Justin's Political Corner

Tracie Felker and Joe Marion share a deep passion for Scouting. Each has a son who attained the top rank of Eagle, and each has spent numerous years and thousands of hours volunteering as Scout leaders, promoting Scout values.

And that’s where they diverge. When the Boy Scouts of America votes next week on whether to admit gay youth as members, Felker and Marion hope for opposite outcomes.

Marion says his issues have to do with logistics. He said admission of gay Scouts would put Troop 413, the pack he started five years ago, at risk of losing its charter. The troop would then have to find a new place to meet if First Baptist Church of Henderson, Tenn., pulls its sponsorship.

Then there are the other considerations, he says, like the ones related to the monthly camping trips his troop organizes.

“The problem is, do I let my kids who are straight share bathrooms and shower houses with kids who are not? How do I divide these kids up for camps? I mean, do I put the gay kids together and then the straight kids together?” he said.

Marion worries about the potential interaction during those sleepaways.

“What happens when a kid comes back from a trip where he was approached, or something did go on – what is the parent going to do? Who are they going to be mad at? Who are they going to lash out at? Me, because I’m the volunteer that took responsibility for their kid,” he said. “You understand why I’m concerned?”

Felker finds those arguments alarmist. A former merit badge coordinator, troop committee chair and two-time den leader, Felker calls the gay ban a form of discrimination that negates everything the Scouts stand for.

The proposal being considered by the national council of the Boy Scouts of America would allow openly gay boys into the program but continue to ban gay adults as leaders. The council’s 1,400-members will vote on the measure May 23 while in Texas for the organization’s national meeting.

Zach Wahls thinks the proposal is a good start but doesn’t go far enough because, among other things, it would exclude parents like his. The 21-year-old Iowa native was raised on Scouting from the time he was 6 by a lesbian couple.

“My mom, Jackie, was a den mother and my mom, Kerry, was an interim Cub Master,” said Wahls, founder of Scouts for Equality, a group with more than 6,500 Eagle Scouts like himself and other Scout alumni advocating for the admission of gay youth and adults.

h/t: Today.NBCNews.com

Among the ten arguments are offensive lies and stereotypes about gay people, as well as arguments that aren’t even substantively relevant:

1. Allowing Gay Scouts But Not Leaders Is Inconsistent

This argument is actually valid, making it one of the weakest presented in the letter, because it supports an inclusive policy for all Scouts and leaders, not a continuation of the ban. The only inconsistency in the membership policy is that it excludes people who are gay (and atheist). On My Honor may even be correct that the inconsistency “will surely draw an equal protection lawsuit,” but that is the fault of the Boy Scouts of America for trying to cling to some form of discrimination.

2. Boy-On-Boy Sexual Contact Will Increase

This argument conflates sexual orientation with sexual behavior, while promulgating the myth that people who are gay are predatory. The implication is that gay teenagers should never even be allowed to go camping because they’re a threat to their straight friends. Such fear-mongering serves only to further demonize the gay community.

3. All Troops Will Have to ‘Facilitate Open Homosexuality’

This isn’t a new argument; it’s merely a complaint derived from a desire to discriminate.

4. So Many Will Leave In Protest That The Scouts Will Collapse

If “tens- and possibly hundreds of thousands of parents and Scouts” leave the BSA, as On My Honor suggests they will, it’s an insult to the very integrity of the program to begin with. Rather than supporting the many values and lessons the Scouts stand for, these individuals will prove their only reason for participation in the Scouts was because the organization is anti-gay.

5. Parents Will Lose Their Right To Shield Their Kids From Learning About Gay People

Like argument #2, this claim relies on the false assumption that being gay automatically makes an individual somehow more “sexual.” Having gay Scouts will not increase the level of discussion about sex anymore than having straight Scouts does. Even a “17-year-old gay activist openly flaunting his sexuality and promoting a leftist political agenda” would honor the Scouts’ commitment to improving society by being helpful, friendly, courteous — and particularly brave.

6. The Scouts Are Caving To Pressure From Society

On My Honor is disappointed that it was just last year that the Scouts decided that banning gay Scouts was “the absolute best policy,” but now “BSA’s top leadership is more concerned about what is popular in the polls taken outside the Scouting family.” When that decision was made, the Scouts refused to explain it, likely because there is no sensible justification for it. Since then, the organization has lost the corporate sponsorship of Intel, UPS, and Merck, so it’s not surprising  its leaders became less attached to a policy they couldn’t even defend.

7. Units Who Don’t Comply Will Be Legally Vulnerable

Like argument #1, this concern simply reveals the inconsistency of allowing gay Scouts but not leaders. When the Supreme Court ruled in favor of BSA’s policy in 2000, Chief Justice William Rehnquist argued that the BSA engages in “expressive association.” If that expression is applied inconsistently, it would no longer define — or protect — the organization. This argument is simply a redundant concern that units will no longer be able to get away with discrimination.

8. The Policy Will Allow ‘Transgendered Girls’ In the BSA

First of all, transgender girls would probably be more interested in the Girl Scouts, which they’re actually welcome to join. Contrary to On My Honor’s fears, gender identity has nothing to do with sexuality whatsoever. Transgender boys should be allowed to join the Boy Scouts, but that form of inclusion is not addressed by this policy. The language “sexual preference” in the proposed change is disappointing, but only because it’s inaccurate nomenclature for sexual orientation.

9. Language In The Resolution Is Merely Symbolic

On My Honor seems to think it’s consequential that the “whereas” statements that justify the resolution will not be part of the policy once it’s approved. It apparently has no qualms about putting forth its own symbolic arguments.

10. Many In the Scouting Family Support Discrimination

On My Honor conveniently ignores the most recent survey that specifically addressed the policy on gay Scouts to cite an older survey with less supportive results. Still, trying to argue a “moral” point from a claim of popularity compromises what moral integrity the position even has.

It’s unclear if On My Honor represents anybody other than its founder, John Stemberger. Nevertheless, other anti-gay organizations like the Family Research Council are supporting his efforts. Through this open letter, he has shown not only a lack of understanding but a significant antipathy for the gay community.

h/t: Think Progress LGBT

NEW YORK — Under pressure over its longstanding ban on gays, the Boys Scouts of America is proposing to lift the ban for youth members but continue to exclude gays as adult leaders.

The Scouts announced Friday that it would submit this proposal to the roughly 1,400 voting members of its National Council at a meeting in Texas the week of May 20.

Earlier, the BSA had indicated it might give local Scout units the option of admitting gays as both youth members and adult leaders, or continuing to exclude them

The BSA said Friday it changed course due in part to results of surveys sent out this year to members of the scouting community.

Gay-rights groups have demanded a complete lifting of the ban. Some churches and conservative groups want it maintained.

In her blogpost on her show’s website, far-right anti-LGBTQ homophobic KFTK radio host Dana Loesch makes baseless cheap shots against people who support allowing gays into the Boy Scouts of America and also mocks the “It Gets Better” campaign founded by Dan Savage.

She even mocked the ACLU, protesters against Chick-Fil-A, and even against Attorney General Eric Holder in her farce of a PSA.

Her blogpost that’s full of lies on DanaLoeschRadio.com:

It gets better, unless you’re the Boy Scouts, then culture puts a ‘kick me’ sign on your back.The PSAs that tell kids “It gets better?” Well, I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t. It never gets better. It stays the same. Bullies grow up to be bigger bullies, bullies who join the ACLU, MMfA, OFA, or some hokey acronym’d org and then get paid to bully others for a living. I had a bully once. 

Apparently it never dawned on any of these activists that here in America you can start your own group and create your own rules. If you dislike how the Boy Scouts operate, then don’t join. Churches sponsor around 70% of the Scout troops anyway, so it’s not like their beliefs are a secret. Create your own group and run it your own way.This insistence that everyone be of hive mind and accept the same things and establish a boring homogenous culture where if everyone is special no one is betrays the “individualism” that the left preaches. If you’re so “pro-choice,” then leave the choice of which group to join or support to the people. Offer them competition. Create other choices, alternatives.

But stop the bullying and the lawfare. That doesn’t make it better.

And to make things worse for Loesch and other homophobic loons on the right, the majority of Americans surveyed in a Quinnipiac poll released today (02.06.2013) supports allowing gays into the BSA 55%-33%, or a +22% differential in favor of allowing them in.


Total:

Continue ban         33%  
End ban 55 
DK/NA                12     

Dem/GOP/IND:

Dem: 

Continue ban 19% End ban  71%  DK/NA 10% 

GOP: 

Continue ban 51% End ban 33% DK/NA  16% 

IND: 

Continue ban  31% End ban  57%  DK/NA  12% 

Quinnipiac:

The Boy Scouts of America should drop its ban on openly gay members, American voters say 55 - 33 percent in a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. 

There is a large gender gap as women support gay scouts 61 - 27 percent, compared to 49 - 39 percent among men, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. White Catholics support gay scouts 63 - 25 percent. Among white Protestants, 44 percent say open up scouting and 41 percent say no. White evangelical Protestants oppose gay scouts 56 - 33 percent. 

One troubling finding for Scouting in America is that 54 percent of voters say they were Boy Scouts or Girl Scouts, while only 36 percent of voters, including 55 percent of former scouts, say they have children in Scouting. 

“Now that the Armed Forces ban on openly gay service members has been lifted, and polls show increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage, most American voters think it’s time to open up the Boy Scouts too,” said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. 

(cross-posted from DanaBusted.blogspot.com)

Today, the Boy Scouts of America board said that it will postpone a final decision on the future of the ban on gay members until May. Two days before the announcement, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios said that gay men are child predators by nature and consequently should be banned from Scouting.

While responding to an email she received from a listener named David who opposes the current prohibition on gay Boy Scouts, Rios argued that gay men “like youth, most of them like young men” and go into professions like teaching and coaching so “they can be around boys.”

Like other supporters of the ban, Rios cited Jerry Sandusky, who is married to a woman and wouldn’t have been affected by the ban on gay members.

“These are our children and their safety and well-being trumps any desire of any gay man to be a Scout leader or a gay boy to be a Scout,” Rios said. “If you want to be that and you can’t I’m sorry but we can’t all be what we want to be, we can’t put others at risk just because we want something.”

Meanwhile, Buster Wilson of the AFA went on another anti-gay diatribe, insisting that parents “are not going to allow their boys to go on camping trips with a gay Scout leader.”

h/t: Brian Tashmann at RWW

IRVING, Texas — The Boy Scouts of America put off a decision Wednesday on whether to lift its ban on gay members and leaders, saying the question will be taken up at the organization’s national meeting in May.

“After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer officers of the Boy Scouts of America’s National Executive Board concluded that due to the complexity of this issue, the organization needs time for a more deliberate review of its membership policy,” Deron Smith, the BSA director of public relations, said in a statement.

Smith said the organization’s national executive board will prepare a resolution for the 1,400 voting members of the national council to consider. The annual meeting will take place in May, 2013, in Grapevine, Texas.

BSA announced last week it was considering allowing troops to decide whether to allow gay membership. That news has placed a spotlight on executive board meetings that began Monday in Irving, Texas, where scouting headquarters is located.

Smith said last week that the board could take a vote Wednesday or decide to discuss the policy, but that the organization would issue a statement either way. Otherwise, the board has remained silent, with reporters barred from the hotel where its meetings are taking place.

At nearby BSA headquarters, a handful of Scouts and leaders delivered petitions Monday in support of letting gay members join. The conservative group Texas Values, meanwhile, had organized a Wednesday morning prayer vigil urging the Scouts to keep their policy the same.

President Barack Obama, an opponent of the policy, and Texas Gov. Rick Perry, an Eagle Scout who supports it, both have weighed in.

Perry, the author of the book “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For,” said in a speech Saturday that “to have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate.”

Conservatives have warned of mass defections if Scouting allows gay membership to be determined by troops. Local and regional leaders, as well as the leadership of churches that sponsor troops, would be forced to consider their own policies. And policy opponents who delivered four boxes of signatures to BSA headquarters Monday said they wouldn’t be satisfied by only a partial acceptance of gay scouts and leaders.

h/t: Huffington Post

Conservative leaders are continuing to rally opposition to a proposed plan to end the national ban on gay members in the Boy Scouts of America with warnings about pedophilia and “indoctrination.”

Family Research Council vice president Rob Schwarzwalder told Janet Mefferd yesterday that fathers cannot trust their sons to be around gay people.

Mefferd called gay rights advocates “totalitarian” for opposing the ban and lamented that the “violins are playing full blast” in the media when they cover stories about gay youths kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said in a statement that “people like Jerry Sandusky” would be “permitted to be Scoutmasters” if the policy changes, adding, “To allow homosexual Scoutmasters or homosexual Scouts will put young boys at risk.”

Concerned Women for America started a letter-writing campaign against the move before gays attempt “to infiltrate the next generation.” The group even claimed that if gays are allowed to join the Boy Scouts, it would mean that “our religious liberties are being taken away”…somehow.

2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in WorldNetDaily warned of “homosexual indoctrination” and “idolatry” in the Boy Scouts if they change the policy.

H/T: Brian Tashman at RWW

Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said that a change in the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay members would be a “suicide mission” and lead to pedophilia. While speaking to AFA news director Fred Jackson yesterday on Focal Point, Fischer said that gay men are “ten times” more likely than heterosexuals to molest children, and it would be “insanity” to have them “bunking down with your kid at jamboree.”

“To me it’s just suicidal, they are finished, they are done,” Fischer told Jackson, “There is not one loving father in America that ever, ever, ever ought to entrust his son to the Boy Scouts of America.”

h/t: Brian Tashman at RWW

For example, American Family Association spokesman Bryan Fischer suggested the move would allow Jerry Sandusky-like pedophiles to become troop leaders:

Conservative talk show host Janet Mefferd followed suit.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, which launched a boycott of UPS after the company stopped donating to the BSA for failing to meet its non-discrimination guidelines,said that the inclusion of openly gay members undermines “the well-being of the boys under their care”:

“The Boy Scouts of America board would be making a serious mistake to bow to the strong-arm tactics of LGBT activists and open the organization to homosexuality. What has changed in terms of the Boy Scouts’ concern for the well-being of the boys under their care? Or is this not about the well-being of the Scouts, but the funding for the organization?

“The Boy Scouts has for decades been a force for moral integrity and leadership in the United States. Sadly, their principled stances have marked them as a target for harassment by homosexual activists and corporations such as UPS which are working to pressure the Boy Scouts into abandoning their historic values.

“The mission of the Boy Scouts is ‘to instill values in young people’ and ‘prepare them to make ethical choices,’ and the Scout’s oath includes a pledge ‘to do my duty to God’ and keep himself ‘morally straight.’ It is entirely reasonable and not at all unusual for those passages to be interpreted as requiring abstinence from homosexual conduct.

“If the board capitulates to the bullying of homosexual activists, the Boy Scouts’ legacy of producing great leaders will become yet another casualty of moral compromise. The Boy Scouts should stand firm in their timeless values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children,” concluded Perkins.

In an email to members, Perkins claimed that any policy change would have “devastating” consequences:

A departure from their long-held policies would be devastating to an organization that has prided itself on the development of character in boys. In fact, according to a recent Gallup survey, only 42 percent of Americans support changing the policy to allow homosexual scout leaders.

As the BSA board meets next week, it is crucial that they hear from those who stand with them and their current policy regarding homosexuality. Please call the Boy Scouts of America at 972-580-2000 and tell them that you want to see the organization stand firm in its moral values and respect the right of parents to discuss these sexual topics with their children.

The Christian Post, whose editor Richard Land leads the Southern Baptist Convention’s political arm, interviewed a top Southern Baptist who said the potential shift in policy “boggles the mind.”

A source who has knowledge of the situation told The Christian Post last week that the BSA’s top executives had met with top leaders at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention, among others, over the last few weeks to inform them of the possibility of this policy shift.

…

“It boggles my mind to think the BSA would make such a move,” said an executive in the Southern Baptist Convention who asked not to be identified. “If they have counted the cost of this decision in terms of relationships and numbers, then I believe they have miscalculated that cost.”

H/T: Right Wing Watch

The Boy Scouts of America, one of the nation’s largest private youth organizations, is actively considering an end to its decades-long policy of banning gay scouts or scout leaders, according to scouting officials and outsiders familiar with internal discussions.

If adopted by the organization’s board of directors, it would represent a profound change on an issue that has been highly controversial — one that even went to the US Supreme Court. The new policy, now under discussion, would eliminate the ban from the national organization’s rules, leaving local sponsoring organizations free to decide for themselves whether to admit gay scouts.

“The chartered organizations that oversee and deliver scouting would accept membership and select leaders consistent with their organization’s mission, principles or religious beliefs,” according to Deron Smith, a spokesman for the Boy Scouts’ national organization.

Individual sponsors and parents “would be able to choose a local unit which best meets the needs of their families,” Smith said.

The discussion of a potential change in policy is nearing its final stages, according to outside scouting supporters. If approved, the change could be announced as early as next week, after the BSA’s national board holds a regularly scheduled meeting.

Only seven months ago, the Boy Scouts affirmed a policy of banning gay members, after a nearly two-year examination of the issue by a committee of volunteers convened by national leaders of the Boy Scouts of America, known as the BSA.

In a statement last July affirming the ban, its national executive board called it “the best policy for the organization.”

But since then, a scouting official said, local chapters have been urging a reconsideration. “We’re a grassroots organization. This is a response to what’s happening at the local level,” the official said.

“It’s an extremely complex issue,” said one Boy Scouts of America official, who explained that other organizations have threatened to withdraw their financial support if the BSA drops the ban.

While the national scouting organization sets broad policies, more than 290 local councils nationwide govern the day-to-day conduct of the more than 116,000 local organizations. Individual scouting troops are sponsored by religious and civic organizations that represent a diversity of views on the issue of allowing gay scouts and leaders.

It’s a good sign for America and the Boy Scouts of America by allowing gay scouts into the club. I expect that there will be a fundie/evangelical splinter group from the BSA (who prohibits atheists and agnostics) if this happens, similar to when the Girl Scouts of America in the early to mid 1990s decided to allow lesbians into the GSA and the substitution of “God” in their Promise.

h/t: NBCnews.com