Re. the Boy Scouts' "compromise": Compromise with crackpots isn't compromise, it's capitulation

Lord Baden-Powell, inventor of the Boy Scouts: Would you entrust your burgeoning lad to this man? Would you want your burgeoning lad anywhere near this man?

"President Obama praised the Boy Scouts of America's decision to lift its ban on openly gay youth, but added he hopes the organization will take further action to allow openly gay Scout leaders, according to the White House."

-- the lead of Chris Johnson's Washington Blade report

"Allowing gay scouts but not adult scout leaders . . . was a step backward, because it reinforced the most vile stereotypes and misconceptions deliberately peddled by anti-gay activists."

-- Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen

by Ken

The president's take on yesterday's vote by the Boy Scouts of America overturning the ban on membership by openly gay boys but maintaining the ban on openly gay Scout leaders, is the moderate middle-of-the-road position enunciated by many in the LGBT community and our sympathizers. It is the traditionally honored incrementalist response.

It's not my reaction, though. I find myself generally more comfortable with the statement issued by Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen:

Today's Boy Scout's decision was insulting and pandered to ignorance and bigotry at the expense of  gay people and their families. Allowing gay scouts but not adult scout leaders was a compromise -- only in the sense that BSA compromised its integrity and decency. Let's be clear — this was not a step forward, but a step backward, because it reinforced the most vile stereotypes and misconceptions deliberately peddled by anti-gay activists.

Today's decision was degrading, dehumanizing, and disgraceful. It stigmatized LGBT people and their families and sends the dangerous message that they are inferior and a threat to society.

The new policy continues to tarnish the organization's image and TWO urges increased pressure on the BSA.

Homosexuality is not a moral issue, but a natural expression of who some people are. However, bigotry is a moral issue -- one which places the BSA on the wrong side of history.

TWO does applaud those who fought and victoriously ended the cruel ban on gay scouts. Now is the time to begin the next phase of this fight and bring down the final wall of BSA discrimination.

Of course way over on the other side of the issue, worshippers of the depravevd and bigoted status quo are having conniptions, announcing the end of civilization. Still, I'm with Wayne B -- "compromise" with degenerate fiends isn't really "compromise," it's capitulation.

I should add that I'm out of my comfort zone when it comes to the Boy Scouts, which were never part of my reality. My parents never explained it as such, but when I noticed other kids in school turning up in blue Cub Scout uniforms, it was communicated to me in some vague terms that no, we didn't do that. The "we," I came to understand, was Jewish folks.

I'm not saying there are no Jewish scouts, but I'm going to guess that the numbers aren't large. And anytime I read anything about arch-scout Robert Baden-Powell and what he thought he was up to with the youth of the British Empire, the freakier it all seems to me. Man, that was one weird dude. It's hard to imagine anyone less suitable for deciding what constitutes healthy physical and mental development for burgeoning lads.

My first thought is that the tradition-bound folks who think they're fighting for Baden-Powell's vision don't know much about that vision. My second thought is that quite possibly they are. Basically, the way i read yesterday's "split decision," it says:

Fagotry is of course a filthy preversion, but given the mounting pressures of political correctness, we can't afford to dump all the burden on the budding preverts but instead have to welcome them in the hope that it's just a phase and we can help them come out the right side of it so that just possibly they don't grow into the preverts we so rightly revile.

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