy—and the tangle of sexual problems that some people claim are blocking every religious agenda and destroying beyond repair the credibility of the Catholic Church in sexual matters. He has spent his life searching for the origins, meanings, and dynamics of religious celibacy. His six books including his now classic A Secret World and Celibacy in Crisis explore various aspects of the questions about the pattern and practice of religious celibacy. He spent 18 years serving the Church as a Benedictine monk and Catholic priest. In those capacities he was trained to deal with the mental health problems of priests. He and Marianne have been married since 1970 and have one son. Both as a priest and married man he has practiced psychotherapy, taught on the faculties of Major Catholic Seminaries and colleges, lectured in medical schools, and served as a consultant and expert witness in both civil and criminal cases involving the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests.
It’s time to develop the Columbian Squires to their full potential.
JMJ I was a Boy Scout. In the 60s I was molested at a camp out.
The CCC states in 2358 “They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.” Persona humana 8 states “But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people.”
I started researching and found Homosexuality and American Psychiatry the Politics of Diagnosis by Ronald Bayer. About the rebellion of homosexuals against being labeled mentally ill. Ch. 4 p.101 The American Psychiatric Association under attack: 1970-1972. “Gay activists in San Francisco saw in the presence of the APA convention in their city yet one more opportunity to challenge the psychiatry profession.” Using “Guerrilla theater tactics” Gay activists shouted obscenities and interrupted a briefing of “several hundred psychiatrists” “demonstrators exploded with the demand they be heard.” “A protester read a list of gay demands…” One physician was so afraid for his life he called for police to shoot the protesters. This was the calm before the storm.
Homosexuals wanted to present a panel at the next 1971 APA convention in Washington, D.C. Worried that they would disrupt the Washington DC convention they were allowed to have a panel represent them. “Frank Kameny turned to a Gay Liberation Front collective in Washington to plan the May 1971 demonstrations.” Using the floor plan of the hotel, Kameny developed a detailed strategy for disruption. Gays assisted by antiwar activists stormed into the prestigious Convocation of Fellows. Karmeny grabbed the microphone and took over. Using forged credentials, gay activists gained access to the exhibit area and demanded the removal of a marketing display. Threats were made against the exhibitor, who was told unless he take down the booth it would be torn down. It was taken down to avoid violence. Anyone that opposed homosexuality had left or was intimidated into silence. Their goal was the deletion of homosexuality from the APA’s official nosology, DSM II.
There is more but too much to mention here. But homosexuals succeeded in having themselves removed from the DSM II. I wonder how many homosexual psychiatrists were on the board to vote the removal. Imagine mentally ill persons voting to remove themselves from the DSM II. So you can imagine what this has done for their cause. Now Pedophilia advocacy groups are pursuing the same course of action.
On another note, nothing about the mental illnesses of those involved in the latest shootings is being discussed in the media.
Read Gen 19:1-29,Rom 1:24-27,1 Cor 6:10;1 Tim 1:10, CCC 2357-2359
At the present time there are those who, basing themselves on observations in the psychological order, have begun to judge indulgently, and even to excuse completely, homosexual relations between certain people. This they do in opposition to the constant teaching of the Magisterium and to the moral sense of the Christian people.
A distinction is drawn, and it seems with some reason, between homosexuals whose tendency comes from a false education, from a lack of normal sexual development, from habit, from bad example, or from other similar causes, and is transitory or at least not incurable; and homosexuals who are definitively such because of some kind of innate instinct or a pathological constitution judged to be incurable.
In regard to this second category of subjects, some people conclude that their tendency is so natural that it justifies in their case homosexual relations within a sincere communion of life and love analogous to marriage, in so far as such homosexuals feel incapable of enduring a solitary life.
In the pastoral field, these homosexuals must certainly be treated with understanding and sustained in the hope of overcoming their personal difficulties and their inability to fit into society. Their culpability will be judged with prudence. But no pastoral method can be employed which would give moral justification to these acts on the grounds that they would be consonant with the condition of such people. For according to the objective moral order, homosexual relations are acts which lack an essential and indispensable finality. In Sacred Scripture they are condemned as a serious depravity and even presented as the sad consequence of rejecting God.[18] This judgment of Scripture does not of course permit us to conclude that all those who suffer from this anomaly are personally responsible for it, but it does attest to the fact that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and can in no case be approved of.(Persona humana 8) Viva Cristo Rey
Lisa Kaiser, your comment shows how narrow minded you are and how ignorant of you about the Roman Catholic Church and the issues of abuse. Particularly our comment, “If RCs want to protect children, let them be Scouts, but keep them away from RC priests” I bet you DID NOT KNOW or conveniently chosen to ignore the FACT that about less than 1% of Catholic priests abused children and please also note, a huge majority of those so- called priests are homosexual. I am not so sure where concern truly lies, certainly NOT with the children. So, with that fact, I’ll say keep the children far away from homosexuals men.
that being gay is NOT the same as being a pedophile.
That’s irrelevant because homosexual “sex” is immoral. And just as you shouldn’t make den leaders of people who proudly talk about their pornography collection, or someone who boasts of how many other men’s wives he’s seduced, so you shouldn’t put unrepentant homosexuals in charge of Boy Scouts.
Having openly gay leaders will contribute to the normalization of homosexuality. As stated in the article, it will be seen as normal and even healthy. This is against Catholic teaching. As the mother of an Eagle Scout and 1st Class Scout, I strongly oppose a change in membership policy.
I see no problem with allowing all boys to be Boy Scouts. As Lisa said in her first couple of sentences, it goes against Catholic teaching to exclude people with same-sex attraction or discriminate against them. It’s attitudes like those of the writer of this article that includes so much fear that “homosexual culture” will “influence” young people to become homosexual that leaders in the Catholic Church seem to fail time and time again, it seems at any level, national or local, to provide any kind of support for parishioners or just members of the community in general who find themselves struggling with same-sex attraction. Sin is not to be feared because God conquers sin. We won’t see the problems caused by homosexuality diminish until we let God take care of it and combat the sin with love.
The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. THEY MUST BE ACCEPTED WITH RESPECT, COMPASSION, AND SENSITIVITY. EVERY SIGN OF UNJUST DISCRIMINATION IN THEIR REGARD SHOULD BE AVOIDED.
Sorry for the all caps but I don’t know how else to place the proper amount of emphasis.
We don’t have male scout masters take adolescent girls out for camping trips. That would be insane.
Our society is set up to avoid sexual interest in inappropriate settings—or at least it used to be. So, there are separate bathroom and show facilities in group settings for example.
As we saw in the scandal, homosexuality is a curve ball to these settings: men who are sexually attracted to a group of people should not be in intimate settings with them (outside of marriage).
Boy Scouts are considering bringing the Catholic scandal into the Boy Scouts: we can’t say that we were not warned. If we accept this, it would just mean that we don’t care about our own sons.
The Catholic Church doesn’t have anything against people with same sex attraction, just as it has nothing against people with opposite sex attraction. Along with God, it is against sex outside of marriage. The Catholic Church does not knowingly allow people actively engaged in sinful behavior in places of authority. The Boy Scouts are talking about having people actively involved in sodomy as be boy scout leaders.
This is a scary thing for parents, especially when statically 80% of pedophiles are active homosexuals. Thankfully the Catholic Church now weeds out seminarians with strong tendencies toward homosexual acts and thus protect our children from pedophilia, while the Boy Scouts are being bought out and will allow a new generation of pedophiles a welcome place of authority over our sons.
I don’t think it’s so much kids with same sex attractions that’s the problem here, I think it’s more that they want to allow for leaders with same sex attractions that’s the big problem. They had a problem with this years a go and many cases had to be settled. And they want to go down this path again?
80-85% of the Catholic abuse cases were priests with young men of middle school to junior high age. That’s technically not a pedophile. Guys with same sex attractions tend to like young men. This is not new and it was commonly accepted during the Greco Roman Pagan era. Early Christians rejected this as well as other immoral things we accept today. Many went to their deaths for those beliefs. So please spare everyone the nonsense that “Jesus would love and accept everyone” and stop twisting the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Jesus offers forgiveness and then tells them TO GO AND SIN NO MORE.
Anthony,
The issue is that the BSA is NOT an RC organiation. Yes, there are RC scouts, but there are Jewish scotus and Protestant scouts. The BSA does nothave to abide by RC teaching (and should not).
ML South,
Thank you for the BSA contact info. I will use it to urge the BSA to rewcind its bigoted ban on gay scouts.
As I think about this further, I am really tired of the complete and utter nonsense in some of the above posts. The shallow and contrite comments about Jesus loving and accepting everyone shows a complete lack of understanding. Did Jesus accept the money changers in the temple?
The correct term for people attracted to adolescents is “ephebophile”, not pedophile. Ephebophiles can be either heterosexual or homosexual. You wouldn’t send your developing teenage daughter off with a heterosexual male leader for a week of camping and you certainly wouldn’t send your son off with a gay man for a week of camping either. This is especially true if the leader does not have a child in the program. How someone cannot see a problem with both of these scenarios defies common sense.
Trebert: “The unfounded fear that some people have of homosexuality bears a striking similarity to that which was held for centuries against Jews”
Nothing you can do about being born a Jew. No one is born homosexual. It is a learned trait, a mental disorder called same-sex attraction. It is a filthy, perferted immoral lifestyle, and those that engage in this filthy, disease ridden practice not only are sinning against God but they are shortening their lifespan, due to all types of cancers that this abnormal sex brings. What we have here is blackmail from liberal, God-hating sponsors of the BSA. All this disgusting immoral crap takes it’s cue from the immoral, God-hating imposter in the White House.
Charles Porter,
Unfortuntaley your bigoted and inaccruate invective against gay people and the President our far too common among “RCs” and “christians”. Such bigotry is the result of ignorance and irrational fear. that being the case, your ideas carry no weight.
This issue is the final straw for me and the NCR and its readers. I’m stunned—stunned—by the ignorance flaunted here. Readers are comfortable describing homosexuality as an intrinsically disordered lifestyle (as does the RC) but they apparently *don’t* care to note the Church’s other teachings on homosexuality. We are NOT meant to attempt an elimination of gays and lesbians from our communities. This seems to be an attempt on readers’ parts to use the RC to shield their own personal bigotries. There is nothing Catholic nor Christian about these responses.
Additionally, it’s terrifying that most here don’t know the difference between homosexuality and pedophilia. Comparing BSA with gays to the sexual abuse scandal involving priests is the height of irrationality.
And I hate to break it to everyone, but there already are gays in BSA. If you’re worried that they’ll “experiment” on your boys or “turn them gay,” I sure hope you’re not sending your children to co-ed schools (where straight kids “experiment” all the time).
SERIOUSLY?
I knew reading the comments I would be surprised with the breadth of views. However- I did not expect the depth of ignorance. The consternation I feel about my church grows all of the time. Our troop is not chartered by a church. Thankfully there are schools and organizations who will support the scouts regardless of this decision.
Do the right thing RCC and hang in there with the BSA should they remove the ban…..maybe we can incorporate the Virtus or other “protecting God’s Children” program and that will make the issue ok and the alarm Allll go away.
I take no position on homosexuality as a learned behavior or an innate “tendency”. What I do know is that if I had a son, I would not want him exposed to a practicing homosexual man in a position of authority such as Boy Scout leader. If that son had no gay tendencies, I would not want to take a chance that they might be learned behavior. If he were gay, I would adhere to Church teachings in raising him to realize that the acts ARE disordered behavior and would NOT want him exposed to such temptation.
I was a Boy Scout, and am thinking of sending all my regalia back if they do this evil thing for the sake of political correctness.
I am a Scout Leader, former Scoutmaster, father to 3 Eagle Scouts (2 serving our country in the military), and a Cub Scout. I have given the BSA thousands of dollars and thousands of hours. As such, I have seen the careful line Scout Leaders walk in order to keep our Scouts morally and physically safe. Yes, we do take risks; we cannot be all places at all times. A change to the homosexual ban policy is a welcome invitation to all those homosexual activists to promote their agenda and activity, and to redefine “morally straight”.
I have withheld my donation to BSA this year pending the national policy decision. I have written BSA National asking them to not only uphold the current policy, but to wholeheartedly endorse it with an explanation that respects the dignity that all people deserve as the creations of God.
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