Boy Scouts Expected to End Ban on Gay Leaders

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Lancaster church drops Boy Scout troop after decision on gay leaders
August 8, 2015

heraldonline.com/news/local/article30510942.html

BY ANDREW DYS
adys@heraldonline.com

A Presbyterian church in Lancaster has dropped a decades-long run with the Boy Scouts after the scouts voted last week to allow gay leaders in scouting.

First Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church of Lancaster made the decision and advised families of 63 scouts by letter that church principles do not mesh with allowing gay leaders in Boy Scouts, said Thomas “Buddy” Lever, a church member who has been involved with Boy Scouts at the church for 48 years.

On July 27, Boys Scouts of America voted to allow gay leaders, which follows a a decision several years ago to allow gay scouts.

Lever said Saturday it was not an easy decision but said church principles of morality do not mesh with homosexuality and that allowing openly gay scout leaders was the decision that prompted the church to stop sponsoring the troop.

Affected scouts had a chance to join two other nearby units. The church is opting to have a youth ministry now with a group called Trail Life USA, a Christian outdoor adventure club which Lever said more closely reflects church beliefs.

Read more here: heraldonline.com/news/local/article30510942.html#storylink=cpy
 
Why does a youth ministry for boys have to be affiliated with any national organization anyways? We hiked, camped, kayaked, ran white water, rock climbed, rappelled, studied animals and plants, and learned about God’s creation and our place in it as His sons. We belonged to no national organization.
 
Deus_tecum said:
Why does a youth ministry for boys have to be affiliated with any national organization anyways? We hiked, camped, kayaked, ran white water, rock climbed, rappelled, studied animals and plants, and learned about God’s creation and our place in it as His sons. We belonged to no national organization.
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It has some advantages in providing access to jointly owned camp facilities, insurance coverage on outings, etc., but it’s certainly not necessary. The Blessed Pier Giorgio Frasatti used to take friends out on skiing and mountain climbing trips and would usually include a priest to join in and hold a Mass out in the wild on Sunday, no reason a church group couldn’t do the same as part of its youth ministry.

dcfrassati.com/wp-content/themes/striking_r/cache/images/33_13-960x400.jpg

(People dressed better when camping in Italy, too!)
 
I recommend checking out the Troops of St. George.

troopsofsaintgeorge.org/blog/

I am an Eagle Scout myself, and I am seriously considering severing my relationship with the BSA. Living in Texas, I was one of the protesters present at the 2013 meetings (it just required a few days of vacation), and this organization, while still in its infancy and growing, seems like a good Catholic alternative to the BSA.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
It has some advantages in providing access to jointly owned camp facilities, insurance coverage on outings, etc., but it’s certainly not necessary. The Blessed Pier Giorgio Frasatti used to take friends out on skiing and mountain climbing trips and would usually include a priest to join in and hold a Mass out in the wild on Sunday, no reason a church group couldn’t do the same as part of its youth ministry.

dcfrassati.com/wp-content/themes/striking_r/cache/images/33_13-960x400.jpg

(People dressed better when camping in Italy, too!)
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A national or international organization can also offer a program … without a program all you’re really doing is family camping. Not that there’s anything wrong with family camping, but it isn’t really youth ministry, let alone scouting.

I think Bl. Pier Giorgio was a bit older than what we would consider scout age when he went on hikes with his friends. He could definitely be the patron of a modern-day rover scout movement.
 
gracepoole said:
Male heterosexual leaders have been allowed in Girl Scouting for eons, with the stipulation that a female leader must also be present (this ensures that a focus on female-centered activities and empowerment will be maintained). Should we assume that all male heterosexual leaders are there simply to prey on girls?

Indeed.
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As someone who worked at a scout camp for years, gay leaders (and scouts) are very problematic.

While adult men are not allowed to share a tent with a boy, male leaders are permitted to sleep in cabins with multiple boys (assuming there is always at least two male adults and multiple boys.

However, female leaders are not permitted to sleep in the same room and must be separated from the boys and men.

Female girls (Venture Crews are co-ed) also must have separate facilities.

This is where the gay leader (and scout) becomes an issue. Scouts are separated for sleeping to keep opposite sex apart from one another.

So what do you do with the gay scout or leader? If you have multiple gay scouts, you can’t put them in a tent together, it would be like putting a boy and a girl in the same tent. And putting the gay scout with a straight scout is still akin to putting a girl and boy in the same tent (even if there is no attraction)

Further more when dealing the coed Venture Crews, you can’t put the guy scouts with girls either.

So the only moral option is to make the gay scout sleep alone, which could be psychologically damaging to the gay scout if he’s afraid due to animal noises outside his tent, etc.

Allowing gay kids and now gay leaders is the end of the Boy Scouts as we know it because scouts with gay kids will either go camping far less OR be “morally relative.”

Because again… If you allow a gay boy to sleep in the same tent as another boy, what’s wrong with allowing a boy to sleep in the same tent with a girl

BTW - and before people say, "how often do boys and girls camp together in the Boy Scouts, while it rarely (if not never) happens in Scout Troops, it does happen in BSA Venture Crews and BSA Sea Scout Ships. Both of which can be co-Ed and are programs for 14-20 year olds (vs Troops which are for 11-17 year olds)

So this gay clause will have a SIGNIFICANT impact on Venture Crews and Sea Scout Ships.

Finally, what happens when a scout want to be a staff member or CIT at Boy Scout Camp? In the past, if two gay staff members hooked up and it became public knowledge, they were fired. Now, it they will be able to continue seeing each other, just like when male and female camp staffers start dating. And I know (I knew several male-female couples who dated while both working at Boy Scout camp and I know 2 who married).
 
Phil 19034:

Thanks for your post, it was informative.

I was an Explorer Scout in the mid-1980’s. Prior to 1987, I recall that each co-ed post had to have a minimum of one male leader and one adult female leader over 21. One post I was in for about a year (I was a senior in high school) consisted of a married couple in their late 20’s/early 30’s as adult leaders. Our group was informal, and was basically like a high school camping club. There was quite a bit of dating going on too, since this post was a good place to meet others with common interests. There were very strict rules on cohabitation.

I would think with the new rules today, each co-ed Explorer post would have to have a minimum of two male and two female adult leaders over 21. (Another post I was in had a hard time finding a female adult over 21 to go to Philmont, so our post could take a co-ed group to Philmont - we did find one and in 1985 took a co-ed group to Philmont.)

Prior to 1987, I recall that a Boy Scout troop required only one adult per ten Scouts - not so today - two adults minimum, no ifs, ands, or buts. (Even back then, one adult per ten Scouts was spread pretty thin).

For the record, I do remember a Scoutmaster in my area (I wasn’t in his troop, but I had gone camping with his troop and had friends who were in his troop) who got arrested for child molesting in the mid-1980’s. Many of us were shocked, since he was well respected and dedicated to Scouting since the early 1970’s. Turned out he molested at least two Boy Scouts (I knew one of the Scouts - he told me years later) , was found guilty, and spent six years in jail. This is one reason in the late 1980’s, the Boy Scouts began extensive background checks for volunteers, much like the Safe Environment Training that many dioceses are now using.

This is another reason today the Boy Scouts do not allow adult leaders to spend the night with the boys in a tent (I don’t know about the rule if you were say in a barracks with at least two adults present), are not allowed to use the same change rooms at the pool, and are not allowed to shower in the presence of the boys.

The Boy Scouts ending a ban on homosexuals as adult leaders - bad idea. I also remember Archbishop Timothy Broglio testifying before a congressional committee on the dangers of repealing, “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue”. I wish Congress would have listened more attentively.
 
hwriggles4 said:
Phil 19034:

Thanks for your post, it was informative.

I was an Explorer Scout in the mid-1980’s. Prior to 1987, I recall that each co-ed post had to have a minimum of one male leader and one adult female leader over 21. One post I was in for about a year (I was a senior in high school) consisted of a married couple in their late 20’s/early 30’s as adult leaders. Our group was informal, and was basically like a high school camping club. There was quite a bit of dating going on too, since this post was a good place to meet others with common interests. There were very strict rules on cohabitation.

I would think with the new rules today, each co-ed Explorer post would have to have a minimum of two male and two female adult leaders over 21. (Another post I was in had a hard time finding a female adult over 21 to go to Philmont, so our post could take a co-ed group to Philmont - we did find one and in 1985 took a co-ed group to Philmont.)

Prior to 1987, I recall that a Boy Scout troop required only one adult per ten Scouts - not so today - two adults minimum, no ifs, ands, or buts. (Even back then, one adult per ten Scouts was spread pretty thin).

For the record, I do remember a Scoutmaster in my area (I wasn’t in his troop, but I had gone camping with his troop and had friends who were in his troop) who got arrested for child molesting in the mid-1980’s. Many of us were shocked, since he was well respected and dedicated to Scouting since the early 1970’s. Turned out he molested at least two Boy Scouts (I knew one of the Scouts - he told me years later) , was found guilty, and spent six years in jail. This is one reason in the late 1980’s, the Boy Scouts began extensive background checks for volunteers, much like the Safe Environment Training that many dioceses are now using.

This is another reason today the Boy Scouts do not allow adult leaders to spend the night with the boys in a tent (I don’t know about the rule if you were say in a barracks with at least two adults present), are not allowed to use the same change rooms at the pool, and are not allowed to shower in the presence of the boys.

The Boy Scouts ending a ban on homosexuals as adult leaders - bad idea. I also remember Archbishop Timothy Broglio testifying before a congressional committee on the dangers of repealing, “don’t ask, don’t tell, don’t pursue”. I wish Congress would have listened more attentively.
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I don’t think there is a ready solution to the problem of allowing two boys in a tent if one or both of them are gay, just as it would be improper to put a boy and girl in the same tent.
 
I will go out on a limb and suggest the LDS is going to withdraw from the BSA. There are too many comments from the LDS community that suggest a majority of Mormons no longer feel that the money they have invested in the BSA equally benefits both male and female Mormon youth, and that the decision to allow homosexual leaders - with whom Mormon youth will unavoidably have contact through other troops - is just the final straw.

From today’s Salt Lake Tribune:
If most Utah Mormons got their way, the LDS Church would split with the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) — a program for male teens that has been part of the Utah-based faith for more than a century.
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A new UtahPolicy.com survey shows 63 percent of respondents who termed themselves “very active” in the LDS Church — both men and women — said Mormon leaders “definitely” or “probably” should bolt from the BSA and launch their own group for young male Latter-day Saints.
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Read more: sltrib.com/home/2847995-155/most-utah-mormons-want-their-church

Anecdotally, more than a few Mormon mothers feel their church’s financial involvement with the BSA comes at the expense of programs that benefit their daughters, as a Tribune columnist noted: sltrib.com/home/2831695-155/kirby-why-we-dont-support-the

An exodus would mean the BSA would lose more than a third of its chartered troop organizations - few of whose members would transfer to existing troops - and 18% of its total membership (ditto), as well as a significant source of funding and donors.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
A scout leader (and physician) who was perpetrating homosexual acts against teenage boys was just arrested in Jackson County. Youth safety policies do not prevent all possibility of molestation, despite what an earlier poster stated.

kmbc.com/news/former-blue-springs-physician-charged-with-sodomy-in-case-involving-boy-scout/34761520
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No Youth Protection program is 100% fool proof. However, while the homosexual ban was part of the BSA’s Youth Protection program, the ban was not fundamentally started for Youth Protection from molestation (thought it was part of it).

The major reason is one of morality and chastity. To be plan and simple, if it is considered immoral and unchaste by the Boy Scouts for an unrelated boy & girl to sleep in the same tent or room in a cabin; then who is it ok for a homosexual boy (or leader) to sleep in the same tent or cabin room with people he would potentially be attracted to?

Just as in the case with boy and girl in same tent; placing a homosexual boy in the same tent is placing the child in the near occasion of sin. And if you placed the homosexual boy in a girl’s tent, you are doing the same to the girl, placing her in a near occasion of sin.

The only way to reconcile this with the policy of no boys and girls in same tent is to force homosexual boys to sleep in a tent by themselves. And that is problematic in its own way.

Allowing homosexuals into the Boy Scouts essentially says that the Boy Scouts no longer believes in Chastity. And if it no longer believes in Chastity, then why not make all Scouting co-ed and allow boys and girls to sleep in the same tents??? :eek:
 
gracepoole said:
act may be homosexual but the individual may not be.
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86% of gay & lesbian pedophiles self-ID as gay & lesbian. Yes, it’s possible for gay & lesbian pedophiles to self-ID as straight (14% do). But that doesn’t change fact that they’re gay & lesbian pedophiles. If a person knowingly & willingly has same sex sexual behaviors, then they’re gay/lesbian by sexual behavior definition even if they self-ID as straight.
 
Yet another homosexual Boy Scout leader was arrested this week. The Youth Safety policies that we were earlier told would be sure to prevent such homosexual molestations didn’t work.

Fisher was an Assistant Scoutmaster since 2011. I fail to see how increasing the number of homosexual men in the BSA, as well as boys who openly identify themselves by their sexual proclivities, will make the problem any better.
Updated: Friday, August 21 2015, 08:10 PM EDT Caledonia, N.Y. - An assistant Boy Scout leader in Livingston County is behind bars for allegedly having child pornography. According to the Livingston County District Attorney’s Office, the boy’s parents found thousands of text messages exchanged between the assistant scout leader, 25-year-old Daniel Fisher, and their son.
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The parents asked Fisher to stop contacting their child and thought he had, but secretly the two found a new way to communicate. “Using the computer, Skype, and I think there was another account, they were able to communicate that way, I guess, in secret; the parents weren’t aware of that, and eventually the parents figured it out, and that’s when the police were called,” explained First Assistant District Attorney Victor Rowcliffe. Rowcliffe said when police went to Fisher’s home, he turned over two cell phones. One phone, according Rowcliffe, had inappropriate photos taken of the Skype interactions Fisher had with the boy.
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Fisher is charged with promoting a sexual performance by a child and possessing a sexual performance by a child. Fisher first got involved in the Caledonia Boy Scout Troop 4027 around 2011. The troop master told 13WHAM they had an emergency committee meeting with parents when they heard about the arrest.
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“We’re going to be reeducating our youth on what to do if you see something strange or feel uncomfortable. There are various programs within the Boy Scouts that we use to teach the boys how to recognize when something isn’t right and then what to do at that point, and to reinforce with the boys that, if you ever feel uncomfortable, that something isn’t right, go and tell a trusted adult so that we can take action,” explained Scout Master of Boy Scout Troop 4027 David Ebersole. “When we learned about this individual’s arrest, his membership with the Boy Scouts of America was immediately severed. Not only here with the local Boy Scout troop, but nationwide forever. He will never ever again be able to be a Boy Scout leader, or affiliated, or be able to approach any individual with the program.”
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The Livingston County Sheriff’s Office is asking any parent who believes Fisher may have had inappropriate contact with their child to contact them at (585) 243-7100.
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No other victims have come forward.
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Read More at: 13wham.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/scout-leader-facing-child-porn-allegations-25655.shtml
 
Arizona_Mike said:
Yet another homosexual Boy Scout leader was arrested this week. The Youth Safety policies that we were earlier told would be sure to prevent such homosexual molestations didn’t work.

Fisher was an Assistant Scoutmaster since 2011. I fail to see how increasing the number of homosexual men in the BSA, as well as boys who openly identify themselves by their sexual proclivities, will make the problem any better.
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The Boy Scouts didn’t learn the lessons that the Catholic Church hopefully has learned.

Allowing men with serious disorders into leadership roles is a recipe for trouble.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
Yet another homosexual Boy Scout leader was arrested this week. The Youth Safety policies that we were earlier told would be sure to prevent such homosexual molestations didn’t work.

Fisher was an Assistant Scoutmaster since 2011. I fail to see how increasing the number of homosexual men in the BSA, as well as boys who openly identify themselves by their sexual proclivities, will make the problem any better.

Read More at: 13wham.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/scout-leader-facing-child-porn-allegations-25655.shtml
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Why do you consider this man a ‘homosexual’ rather than just a paedophile? Given all the evidence that gays (adults attracted to other adults of the same sex) are no more likely to be paedophiles than anyone else? And the number of men who are both paedophiles and attracted to adult women but not men, who vastly outnumber the ‘gay’ paedophiles? How does this accord with the Catholic Church Catechism?
 
DrTaffy said:
Why do you consider this man a ‘homosexual’ rather than just a paedophile? Given all the evidence that gays (adults attracted to other adults of the same sex) are no more likely to be paedophiles than anyone else? And the number of men who are both paedophiles and attracted to adult women but not men, who vastly outnumber the ‘gay’ paedophiles? How does this accord with the Catholic Church Catechism?
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“No true Scotsman…”
 
gilliam said:
Already struggling to reverse a long-term decline in membership, the Boy Scouts have been increasingly consumed over the last two decades by battles over the exclusion of gay people, divisions that threatened to fracture the organization. Conservative partners saw the policy as a bulwark against unwanted social change, but the Boy Scouts’ anti-gay stance was costing it public support and cachet as well as corporate funders, and lately has brought on the threat of costly lawsuits.

nytimes.com/2015/07/27/us/boy-scouts-expected-to-end-ban-on-gay-leaders.html
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If anyone believes allowing homosexual men to be scout leaders is going to reverse the long-term decline in memebership, you are wrong. Kids over the past 30 years have started to gravitate to other things, scouting will never have the appeal it held years ago.
 
estesbob said:
“No true Scotsman…”
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So all those Catholic priests who abused children did so because they were Catholic priests, did they? Or does the “no true Scotsmen” argument suddenly become valid there?

After all, they were indubitably Catholic, whereas I have seen no proof that this man was ‘homosexual’ in the usually accepted sense of the term.
 
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