Twitter
Facebook
Boy Scouts of America reiterates anti-gay stance
Good grief, when is the Boy Scouts of America going to get it?
Not allowing gays and lesbians into the organization is such a disgrace.
I was a Cub Scout in the 70s and I was so excited to be a part of the Pinewood Derby and to wear my uniform to school on the days of my den meetings. Some of the best times I ever had with my dad as a kid were on Scouts-related activities.
I didn’t know then that I was a part of an anti-gay organization but it does taint my feelings about the Scouts now.
There’s a really brave woman named Jennifer Tyrrell who I wrote about yesterday and her story is making a lot of us think about how we feel about the Boy Scouts of America as an organization in the year 2012.
Tyrrell is the Ohio mom who was den leader of her son’s scouting troop but got kicked out, after a year, because she is a lesbian.
GLAAD tried to set up a meeting between Tyrrell and the BSA this week but the organization refused and issued this statement to CNN: ‘Our focus is on delivering the nation’s foremost youth program of character development and values-based leadership training. Our mission does not include teaching young people about sex or sexual orientation, and we do not believe it is Scouting’s role to introduce this topic in our youth development program.’
To read the complete story, which includes statements from other parents in Tyrrell’s former troop, go over to Gay Star News.
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
Mark Bessenger says:
Their mission does not include teaching about sex or sexual orientation, but their program of values-based leadership training by obvious exclusion of gays and lesbians teaches that it is okay to hate and discriminate. Too bad there’s no badge for being jerks.
RichB in PS says:
I too began in the late 50s being a ‘cub’ scout, boys scout as a troop leader and a den leader in a cub scout troop, onto Order of The Arrow — great training on many levels but living 50s and 60s including living the scout motto did not encourage me to be what or act upon what I was thinking. I can call it ‘being moral’ according to the scriptures of being a boy scout.
Lionhart says:
I was a Boy Scout for about 3 months when I was 13. I could not tie a knot…I could not pitch a tent…I pulled back the bow and let it go…it hit me in the face…I didn’t know that you were supposed to let go of the arrow, not the bow part. 9 years later I had sex with the same married troop leader…I’m not sure what I learned, except BE PREPARED.