Bishop responds to Boy Scouts' decision on admission of homosexual members [CWN]

[Kamaduck]

A youth admitting that he has a same sex attraction is not the same as defining himself as gay. If a Scout identifies himself as gay, it is an implication that he intends to live out that lifestyle at some point in the future, and that is against the BSA code when it comes to allowing gay leaders. What kind of confusion must this send to the boy. The concern that many people have is that there could be many factors leading to a same sex attraction that do not automatically mean that he is gay. The old code was compatible with Church Teaching, the new code is not.

I’m pretty sure that in many cases, “gay” simply means that a person has SSA and lacks opposite-sex attraction. It doesn’t necessarily mean that they plan to “live out that lifestyle”, any more than being me being straight means I’m going to fornicate.

 

[Cat_Herder]

The following is from the BSA:

---

…
**2. If a chartered organization does not agree with allowing gay members, can it deny them membership or defer them to another unit? **

No. Effective Jan. 1, 2014, no youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone. However, any sexual conduct, whether homosexual or heterosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting. As they always have, chartered organizations can require members to demonstrate behavior that exemplifies the highest level of good conduct and respect for others and is consistent at all times with the values expressed in the Scout Oath and Scout Law.

Thank you for posting this. This WAS on the BSA website, but it is now gone. In fact, I am pretty sure it was removed shortly before the voting began, probably because #2 is such an egregious attack on religious liberty and the primacy of the family. The fact that they buried this at an opportune time is further evidence of the BSA’s dishonesty.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Catholic leaders urge support for Boy Scouts after shift on gays
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...37d432-ca2a-11e2-9cd9-3b9a22a4000a_print.html

As you would expect from the WaPo, this is horribly biased. Note about 4 paragraphs up from the end, they accuse Fr. Derek Lappe of calling gays “loser men.” Read Fr. Lappe’s message; he never said that. The “loser men” comment was targeted at men who leave their wives, not men who are gay and therefore never have wives in the first place. Shame on the WaPo!

I am so sick and tired of seeing dissenters painted as bigots for just wanting to protect children of any sexual orientation from sexual abuse.

 

[Sonic]

An new article from The Witherspoon Institute:

The Boy Scouts’ Doomed Compromise

by Carson Holloway

*The Boy Scouts’ new policy allowing openly gay members will fall to aggressive gay rights activists if not first to its own incoherence. *

thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/05/10237/

 

[Cat_Herder]

My point is that the policy doesn’t expose youngsters to any more of a risk than they already face.

It takes away the ability of parents, adult leaders and chartered organizations to protect youth by limiting membership and activities on the basis of sexual orientation. There is a reason why fire codes require extinguishers in public places; taking them away raises the risk.

No “gay” teenager is going to think, ‘Now that I’m allowed to be a Scout, I can molest other boys.’ The dangerous Scout is likely already a member. There’s no honor among thieves.

By this logic the BSA should have been terminated long ago.

Our walking away from it only gives them more influence

.

We had no influence before the resolution. If we did, it wouldn’t even have been considered, much less passed. We still have no influence today. BSA is not a democracy, it is an autocracy with an agenda that is at war with religious liberty, and that wants to impose that agenda regardless of youth safety or family integrity.

 

[Sonic]

As I have stated earlier: I personally witnessed sexual harassment when I was a Scout. It was perpetrated by straight Scouts. Not by adults, straight adults, gay adults, gay Scouts, but by 15, 16, 17 year old boys.

Unfortunately, the troop you described in post 142 wouldn’t be considered a model troop, and you also mentioned it was disbanded (as it should have been). You also mentioned that the boys came from troubled backgrounds.

Post 142:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10809448&postcount=142

I’m seeing a contradiction here. You said the boys who did the “sexual harassing” were straight, and then you are contrasting that with the example of “gay scouts” or “gay adults” not being the ones who participated in the harassment.

I have to ask…

Would a truly straight scout (who was not suffering from an anti-social pathological condition) sexually harass his fellow boy scouts? Two of the biggest bullies I knew in high school ended up “coming out” after high school. They used to “sexually harass” me all through middle school and often accused many young men of being “gay” (although they often used another derogatory word I won’t post here).

Are you sure you don’t want to clarify your statements?

 

[Momofmyangels]

I find your arguments convincing. that is why I now urge that the Scouts carefully interrogate each member to locate and then root out all sinners and deviants.

Why resort to flippancy?

 

[Cat_Herder]

Why resort to flippancy?

I don’t know why he/she is doing that. Those of us who were in the BSA have basically just lost a loved one and we are all hoping and working to avoid harm to children due to this tragedy.

 

[Momofmyangels]

What are we trying to do by isolating them from those who admit to having SSA?
:

Protect them from exposure to an immoral lifestyle that society is attempting to force everyone to accept as perfectly ok.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Protect them from exposure to an immoral lifestyle that society is attempting to force everyone to accept as perfectly ok.

Exactly. And I hope the other person won’t turn around and say that they will inevitably have to live alongside gays and therefore they should get used to it. These are CHILDREN. Children are very susceptible to peer pressure and they are still trying to form their identities. People put their children in Boy Scouts with the expectation that they will be formed as leaders. Sexual identity is not a part of that expectation and it never will be. And since BSA is forcing it to be, we are GONE.

 

[Fairwinds]

Why resort to flippancy?

I’m not being flippant. I thing the Scouts should purge their ranks of all sinners.

 

[Fairwinds]

I don’t know why he/she is doing that. Those of us who were in the BSA have basically just lost a loved one and we are all hoping and working to avoid harm to children due to this tragedy.

scouts are too precious to expose to any kind of sin or evil. that is why we must root out all bad influences of any kind. for the children. I believe focusing on gays to the exclusion of other forms of sin is myopic.

 

[Sonic]

[sign]**Prize Fight

When you can’t get anywhere in a discussion,
take verbal swings at your fellow debater in order
to win the championship!**[/sign]

[sign]Odds: 20 to 1… Get Your Money Ready![/sign]

 

[Fairwinds]

[sign]**Prize Fight

When you can’t get anywhere in a discussion,
take verbal swings at your fellow debater in order
to win the championship!**[/sign]

[sign]Odds: 20 to 1… Get Your Money Ready![/sign]

what’s the bet? are we laying or taking the odds?

 

[Kamaduck]

Protect them from exposure to an immoral lifestyle that society is attempting to force everyone to accept as perfectly ok.

Are you seriously advocating that children avoid all contact with people who have SSA? We weren’t even talking about people who are acting on their disordered desires, just those who admit to having them. Should we also “protect” children from depressed people, who are more likely than others to commit the sin of suicide? After all, their feelings are disordered. How about all men? While not inherently disordered, they’re much more likely than women to commit the sin of rape. Should we really trust them with our little boys?

Being gay in and of itself- if that means having SSA and admitting that one has it- is hardly an “immoral lifestyle”, any more than admitting one has depression. I simply don’t want to see chaste boys needlessly excluded from healthy activities like scouting.

If you were arguing that they shouldn’t be admitted because it would tempt them, you might have a leg to stand on, although you’d still have to explain why there is an outcry over scouting, but not over gym classes or sports teams. However, what you’re doing is saying that these individuals- individuals who have not necessarily sinned against chastity, mind you- are inherently dangerous. That these boys should be excluded, not because they might be tempted to sin by the close quarters of camping, but because they are bad and dirty and immoral for having disordered desires.

Goodness, if all people with disordered desires have to stay away from children (even if they are children themselves), the human race is fairly doomed.

 

[NeedImprovement]

Have you noticed some of the arguments still attempt to make it appear like a two-way street - not unlike this term “sexual orientation” ? But they still keep tiptoeing around the most obvious question. Whether actively homosexual or sexually active youth have engaged in premarital sex or not :

• a) What are the chances that a youth who experiences a very magnetic attraction to girls is going to act upon those urges when he is exclusively among boys ?
• b) What are the chances that an openly homosexual youth who feels a magnetic (whatever it is they feel) towards boys is going to act upon those urges when he is exclusively among boys ?

the phrase sexual orientation isn’t directly deconstructable.

a) zero
b) lower than you think, especially if the rules prohibit it.
[/quote]

Oh , haven’t you heard ? . . . This is all about **homosexual activists changing the rules **.

 

[Sonic]

I don’t think it’s likely that children are going to start sexually forcing themselves on others when the rules expressly prohibit it.

I’ll just leave this here…

Third-grade boy forced to perform oral sex on three male classmates at Harlem school: suit

source: nydailynews.com/news/crime/boy-forced-perform-oral-sex-male-classmates-article-1.1359299

The incident took place at P.S. 194. The ringleader — who was in fifth grade and had been involved in an attack on a female student two years earlier — along with two third-grade students, pushed the boy into a bathroom stall, where he was forced onto his knees and had his hands behind his back. The boy’s mother is filing a $6 million lawsuit on Friday against the Education Department

By Kerry Burke AND Corinne Lestch / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Thursday, May 30, 2013, 10:24 PM

Updated: Friday, May 31, 2013, 2:30 AM

**The boy’s mother said she watched her son become distant and withdrawn after the bathroom assault.

“He would wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying,” she said. “My son was a very joyful, loving little boy, and the next few weeks after that he would just sit down and stare at the wall. He never stepped foot inside that school ever again.”**

 

[Sonic]

I’m pretty sure that in many cases, “gay” simply means that a person has SSA and lacks opposite-sex attraction.

gay - adjective \ˈgā\

4 a : homosexual

b : of, relating to, or used by homosexuals

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gay

ho·mo·sex·u·al - adjective \ˌhō-mə-ˈsek-sh(ə-)wəl, -ˈsek-shəl\

1. : of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex

2: of, relating to, or involving sexual intercourse between persons of the same sex

merriam-webster.com/dictionary/homosexual

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

A youth admitting that he has a same sex attraction is not the same as defining himself as gay. If a Scout identifies himself as gay, it is an implication that he intends to live out that lifestyle at some point in the future, and that is against the BSA code when it comes to allowing gay leaders. What kind of confusion must this send to the boy. The concern that many people have is that there could be many factors leading to a same sex attraction that do not automatically mean that he is gay. The old code was compatible with Church Teaching, the new code is not.

Political advocacy and all sexual conduct is prohibited and grounds for expulsion.

If the policy was contrary to the Church’s teachings the Bishops would have said so, they didn’t.

It takes away the ability of parents, adult leaders and chartered organizations to protect youth by limiting membership and activities on the basis of sexual orientation. There is a reason why fire codes require extinguishers in public places; taking them away raises the risk.

By this logic the BSA should have been terminated long ago.

.

We had no influence before the resolution. If we did, it wouldn’t even have been considered, much less passed. We still have no influence today. BSA is not a democracy, it is an autocracy with an agenda that is at war with religious liberty, and that wants to impose that agenda regardless of youth safety or family integrity.

Political advocacy and all sexual conduct is prohibited and grounds for expulsion

Unfortunately, the troop you described in post 142 wouldn’t be considered a model troop, and you also mentioned it was disbanded (as it should have been). You also mentioned that the boys came from troubled backgrounds.

Post 142:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=10809448&postcount=142

I’m seeing a contradiction here. You said the boys who did the “sexual harassing” were straight, and then you are contrasting that with the example of “gay scouts” or “gay adults” not being the ones who participated in the harassment.

I have to ask…

Would a truly straight scout (who was not suffering from an anti-social pathological condition) sexually harass his fellow boy scouts? Two of the biggest bullies I knew in high school ended up “coming out” after high school. They used to “sexually harass” me all through middle school and often accused many young men of being “gay” (although they often used another derogatory word I won’t post here).

Are you sure you don’t want to clarify your statements?

Do you think someone who does that is going to come out while they are doing that?

I don’t know why he/she is doing that. Those of us who were in the BSA have basically just lost a loved one and we are all hoping and working to avoid harm to children due to this tragedy.

I am a scout and I have no intention of leaving because of this as it does not contradict Church teaching, I am alos not going to return my Eagle Scout badge.

Protect them from exposure to an immoral lifestyle that society is attempting to force everyone to accept as perfectly ok.

Political advocacy and all sexual conduct is prohibited and grounds for expulsion

Are you seriously advocating that children avoid all contact with people who have SSA? We weren’t even talking about people who are acting on their disordered desires, just those who admit to having them. Should we also “protect” children from depressed people, who are more likely than others to commit the sin of suicide? After all, their feelings are disordered. How about all men? While not inherently disordered, they’re much more likely than women to commit the sin of rape. Should we really trust them with our little boys?

Being gay in and of itself- if that means having SSA and admitting that one has it- is hardly an “immoral lifestyle”, any more than admitting one has depression. I simply don’t want to see chaste boys needlessly excluded from healthy activities like scouting.

If you were arguing that they shouldn’t be admitted because it would tempt them, you might have a leg to stand on, although you’d still have to explain why there is an outcry over scouting, but not over gym classes or sports teams. However, what you’re doing is saying that these individuals- individuals who have not necessarily sinned against chastity, mind you- are inherently dangerous. That these boys should be excluded, not because they might be tempted to sin by the close quarters of camping, but because they are bad and dirty and immoral for having disordered desires.

Goodness, if all people with disordered desires have to stay away from children (even if they are children themselves), the human race is fairly doomed.

A number of studies have show that that is because the definition require penetration, without that require or change it to include envelopment too the numbers are actually about even, also several studies have show that boys are just as likely if not more likely to be molested by females than males.

Oh , haven’t you heard ? . . . This is all about **homosexual activists changing the rules **.

Last time I checked the BSA voted on it.

I’ll just leave this here…

Kamaduck said “I don’t think it’s likely…” as oppose to it never happens. Also that child clearly has mental issues and probably was sexually abused.

 

[JimG]

scouts are too precious to expose to any kind of sin or evil. that is why we must root out all bad influences of any kind. for the children. I believe focusing on gays to the exclusion of other forms of sin is myopic.

Perhaps they are being myopic, since they changed the policy to allow for avowed homosexuals, but made no similar provisions for avowed bdsm fetishists, avowed masturbators, avowed kleptomaniacs, or other disordered tendencies, even though those tendencies may never be acted upon. Everybody has disordered tendencies, but most will just have to keep quiet about them.