Up yours, Boy Scouts

[Chris James]

This was bound to happen once the right set of circumstances allowed. One of those be careful what you espouse moments:

http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2014/04/pro-lgbt-church-boy-scouts-violating-our-religious-freedom-by-ousting-gay-scoutmaster/

The conservative Christian movement has been so busy trying to equate corporate ownership with religious freedom that they seemed to have forgotten that the laws were originally intended to protect churches.

The Boy Scouts is literally a corporation, a franchise operation at best much like the National Football League. I'm sure they claim ongoing legal rights to the brand name and everything associated with it. But where do they get off telling a church how to worship and manage their flock?

The BSA opened the door to the charge of discrimination after they decided to accept gay scouts but not leaders. If you recall the rather bizarre chain of events in the past few years they had this vote, a rejection by the national council, and then a change when they figured they were going to be sued. All the nonsense about scouts being molested by leaders backfired when the courts obtained BSA records of incidents and it was revealed that 80% of boys who claimed to be molested had been assaulted by heterosexual men.

The ban on gay leaders was spearheaded by the Catholic, Mormon, and Baptist churches. But oops, someone forgot about the United Methodists and their openness to LGBT issues. I applaud this moment and hope the National Council of the BSA now has their panties all wadded up and that is squeezing their balls. If this gets to court it should be a very interesting fight.

[Chris James]

The pile of odious material from the BSA gets deeper. Now they have withdrawn the charter from this church to have a Boy Scout troop which has disenfranchised the boys from participating in scouting.

http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/boy-scouts-tells-church-it-cant-host-troop-led-gay-n85391

As I said before, it is the choice of this United Methodist Church that they wish to keep their gay scoutmaster which is at odds with the BSA. It remains to be seen what legal action will be taken if any. There may be a case for violation of religious freedom by a secular organization. I hope there are some lawyers out there will to take this on.

Otherwise there are other venues of scouting outside of the BSA and they really ought to seek them out. With anti-gay rules like those that have been demonstrated here I hardly think that the BSA is an appropriate choice for the children in this church.

[Steven Adamson]

It's all the last thrasings of a dying attitude.

]

Just as they reversed the policy on gay boys this year, they will soon reverse this policy as the old blood dies out or retires out of the organization and also as the more pragmatic leaders realize the cost isn't worth it.