A woman was forced to resign as scout master of her son’s Boy Scout troop when other parents learned she was a lesbian. The woman has been in a monogamous relationship with another woman for 19 years, and they are raising three children together. Yeah, that crazy gay lifestyle.
Think, people. Who is the least likely person in the world to sexually abuse your boys?
Ah, but if she’s a lezbean, she’s obviously a man-hater and will poison the boys against other boys. Wait — that makes her the perfect scout leader again! A man they could look up to would probably turn all the scouts queer. Or something.
Teh stupid, it burns!
She may be the least likely person in the world to abuse boys, but these people’s minds won’t even entertain that; they’re in a world where homosexuality of any kind cannot exist.
We have a lesbian couple up the road. My kids play with their (adopted) kids. They don’t bite or anything.
You said “think” when talking about the people who did this. What were you thinking?
Why let your children join the homophobic boy scouts in the first place? No offense meant to the two parents, but maybe this will make them reconsider their decision. (Spoken as a hypocrite who let his son be in the Cub Scouts for a year with his friends; fortunately he wasn’t that interested in it.) I have known some individual scouts that had innate character, but I don’t admire or respect the organization as a whole.
Disgusting!
Stupid!!
Ignorant!!!
Typical…
If I had children, I wouldn’t taint their minds and souls by letting them be scouts – boy, or girl.
I can’t speak to the Girl Scouts, but I always thought the Boy Scouts were a military prep organization. My parents had me try the Cub Scout thing – I think I lasted a couple of months. It was too regimented for me.
Per my understanding, the Girls Scouts are a good organization. The Boy Scouts are the ones who have decided that traditional “values” are the be-all and end-all.
Speaking as a died-in-the-wool liberal and big supporter of human rights, (which includes LGBT rights as a subset, of course) …
AND speaking as an Eagle Scout….
The Boy Scouts, as an organization, is one of the best and most valuable youth groups in existence, in this country. The lessons that are taught would be valuable for ANY boy. If you think think that individual boy scouts don’t have ‘character’, ethics, or integrity … well, all individuals are individuals, of course, so that is true of many, perhaps most, just as in the rest of the world. The boy scouts is one of the organizations that are MOST effective at actually teaching and instilling a sense of character, ethics, integrity, etc.
If you think that boy scouts is some sort of military prep thing, or ‘poisoning’ minds and souls, then you are just flat wrong.
Now, I do beleieve that the boy scouts, as an organization, is completely, utterly, without reservations or provisos absolutely wrong in its stance towards gay people. It is stupid, and archaic, and to be honest quite hypocritical, not at all in keeping with the kind of values they are trying to instill.
However, that policy is mostly a result of the culture in which they exist. They are closely aligned with religion (not any religion or denomination in particular, just vaguely ‘religion’ … altho that can vary on a local level), so they are going to be a bit conservative, plus they are periodically taking people’s kids away into the woods with just a few adults to supervise, so this culture’s hyper-protective attitude towards children kicks in like a mule, so I think they believe that if they allowed openly gay people in, parents would be extremely reluctant to trust their kids to them. And, I think they’re probably right in thinking that … or at least, up until the last few years they’ve been right in thinking that … at this point I think the culture is changing far enough and fast enough that they could get away with changing the policy without too much blowback … but it will be a while before they get around to agreeing with that viewpoint.
None of which excuses the policy, wrong is wrong, I’m just saying it is not just reflexive bigotry, they think they have valid reasons.
Still, very little of that filters down to the individual scout level. In the entire time I was in scouting, the issue simply never came up … they never attempted to teach me that being gay was wrong or bad, they never attempted to teach me anything at all one way or the other.
I can understand parents that withhold their children’s participation because of this issue, and applaud it. That is what it is going to take to force the upper leadership to reconsider their stance. I just really, really hate that an otherwise exemplary organization is being dismissed as wholly bad and un-valuable.
-me
maha,
OT – but are you preparing in case Irene hits NY?
They’re talking about some really ugly potential scenarios, with the Mayor talking about some evacuations.
I was on rooftops in NJ, and then SI, and Queens, taking down satellite dishes when Gloria luckily skirted east of the city. One gust almost took me off a rooftop on Staten Island. And even though it slammed into Eastern LI, it took me hours to get home because the subways weren’t running, and trees were down on streets, forcing buses to use alternate routes.
If I remember right, I think I walked the last few miles in a driving rain to get to my Park Slope apartment.
And this one looks, right now, as if it’s going right up the Hudson River, where I live.
YIKES!
9 years in NC – and no hurricanes while I was there. Now, my 3rd summer back in Upstate NY, and it looks like Irene’s out to do some serious damage.
Everyone, if you live along the NC-ME corridor, prepare yourselves. Here’s a handy guide, with some links:
http://www.ready.gov/america/beinformed/hurricanes.html
c u n d gulag — I just got back from a grocery store campaign. I say “campaign” because it was a madhouse. I think I got the last c-cell batteries in the place.
I am not under any evacuation orders. My building is on very high ground, far from water. so I’m not too concerned about flooding. My biggest concern is a power outage or if I lose INTERNET CONNECTION! My plan is to stay home and keep a flashlight handy.
The latest I’m hearing is that they’re expecting Irene to be category 1 by the time it gets here on Sunday. I remember Hurricane Gloria, which was category 2 and was not that big a deal. You didn’t want to be out in it, but it didn’t cause that many problems.
I hear there’s internet out in Califor-nay-ee. Maybe y’all should get in your covered wagon an’ giddy up.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s12e06-over-logging
I remember Hurricane Gloria, which was category 2 and was not that big a deal. You didn’t want to be out in it, but it didn’t cause that many problems.
I guess that that would be dependent on exactly where you were located during Gloria. On eastern Long Island Gloria caused massive damage with power lines and downed trees. I was without power for 8 days ( with 2 young children and an infant), and I was one of the lucky ones to get restored early.. I remember traveling into Manhattan to work early in the morning on the LIE and seeing large convoys of lineman crews from Virginia, western Pennsylvania and as far north as Maine pouring in to get the Island back in shape. For me, Gloria was the worst storm I’ve ever been in…
I live in the NC piedmont. NOAA has us down for a “breezy day” while the Outer Banks, etc, get pounded. As a teenager in St. Croix, USVI, I used to get a thrill the day after hurricanes combing along the rock cliffs and beaches for all the cool stuff that had washed up. The Caribbean would be slamming up against the rocks and it was beautiful and dynamic. I wasn’t there when Hugo hit it, that would have been a different story.
Here I just keep some water handy and plan to use our gas stove instead of the electric one. Ice storms tend to kill our power more than hurricanes. But, you never know. It’s best to be safe.
Good luck to you all. If this turn out to be bad, I suppose it Pat Robertson will know just who to blame, he always does.