There’s a showdown brewing in Washington state between a Methodist church and the evil rulers of Boy Scouts of America.
The facts are simple enough. A gay man lead the church’s Scout troop; the national leadership told them they had to get rid of him; they refused to do so; the national leaders revoked the church’s charter; and now everyone’s lawyering up.
We covered the gay scoutmaster a few weeks back. He’s a beloved local leader, a former scout, and a really nice guy.
The Boy Scouts of America, on the other hand, are a pack of liars. Council leader Sharon Moulds claimed that Geoffrey McGrath had “intentions to make a public statement about his orientation and use our program as a means to further a personal agenda.” That’s simply not true, and she knew it. McGrath wasn’t using the program to further a personal agenda. He was using the program to mentor young kids, teach them skills and help them socialize with their peers. That’s pretty much the extent of his personal agenda.
How about we take this to the next level?
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The real reason the national scouting group kicked him out was because they hate the thought of a happy, successful, beloved gay man doing anything. This horseshit about “personal agenda” is simply code for “we have deep-seated prejudices, and we don’t want to have to confront them.”
So now what? GLAAD is backing the church, as are a slew of legislators. The church has attorneys working to resolve the issue. Meanwhile, favorable public opinion of the Scouts continues to drop precipitously, down 14 percent in the last two years.
roosterman62
Defining an individuals intention by their sexual orientation is old news that deserves no more attention. If the BSA can’t “get a grip”
and come to terms with their homophobia, I hope their numbers continue to decline.
I am a gay man and I was a boy scout. I learned much participating in their programs. I’d hate to see their demise, but, further acts of discrimination can not be tolerated.
loren_1955
Shame that the leaderships homophobia is causing so much grief for a organization that does so much good. I was in scouting from Cub Scout into my late 40’s. My adult years was always as a scout leader. In the latter years the sponsoring institution knew I was gay. My prejudice may be showing through, however, I feel that gays do contribute incredible to the scouting program. I took care of my boys, had dozens of eagle scouts, camping or hiking trips every month. The difference I found was I cared, the majority of dad’s didn’t give a shit to spending time with their sons. In many cases I became the dad, I shared the incredible moments around the campfires talking, eating the food the boys made, being part of their achievements…so much the dads never were part of. Again, shame, that Scouting and the red neck trailer trash parents are so homophobic. Us gays are dependable, loving, caring, and put on a great show, really what Scouting needs. (uh oh, the big secret…there are tons of gay leaders in Scouting…oops, don’t let people know)
LubbockGayMale
As a gay teen, I learned a lot from our church sponsored BSA troop, including M2M love and sex! Circle jerks and more were common, along with fires, tents and camping. The BSA is a great way for young gays to explore their sexuality, but they’ll never admit it!
Cam
So they were bigots, no surprise there.
Matt1961
@LubbockGayMale:
LubbockGayMale, I’m surprised by your statement. I’m a gay male, I’m a current scouting leader, I’ve got over 35 registered years with the organization. I’ve been a Scoutmaster for 4 different units, and NEVER have I EVER known of, participated in or heard of any sexual activity in a unit. I know a lot of units, and hundreds of unit leaders and it simply doesn’t happen (routinely). It’s that type of statement that would consider not allowing my own son to participate. Now I don’t doubt that it’s ever happened, but I certainly don’t think that it’s a matter of routine in any given area of the country.
Billy Budd
The Hitler youth, which was the Nazi equivalent of the boy scouts, had a lot of homosexual activity going on in it. Whenever you put a lot of men isolated from the company of women, there will be homosexual activity. In prisons, in the military, in the navy, etc.
SteveDenver
The Methodist church should call upon its national organization and force BSA to drop the entire network or STFU: which is what BSA should have done in the first place. Then BSA should find out which of their presumed straight leaders and workers enjoy blow jobs, a finger in the a55, or screwing an a55.
Throbert McGee
@Matt1961: I don’t have your extensive experience with Scouting, but I participated from grades 3 through 8. (Never got past First Class scout and only earned three merit badges, ’cause I was kinda lazy…)
Anyway, however, I did go on many, many campouts ranging from two nights to nearly two weeks in length. And believe you me, by the time I was in 7th and 8th grade, I knew what my dick liked, and I’d heard the term “circle jerks” somewhere or other, though I’d never participated in one. But I woulda been thrilled to death if certain of the older Scouts whom I looked up to had invited me to participate in one of these legendary group J/O sessions (and more!) that LubbockGayMale talks about.
However, nothing ever happened, and I was a 19-year-old college sophomore the first time I ever swapped handjobs with another male (a grad student, about 25 — in an out-of-the-way restroom on campus).
And in retrospect, I think it was for the best that the solo wank fantasies about other guys that I’d been enjoying since age 12 or so didn’t actually begin to come true until I was 19.
Throbert McGee
Also, while I disagree with the BSA’s policy against openly gay scoutmasters, I don’t blame them for being suspicious that some gay men, if officially allowed to do so, would do the Soft Stalinism with a Smile™ thing and start ever-so-gently encouraging both gay and straight boys to believe in all sorts of wrongheaded and idiotic notions.
For example, the idea that people who think homosexuality is intrinsically sinful secretly want to send LGBT people to concentration camps and kill them; and the idea that someone who’s willing to vote for “same-sex domestic partnerships” but is dead set against “same-sex marriage” must necessarily be a vicious homophobe and a theocratic totalitarian and a H8R; and the idea that Brendan Eich and Dan Cathy want to destroy the lives of gay people and TEAR GAY FAMILIES APART!!!!
Etc.
All these claims are wrongheaded superstitions believed in by a lot of credulous and silly adults, and I suspect that most of the currently closeted gay scoutmasters would more or less agree with me on this, and do not think in the histrionic and delusional terms of way too many LGBT activists.
So in that sense, it’s very unfair that they have to stay closeted for now in order to prevent the crazy-ass sorts of gay men from worming their way into BSA leadership.
However, I don’t blame the BSA for being extra-suspicious, given the Rainbow Community’s proven track record of acting like the love-children of Eric Cartman and Veruca Salt.
manjoguy
@SteveDenver: Here we go with the gay fascist line of thinking – it’s my way or the highway(“…force BSA to drop the entire network or STFU…) Where’s the tolerance? So you’re saying that telling one pack to get rid of its leader is an indictment on all gays involved with scouts? So Qweerty can read minds (“That’s simply not true, and she knew it.”)? Do we know that for sure?
Throbert McGee
@manjoguy: Silence, kulák, before we send you to a re-Neducation camp!
Throbert McGee
P.S. Perchance, does your “manjoguy” nick refer to a fondness for J/O Clubs and frot?
If you ever go on XTube or Bateworld, my username there is FrotDawg. (You might like the general style of my vids — lots of verbal, and visible from my toes to the top of my head — even if I’m not physically your type.)
Dakotahgeo
These BSA Anarchists are going to fart around until the corporations get tired of their BS and pull ALL funding and support from the BSA! Then maybe we’ll see some fast back-tracking by these oafs until equality is restored completely! What asses these BSA officials are!
mezzacanadese
What is Geoffrey McGrath’s personal agenda, other than mentoring young kids? The Boy Scouts are allowing gay kids to join, but not allowing gay leaders. What message does this send to the kids?
Mezaien
Non of my four boys were in “Boy Scouts” WTF fore?.
Cam
@Throbert McGee:
And what a shock, you support the suspicion of gays by anti-gay bigots. At least you’re consistent.
DCFarmboi
I probably won’t get much support for this, but I think those who want to reform rather than destroy BSA should employ some moderation. BSA just recently changed its policy to allow gay kids as scouts. The schism of a small amount of homophobes leaves a BSA a little more sympathetic. The next two steps should be “local option” on leaders where each sponsoring groups can set their own policy on leaders, such as this progressive Methodist Church. Second (which our beloved lgbt leadership doesn’t care about nor even has ever dare said one word of support), there should be a non-discrimination employment policy for the back office workers at BSA. Yes, volunteer scout leaders is more sexy to the elites but there are middle class and working class secretaries, accountants, and office managers whose economic security depends on not losing their job. Having a job taken away is a lot more important than not being given a volunteer opportunity.
Cam
@DCFarmboi:
Yes, because the goal should always be to worry about the bigots feelings and to move slowly so as not to upset them.
Billy Budd
The boy scout movement is so touchy and so phobic regarding homosexuality exactly BECAUSE the specific environment they create fosters same sex relationships and same sex experiences. I don’t mean sex between adults and little scouts, even though that could happen in theory (if not forbidden and controlled). I mean among the little scouts themselves, who are at an age of sexual discovery and curiosity, and at an age when prejudices have not yet been fully developed. Pre-pubescent kids will try out things. It is in their nature. And there is nothing wrong in that. If a kid wants to have sex experiences with another kid, they should be encouraged to do it. That is MY opinion.
Billy Budd
I played sexual “games” with many of my closest friends when I was a kid. All of these friends, without exception, are now totally straight adults. We were just fooling around, and I was the one who enjoyed it the most, of course. We jerked off together, touched each others dicks, watched forbidden porn movies that belonged to our parents, read straight sex magazines such as Playboy, had showers together and masturbated while it, etc etc. It was healthy and a lot of fun. We enjoyed ourselves and only I decided to keep having “games” with guys when I grew up.
Homosexual experiences between kids are normal and part of childhood. They are harmless.
Rusty
@Matt1961: Sorry Matt both my cousins were Boy Scouts back in the sixties and they told me about this. I didn’t join the Boy Scouts because I was a farm/cowboy and at 12 my partner who was 14 thought it was a waste of time and the unit was headed by a pervert, so we did other things but never had circle jerks or had anything sexual with other boys since we were both in the closet.
Merv
Eventually, the time for “evolving” is going to run out, along with the patience of the younger generation. Mr. Eich from Mozilla learned this the hard way. Increasingly, the “gay activists” aren’t even gay, or really activists, but just young straight people who have no memory of the bad old days and are simply confronted with situations that violate their innate sense of fairness.
Rusty
@Billy Budd: I agree with you on both the Hitler youth and the fact that the homosexual experimentation in young boys is harmless. My partner and I heard a lot about it from other guys in school. Although my partner and i were rotten to the core he never wanted us to have anything to do with them. We came out later and those boys all went on to be str8 get married and have families.
Rusty
@LubbockGayMale: Where did you go camping around Lubbock? I saw nothing but fields and plains when I lived in Shallowater. I also lived in Lubbock and Lamesa and there isn’t anywhere to camp that I could see not like on our coast in South Texas.
Billy Budd
@Rusty: I didn’t understand the part where you said you were rotten to the core.
Billy Budd
Many people, specially women (who are more repressed and have different hormones) believe that children are or should be asexual. That is not and should certainly not be the case. Kids should do what mother nature tells them to do. They should have social interactions with other kids of their age group, and naturally these may include sexual experimentation. Nobody should do anything they do not want to do. It must be consentual and natural and only among kids of similar age. But this is part of their discovery as persons: to experiment with sex. Boys masturbate. It is normal. It is part of the process of growing up.
Billy Budd
hss.state.ak.us/ocs/publications/pdf/sexualdevelop-children.pdf?
Read the paragraphs from “Six to ten years” to “Seven to twelve years”.
Rusty
@Billy Budd: By rotten to the core I meant my partner and I were doing more things than those boys were doing with each other. And as of you last comment about women and the rest I absolutely agree with you. It should be consentual and natural like it was with my first partner and me.
Billy Budd
@Rusty: Oh, I see. In my case, I was never rotten. I only tried anal sex when I was a full blown adult. Even oral sex was experienced as an adult.
Matt1961
@DCFarmboi: I thought that way, let’s work from the inside to get change to happen over time. I thought I could handle it, but honestly as much as I am trying to do what I can, I bump into a person who’s notion of what ‘gay’ means is so warped and confused that at this point I see it as a losing battle.
Since the vote last May ( I was proud to be one of those voting for the change) the organization has lost significant numbers of members and dollars. People on both sides of the fence on this issue. It wouldn’t bother anyone as much if we’d lost all of the fundamentalists that believe in the wrong thinking of the FRC, etc., but we are also losing those that think that the organization should be inclusive… PERIOD. Those folks have not given their support and have also left the organization.
For BSA it’s all about the numbers. At the upper levels it’s not necessarily about deeply held religious convictions. That I could almost understand. It’s about the dollars and members that they are most concerned about. Think about this. The top 10 professional Scout employees make a minimum of $500,000 each in salary and other compensation a year. The top do, the Chief Scout Executive, makes probably close to $800,000 annually. They’re worried about their bottom lines and their salaries. That’s all, not about the kids, not about the important lessons taught, but the all mighty dollar. It’s for that reason that I am withdrawing my support.
If they ever do become inclusive, I may be back to provide some leadership and service, but until that time I cannot be bothered with what I’ve witnessed going on in the organization personally.
Rusty
@Matt1961: I don’t know if you’re still keeping up with this story but I tend to disagree with you about this comment to the Lubbock man since in the 1960s a several Boy Scout leaders were caught a boy sex ring spanning several states. I suggest you digbup Boy Scout history or watch “Boys For Sale” on Youtube with Professor Tom Philpott at the helm from U of T and Mark McKinnon from the Daily Texan thank you
Dakotahgeo
@Rusty: I BELIEVE @Matt1961 stated sexual activity was NOT routine. I think that is as clear as one could make. There are always exceptions, but don’t go muddying the waters by conjuring up ghosts OR documentaries that are based on skewed numbers! Thank you!
Rusty
@Dakotahgeo: Conjuring up ghosts?Documentaries with skewed numbers? When we forget about the past it more than likely repeats in the future. It’s not so much that Matt61 said it was NOT routine but it was his denial that such things go on that I am commenting on. It was because of Professor TomPhilpott that in later years the law took allegations of child sexual abuse in male organizations more seriously and more men were found out and dismissed from the BS and the BS leaders covered up the reason for their dismissal instead of prosecuting them and later these secret documents were uncovered. Thank you.
Dakotahgeo
@Rusty: Whateva! Comment noted… dismissed.