Posted on 06/13/2002 4:39:23 PM PDT by restornu
The Boston branch of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) has reportedly chosen to celebrate homosexuality as an element of “diversity,” while pro-family advocates wait to see what actions, if any, the national BSA leadership will take to discipline the council.
On Monday, the Boston Minuteman Council, which serves 18,000 boys, picked David Brudnoy — a homosexual radio talk-show host — to emcee its annual fundraising dinner. The Minuteman Council announced the creation of a “diversity awareness awards badge” that contains a homosexuality component. This fall, the Boson council will give the diversity awards to individuals and groups that “complete a curriculum of activities that promote diversity — including race, religion and sexual orientation,” according to the Associated Press.
Gregg Shields, spokesman for the national BSA headquarters, said the Minuteman Council’s action does nothing to alter the longstanding Boy Scouts’ policy — affirmed in February by the BSA’s executive board — that homosexuals, atheists and agnostics are not eligible for membership or leadership in the Boy Scouts.
Asked if the BSA would take immediate action against the Boston council, Shields said there first would have to be a “discussion” between the Boston leadership and that of the national BSA.
Shields told Culture & Family Report that the first step in the discussions will be “to understand what took place.” He said the national BSA will expect the Boston council leaders to “reaffirm their commitment to the policy” on homosexuality.
He added that local councils have the right to create awards and badges, but that they “require prior approval” of the BSA. “Other voices can be heard, but there can only be one policy.”
BIGSBY DEFENDS ‘GAY’ DIVERSITY
Brock Bigsby, scout executive for the Boston Minuteman Council, told The Boston Globe that the homosexuality-affirming “diversity” awards were created to “meet the needs of our kids — that’s where our focus is.” “Scouting traditionally has been a very diverse activity,” Bigsby said, who asserted there is a “great deal of local autonomy” for councils. (He did not return a call from C&F Report for this article.)
In rejecting dissident efforts to overturn the Scouts morality code on homosexuality, the BSA executive board stated that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the traditional values espoused in the Scout Oath and Law,” and warned that “the BSA’s values cannot be subject to local option choices, but must be the same in every unit,” the Globe reported.
BRUDNOY ESPECIALLY CHOSEN The Boston Globe reported that Bigsby and the Boston council intentionally chose Brudnoy, who has contracted AIDS, to emcee their “Salute to Scouting” dinner to signal their homosexuality-inclusive course: “They didn’t say, ‘David, we want you because you’re gay.’ They said, ‘We want you because you’ll be signaling to people our policy, and we hope you’ll make reference to this in your remarks,’” said Brudnoy, who hosts a nightly radio program on WBZ (1030 AM) and teaches journalism at Boston University.
“It will be in passing, it may be no more than a sentence,” Brudnoy said. “But the point will be clearly made.”
Brudnoy himself also champions the cause of atheist boys gaining entry into the Scouts. Since its inception, the Boy Scouts of America has affirmed a belief in God. In February, the BSA board declared that “duty to God is not a mere ideal for those choosing to associate with the Boy Scouts of America; it is an obligation, which has defined good character throughout the BSA’s 92-year history.”
But in an interview with AP, Brudnoy pledged to call on the Boston Scouts affiliate to allow atheists as members: “Currently an atheist or agnostic kid cannot be a scout,” [Brudnoy] said, adding that he planned to call for change,“ wrote the AP’s Ken Maguire.
Brudnoy also praised the Minuteman Council’s existing “nondiscrimination policy” that officials have said applies to “sexual orientation.”
In an op-ed appearing in the June 8 Boston Herald, Brudnoy made the connection — denounced by pro-family advocates — between racism and opposing homosexuality. He wrote:
Monday we’re celebrating the 26th annual Salute to Scouting Dinner, and I’m privileged to serve as master of ceremonies, something I, a former Scout, would not do if our local Scout council mimicked the national BSA policy. Like all Americans, Scouts and Scout leaders and adult supporters deserve a society ensuring equitable rights for all. Banishing gays from scouting is as sensible as banning people who aren’t white gentiles. It would be and is senseless. Americans of goodwill should recoil from it categorically, as has the Boston Minuteman Council.
BOSTON: PEDOPHILIA CAPITAL?
Robert H. Knight , Director of the Culture & Family Institute, and an Eagle Scout, said the Boston Minuteman Council’s action is a tragic irony, since it emanates from the city that is at the center of a growing homosexual pedophilia scandal. The Boston Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church has been under fire since it was learned that church authorities transferred known sex offenders to other parishes and areas of the country rather than expel them from the priesthood.
Boston is also the birthplace of NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, a homosexual organization that advocates legalizing sex between men and young boys. One of the Boston priests implicated in the Catholic homosexual pedophile scandal was reportedly active in the founding of NAMBLA.
“To see the Boston Scout Council expanding its crusade to celebrate homosexuality, even as the Catholic Church is embroiled in a crisis caused by homosexual predators who were ‘tolerated’ at the highest levels, is shocking to say the least,” Knight said. “This is especially true since the Boy Scouts themselves have been forced to take drastic measures to keep homosexual predators away from young boys.
“If the Boston council does not stop celebrating homosexuals as role models — in direct contravention of the national Boy Scout policy — it is time for Boston parents to pull their boys out of the Boston-area Scouts under its control.” YOUNG EAGLE SCOUT DENOUNCES BOSTON ACTION
Hans Zeiger, a 17-year-old Eagle Scout from Puyallup, Washington, criticized the Boston action.
“The state of Massachusetts has placed more pressure on the BSA to change its standards than any other state in America,” said Zieger, director of the Scout Oath Project, an initiative to preserve the moral tradition of Scouting in America. “Nearly every public school district in Massachusetts has denied the Scouts access to its public facilities. This is a great tragedy.” He blasted the Boston Council for “giving in” to pressure from the homosexual lobby.
“By inviting an openly gay radio talk show host, AIDS patient, and anti-family activist to emcee their fundraiser, they’ve sent a message to Scouts everywhere that the strong Scouting tradition of moral character and principled leadership development is at serious risk.
“As an Eagle Scout, I will refuse to accept the actions of the Minuteman Council. In order to consistently uphold its moral values, the BSA National Headquarters must roll some heads in Boston — those of the BSA leaders in Boston who refuse to uphold the Scout Oath must leave the organization,” Zeiger said.
He called on citizens in Massachusetts and all across America who are concerned about freedom of association and the First Amendment, and about preserving scouting for future generations, to call and write the Boy Scouts “and demand consistent enforcement of the Scouts’ morality code.”
Why is the homosexual community so obsessed with getting out there message to children through Nickelodeon, the Boy Scouts, etc.
Why can't the chickenhawks stick to the high schools?
How young is too young for a horny homo male? It's certainly not eighteen. It's certainly not fourteen.
Is it nine?
Is it six?
Is it three?
Nope. We Christians know actions have consequences. We try to warn, but when that fails , God takes over.
The gays want to create hate to push their agenda. We're aware of that, so we don't hate them. Creating hate gives them the tools to claim "victim."
We warn of the plagues, broken marrages, social program expansions due to AIDs funding, and the indoctrination of children without parents written consent.
Other than warnings, we're opposed to hating because it feeds them.
Yes. What they're doing by denying them their constitutional right to religion is truely hate filled oppression.
Wisdom out of the mouths of babes.
My thought exactly. On the one hand it is a little dismaying to see a teenager holding the line better than the Boston BSA's adult leadership. On the other hand, if BSA is creating scouts of Zeiger's apparant caliber, then it's clearly doing something right. The heterophobes are using the Boston scout order to see if the national society will be amenable to being rolled over. Its surprising the BSA has held out as long as it has.
My guess is that the orders in the big liberal cities would be the most amenable to being flipped. Maybe at some point we'll see the Boy Scouts split into an orthodox and liberal camp.
I'm a little of surprised too that they've held out this long. Hopefully they'll continue to do so. The BSA looks more like an anachronism with each passing day, and God bless them for it.
Yep, for liberals and Liberaltarians like you, the practice of perversion is now the state of the industry. But it’s still hypocritical to protect one perversion over another. Incest, bestiality and pedophilia are an equal “orientation”, what about their needs?
Bigotry becomes you.
Love the person, not the wrong behavior. Bigotry still becomes you.
Only for those who practice perversion.
Goodness wins!
We've covered this already. Incest between consenting adults is okay if there is no reasonable risk of deformed offspring. Otherwise the health of a third person is involved.
Bestiality -- well one side isn't talking, so having it "illegal" is a law in name only. Virtually unenforceable no matter how you feel on the subject.
And of course pedophilia involves minors not capable of consenting in a meaningful sense.
Homosexuality between consenting adults risks no offspring and aggresses against no minors. Therefore, no, all three are not "co-equal" no matter how many times you say it.
Except for those who already have genetic defects, right hypocrite? Thanks for agreeing.
Bestiality -- well one side isn't talking, so having it "illegal" is a law in name only. Virtually unenforceable no matter how you feel on the subject.
So says you. Property doesn’t need a voice Mr. PETA.
And of course pedophilia involves minors not capable of consenting in a meaningful sense.
Of course they can, an emancipated individual only needs an adult IQ of 70, just above “mental capacity”, to do so. Only arbitrary law prevents this. Of course if the legislature said it was OK that should be all right with you...
Homosexuality between consenting adults risks no offspring and aggresses against no minors. Therefore, no, all three are not "co-equal" no matter how many times you say it.
Bring some logic to that argument and you win.
"Brudnoy himself also champions the cause of atheist boys gaining entry into the Scouts. Since its inception, the Boy Scouts of America has affirmed a belief in God. In February, the BSA board declared that “duty to God is not a mere ideal for those choosing to associate with the Boy Scouts of America; it is an obligation, which has defined good character throughout the BSA’s 92-year history. But in an interview with AP, Brudnoy pledged to call on the Boston Scouts affiliate to allow atheists as members: “Currently an atheist or agnostic kid cannot be a scout,” [Brudnoy] said, adding that he planned to call for change,“ wrote the AP’s Ken Maguire."I'm an atheist, but I have no intention of signing my sons up for the BSA. You all can keep it. Just keep it out of the gov't, too, including public schools, to which I'm forced to give money even though I don't send my kids there. Freedom of religion, yes. Not freedom for the religious to take my money and force me to support their cause. The only answer: Separation of Church & State and Separation of School & State.
Whoops sorry, again you are agreeing.
Roughly the same timeframe that Teddy Where's-My-Pants? Kennedy has been representing Taxachusetts, huh?
And, then there's Barney Frank, too.
Coincidence?
I think not.
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