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| FIRST SCOUT CHIEF EXECUTIVE JAMES E. WEST WITH PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT |
I have tried to stay out of this conversation, as the BSA is close and dear to my heart. My families history is long and deeply entrenched in scouting.
I have sat back and watched the American Taliban and their likes destroy, mock, and pillage [verbally] what my family worked so hard to build. I am not sure how my kin-folk would react or vote to gays in scouting, I can only speak for myself. But I can assure you, I'd take a million LBGT over one tea bagger any day of the week and twice on Sunday!
I hearken back to the words of Christ, and a lesson that these so called "Christians" fail to heed:
“Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” – Jesus
This is my major problem with Christianity, Christians are so unlike their Christ!
I have more than my share of hate and discontent for the GOP - and I am not alone as 59% of this country has a bad taste in their mouth when it comes to the American Taliban.
The roughly 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America’s (BSA) National Council voted 61-38 percent Thursday to end the ban on gay youth participating in the program, but reaffirmed their policy of mandatory discrimination against LGBT leaders and volunteers.
The move — suggested by the national leadership as an attempted compromise — represents a modest step forward, but still comes as a disappointment to the thousands of Eagle Scouts,1.8 million Change.org petition signers, and the 56 percent of Americans who want the BSA to end its anti-LGBT discrimination.
While the policy change will permit openly gay Scouts like Ryan Andresen to receive their Eagle Scout awards, it will still prevent openly lesbian parents like former Cub Scout Den Leader Jen Tyrrell from volunteering with their parent’s Scout units.
BSA President Wayne Perry wrote, in a USA Today op-ed Wednesday, that allowing LGBT leaders “would have conflicted with the majority of our partners, 70% of which are religious organizations, and would have disrupted our ability to deliver Scouting.” But in the same statement, he noted, the organization was “unaware of any major religious chartered organization that believes a youth member simply stating he or she is attracted to the same sex, but not engaging in sexual activity, should make him or her unwelcome in their congregation.”
This admission and the rule change seem to contradict the BSA’s long-standing rationale that “homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirements in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.” By finally admitting that being LGBT is not, itself, incompatible with being “morally straight” or “clean,” the justification for excluding adults purely on the basis of their sexual orientation seems to now be reduced to “some religious organizations prefer discrimination.”
The BSA’s Honorary President Barack Obama and former BSA national board member Mitt Romney agreed in their 2012 presidential campaign that the organization should stop discriminating based on sexual orientation — a view shared by corporate CEOs and more than 7,000 Eagle Scouts.
NFTOS
Editor-In-Chief
Roger West
