The Bigot Scouts
6/8/12 13:45![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
luzribeiro.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsBoy Scouts reaffirm ban on gays
"After a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics.
An 11-member special committee, formed discreetly by top Scout leaders in 2010, "came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts," the organization' national spokesman, Deron Smith, told The Associated Press.
Smith said the committee, comprised of professional scout executives and adult volunteers, was unanimous in its conclusion — preserving a long-standing policy that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and has remained controversial ever since.
As a result of the committee's decision, the Scouts' national executive board will take no further action on a recently submitted resolution asking for reconsideration of the membership policy."
---
I know, first thing many would think of as a response would be that the Boy Scouts, being a private club, should feel free to do as they please. On the other hand though, it's beyond me why the federal government would continue to fund an organization like this, in light of their outright discriminatory policies.
Specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winkler_v._Rumsfeld
"Every four years, the Boy Scouts of America holds a National Scout jamboree ... The US Government spends an average of $2 million a year towards hosting of the jamboree.
"Winkler v. Rumsfeld was a case regarding the United States Armed Forces and their support of the Boy Scouts of America's National Scout jamborees."
Based on all this, Winkler and other plaintiffs (with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union), sued. Their argument was that the Department of Defense's use of taxpayer money for funding jamborees of what they called "a private religious organization", is a violation of the 1st Amendment, which prohibits Congress from establishing a religion.
The DOD's spending for those jamborees was ruled a violation of the Constitution. Then the decision was reversed after an appeal (the argument being that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing as taxpayers to bring the suit in the first place). So the jamboree was allowed to continue.
Then the location for the future national jamborees was moved to W.Virginia, on private land. This was supposed to settle the issue once and for all. BUT...
"However, future involvement of the military in supporting Jamborees at The Summit is likely due to the recruiting and training opportunity it affords them."
In addition, W.Virginia, both the state government and various local government agencies, are providing both direct and indirect support for said "summit", in the form of tax breaks and other bonuses, plus the DOD is providing personnel and equipment to build the trails around the summit location - and all that, for the benefit of the non-gay Boy Scouts...
The most stunning thing here is that this policy is now practically being legitimized by the involvement of DOD, hence the federal government. Now, I may not agree with the views of the Boy Scots, but I can also see where the argument about them being a private company, might be coming from; although not necessarily being particularly happy about it. But don't the Scouts receive government grants in the meantime? Why is that? Does the federal government support a discriminatory policy against homosexuals - or not?
The other weird thing is that in its 2000 ruling, the SCOTUS used the 1st Amendment to exclude gays from being a scout master... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that was the purpose of the 1st Amendment?
And one last question. The disgrace that this organization has brought upon itself with this policy notwithstanding, why would the Boy Scouts even make homosexuality an issue at all? Was it anywhere near being one of the core principles on which that organization was founded? They're beginning to look more and more like the Bigot Scouts of America at this point.
Thoughts? Rants? Opinions? Macros?
"After a confidential two-year review, the Boy Scouts of America on Tuesday emphatically reaffirmed its policy of excluding gays, ruling out any changes despite relentless protest campaigns by some critics.
An 11-member special committee, formed discreetly by top Scout leaders in 2010, "came to the conclusion that this policy is absolutely the best policy for the Boy Scouts," the organization' national spokesman, Deron Smith, told The Associated Press.
Smith said the committee, comprised of professional scout executives and adult volunteers, was unanimous in its conclusion — preserving a long-standing policy that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000 and has remained controversial ever since.
As a result of the committee's decision, the Scouts' national executive board will take no further action on a recently submitted resolution asking for reconsideration of the membership policy."
---
I know, first thing many would think of as a response would be that the Boy Scouts, being a private club, should feel free to do as they please. On the other hand though, it's beyond me why the federal government would continue to fund an organization like this, in light of their outright discriminatory policies.
Specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winkler_v._Rumsfeld
"Every four years, the Boy Scouts of America holds a National Scout jamboree ... The US Government spends an average of $2 million a year towards hosting of the jamboree.
"Winkler v. Rumsfeld was a case regarding the United States Armed Forces and their support of the Boy Scouts of America's National Scout jamborees."
Based on all this, Winkler and other plaintiffs (with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union), sued. Their argument was that the Department of Defense's use of taxpayer money for funding jamborees of what they called "a private religious organization", is a violation of the 1st Amendment, which prohibits Congress from establishing a religion.
The DOD's spending for those jamborees was ruled a violation of the Constitution. Then the decision was reversed after an appeal (the argument being that the plaintiffs lacked legal standing as taxpayers to bring the suit in the first place). So the jamboree was allowed to continue.
Then the location for the future national jamborees was moved to W.Virginia, on private land. This was supposed to settle the issue once and for all. BUT...
"However, future involvement of the military in supporting Jamborees at The Summit is likely due to the recruiting and training opportunity it affords them."
In addition, W.Virginia, both the state government and various local government agencies, are providing both direct and indirect support for said "summit", in the form of tax breaks and other bonuses, plus the DOD is providing personnel and equipment to build the trails around the summit location - and all that, for the benefit of the non-gay Boy Scouts...
The most stunning thing here is that this policy is now practically being legitimized by the involvement of DOD, hence the federal government. Now, I may not agree with the views of the Boy Scots, but I can also see where the argument about them being a private company, might be coming from; although not necessarily being particularly happy about it. But don't the Scouts receive government grants in the meantime? Why is that? Does the federal government support a discriminatory policy against homosexuals - or not?
The other weird thing is that in its 2000 ruling, the SCOTUS used the 1st Amendment to exclude gays from being a scout master... Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not sure that was the purpose of the 1st Amendment?
And one last question. The disgrace that this organization has brought upon itself with this policy notwithstanding, why would the Boy Scouts even make homosexuality an issue at all? Was it anywhere near being one of the core principles on which that organization was founded? They're beginning to look more and more like the Bigot Scouts of America at this point.
Thoughts? Rants? Opinions? Macros?
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/12 15:38 (UTC)Not really understanding where you're coming from..
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/12 16:31 (UTC)you are assuming that a pedophile's sexual orientation towards adults has anything to do with their choices when selecting a child victim.
This may seem intuitive, but on further analysis makes no sense. The whole reason that pedophilia is aberrant is that children are missing the secondary sexual characteristics that are the normal attraction queues for both homosexuals and heterosexuals (once secondary sexual characteristics appear, we aren't talking about pedophilia, we're talking about hebephilia and ephebophilia). Consequently the gender percentages of victimized children have no correlation with gender preferences in wider society, which hang close to 50/50. The majority of male children victimized by pedophiles are victimized by adult males who, when considering adults, have a heterosexual orientation. Smaller percentages of pedophiles who victimize male children are homosexual males, females or either orientations, or fixated pedophiles with no adult orientation.
IF we were playing a numbers game, where we would want to make sure that class of gender/orientation most likely to prey on male children is excluded from leadership roles in Scouting, our first choice would be Heterosexual males, not homosexual males.
Of course Scouting's exclusion of self identified homosexuals has nothing to do with protecting children from pedophile predation. It has to do with a moral stance on the nature of homosexuality itself.
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/12 16:33 (UTC)Is NAMBLA membership predominantly heterosexual or gay in terms of demographics?
That alone may be decent evidence that child molestation is more of a gay than straight gendered thing...
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/12 20:33 (UTC)NAMBLA consists of pedophiles and pederasts, not gay men.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 00:54 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 01:01 (UTC)PEDOPHILIA IS NOT ABOUT BEING GAY OR STRAIGHT
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 01:34 (UTC)Now that gay rights is more socially accepted and doesn't need NAMBLAs support as much they've gone their seprate ways mainly for political reasons.
If a picture taken of Ron Paul with racists, which may have been taken with or without Ron Paul's knowledge, means Ron Paul is a racist.
NAMBLA having strong ties to gay rights activism in the past means NAMBLA is strongly related to gay rights.
Claiming otherwise = double standard.
(no subject)
Date: 10/8/12 22:26 (UTC)And who forms which groups that loom large in the media consciousness is statistically representative?
> Is NAMBLA membership predominantly heterosexual or gay in terms of demographics?
Well, why don't you tell me what those demographics are? And then you can tell me how large the group is, and then we can decide if that is statistically relevant?
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 00:53 (UTC)It has more than a thousand members, but they operate in secrecy considering the police and others have tried to infiltrate them, etc.
It could represent one example of a connection between gays and child molestation.....
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 01:11 (UTC)NAMBLA is an organization that calls itself 'pro-gay' in order to hide behind the LGBTQ community. they are disgusting perverts who rape children and want it to be legal. then, people with no critical thinking skills like to point to the LGBTQ community and go 'you're all molesters!' when that is not the case.
i can call myself a unicorn. it won't make me one. look at it from another angle....if all gay men were pedos, why would they need their own organization?
think.
(no subject)
Date: 11/8/12 01:37 (UTC)Or, maybe you're just in denial and too heavily invested in the pop culture ideology of all gays being more chaste than the virgin mary and incapable of evil?
Either way!
I would point out that NAMBLA didn't hide behind the LGBT community. It was the other way around & it happened in an era when sodomy was still technically illegal in many places and the gay rights movement was virtually non-existent. There was no gay rights movement to hide behind = what you're saying makes no sense.