The Boy Scouts of America (BSA), the 108-year-old youth organization, is currently considering bankruptcy because of hundreds of millions in legal fees surrounding over 2,000 allegations of abuse by former BSA scout leaders since before 1994.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Chief Scout Executive Mike Surbaugh said “There are no imminent actions or immediate decisions expected” regarding bankruptcy. He added, “We have a social and moral responsibility to fairly compensate victims who suffered abuse during their time in Scouting.”
For a century, the BSA removed gay scouts and scout leaders, calling them immoral, unclean and irreverent towards God. They also forbade transgender scouts from joining until 2017.
However, the BSA didn’t incorporate rules to prevent child molestation until their Youth Protection Program of 1988 which opened meetings to parent observers and forbade adults from ever being alone with or undressing around kids. The BSA also didn’t require criminal background checks, something that could have weeded out convicted child molesters, until 2008.
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In 1991, The Washington Times published a five-part investigation into the BSA’s sexual abuse problem which concluded, “The Boy Scouts are a magnet for men who want to have sexual relations with children… Pedophiles join the Scouts for a simple reason: It’s where the boys are.”
In 2011, Queerty called the BSA “the Catholic Church with merit badges” referring to the Church’s long and ongoing child sex abuse scandals.
While no BSA officials ever publicly blamed gay men for the molestations, many conservative and Republican BSA supporters have.
And yet, one study has shown that most child molesters are actually straight and cisgender. Most studies of molesters haven’t asked offenders about their sexual orientation, leaving people to assume their sexual orientation based on the gender of the child they abuse. But in a 1993 report, the National Academy of Sciences said, “Most molesters of boys do not report sexual interest in adult men.”
Related: Anti-gay pastor and wife arrested after he’s busted for luring kids with candy then molesting them
In 2012, a court ordered the BSA to release over 20,000 pages detailing 1,200 cases of alleged child sex abuse within its ranks from 1965 to 1985. In many cases, molesters were allowed to continue serving. In a third of the cases, the BSA never reported allegations to police.
The BSAs have also been fighting a court battle in Texas (where their headquarters is located) to keep secret records of alleged child sexual abuse from 1985 onward.
In May 2018, the BSA announced that it would welcome girls to join starting in 2019, possibly as a way to help low membership numbers.
Rampant child molestation aside, the BSA does teach valuable life skills and help build community. When the group began allowing gay members, many conservatives warned a mass exodus of outraged parents would end the organization.
It’s a sad irony that instead, the BSA’s downfall may come at the child molesting hands of straight, cisgender men.
Kieran
queerty is the furthest thing from “free of an agenda”. They delete all comments that go against their narrow, leftist agenda. Why be so afraid of the open, free expression of ideas and opinions? Not all gay men are liberal snowflakes.
Secure, tolerant, freedom-loving people (regardless of sexual orientation) don’t resort to censorship.
Brian
You’re welcome to write comments that run counter to “leftists.” Other users do that.
Your comment was deleted for another reason. You didn’t simply state a conservative opinion. You must have said something bigoted… and given your angry comment here, that’s easy to imagine.
Anyway, a private blogging site can censor anyone they want. You have no 1st Amendment rights here.
Vince
The liberal snowflake insult tells me that your comment was just a rant.
Catholicslutbox
They do?
I’ve yet to actually witness that.
but it’s not like I check the comments section more than once.
Juanjo
Honey, you have been posting your drivel here consistently. Now climb down off the cross. We need the wood for something useful.
Kangol
Your comment is visible to all of us, so what are you talking about this time? You often come off as the biggest right-wing snowflake, you know.
o.codone
Kieran. What you say is true. Queerty removes any comment they don’t like. That action goes counter to the free expression of ideas that a comment section is supposed to embrace and promote. But Queerty says to hell with free expression if it gets in the way of the narrative. Deleting comments significantly cuts down on traffic because ppl leave the site when their comments are deleted and their viewpoint isn’t heard. Once a post is stripped of all it’s comments whats left is the bland drumbeat of a one-sided narrative devoid of color, argument, debate, opinion, etc. Boring. And, boring is bad for business. Finally, just because you can delete a comment doesn’t mean you should. In fact, we’d have a much more vibrant gay online community if all opinions were heard.
Lacuevaman
What a crock of misleading crap!!!
from an abstract of the 1994 article i found: “in the remaining 269 cases, two offenders were identified as being gay or lesbian. In 82% of cases (222/269), the alleged offender was a heterosexual partner of a close relative of the child.” Wonder if an offender in 2018 would identify as a heterosexual? 1994 was a very different time.
And then there is this statement from this queerty post: “But in a 1993 report, the National Academy of Sciences said, “Most molesters of boys do not report sexual interest in adult men.” question: did the molesters report sexual interest in female children or adult females? Perhaps there are homosexual pedophiles and heterosexual pedophiles…..you think??
Brian
So, twice you’re suggesting that a lack of evidence is evidence of evidence. JFC there are a lot of loony idiots out today.
Vince
Yes. Most Pedophiles do not identify as gay. 1994 or 2018. They have no interest in gay men. This is not a tough concept.
Juanjo
Lacuevaman – In scientific terms, the people who do research in the area of sexual disorders like pedophilia, refer to homosexual and heterosexual pedophiles. HOWEVER, they are not referring to the sexual orientation of the individual involved. They are referring to the gender of the victims. If you ever bothered to read the actual research into pedophilia, one consistent finding is that pedophiles have extreme difficulties in forming intimate relationships with adults. You might want to actually read the research before posting drivel which displays your complete ignorance on the subject.
Billy Budd
If I were a child molester, where would I go? To the scouts, of course. Or to a church. Priests and scout leaders are at the best position to grab and deflower little kids, so that is the place they choose to go. The irony is that these same institutions are supposedly totally anti-gay.
Vince
I think it’s funny that the bigots are always coming down on gay men when it comes to these pedophiles in the Boy scouts and the Catholic Church. Yet it’s those same pedophiles that mostly identify with the bigots. Gay men are into men. If you’re into kids you’re just a pedophile. Not a tough concept.
Juanjo
One thing left out of this article is that starting in the 1980s the Mormon Church decided to get very involved in scouting as a way to make the church more mainstream. They directed the various stakes and associated wards to get themselves involved in sponsoring scout groups. It was highly successful in many parts of the country. It also led to a huge issue with Mormon local leaders who were involved in scouting being accused of molestation or hiding such accusations from the public. Back in the 1990s, the Mormon Church settled a number of high-value cases concerning a Mormon “bishop” in the Western United States who was accused of molestation yet managed to stay one step ahead, moving from state to state and somehow managing to keep his temple recommend and his “Mormon in good standing” rating. A good friend of mine was involved in the lawsuits as a lawyer representing some victims. To their credit, the Mormon leaders in SLC knew nothing about what was going on. It was the local leadership at the stake and ward leadership level who were worried about their own reputations who were kicking the ball into someone else’s yard in hopes it would all just go away. Once SLC got involved, they acted fast and a lot of lower level Mormon leaders got their heads handed to them over the scandal. The church settled all the cases quickly. It cost them a lot of money. Then they put in a series of directives on how any Morman involved in the scouting as a leader was not allowed to be alone with any scouts ever, for any reason.
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gaym50ish
The Mormon Church is not only anti-gay, but controls members’ lives in a way that no other church does. Young men are expected to get their education, go on a mission and then marry young and begin having children. Young gay and bisexual men have no opportunity to explore their sexuality, so they enter into marriages and have secret gay sex on the side.
I have a hunch that most of the ones who abuse scouts are not true “pedophiles” interested in small children but are instead “ephebophiles” attracted to the kids of Eagle Scout age. These are guys who would never be screened out in a criminal background check.
BStewart27
My own troop in Charlotte, thankfully, adhered closely to the expressed ideals of scouting, and people still tease me, “you’re such a Boy Scout.” However I’ve been searching for years for the name of the Explorer Post leader in Nantucket who raped me in 1969. The damage was deep and made coming out just a whole lot harder.
gaym50ish
BSA always thought it had a “gay” problem but instead had a pedophile problem, and its leaders never understood the difference. Excluding gays did not exclude the child molesters. It’s usually the guys in heterosexual marriages, people you think are straight arrows, who molest children. In any institution, vigilance is the only way to prevent child sexual abuse.