By Harold Pease
A year ago the Boy Scouts of America elected Robert M. Gates, past CIA director and national defense secretary, as its national president. Perhaps there has never been a more high profile national president. His honors in the scouting program are just as impressive.
Unfortunately his message this month to the Scouts’ national annual meeting in Atlanta Georgia set the BSA on fire. The Associated Press reported, “that the organization’s longstanding ban on participation by openly gay adults is no longer sustainable, and called for change in order to avert potentially destructive legal battles.” This position is not a surprise to those who know Gates. Just last year he said, that he “personally would have favored ending the ban on gay adults, but he opposed any further debate after the Scouts’ policy making body upheld the ban.” Gates, as former national defense secretary, was the father of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy allowing gays into the military services.
Many years ago I served as a lay minister and received an unusual patron for counseling, a new move-in to whom I was to have ecclesiastical jurisdiction for a time. He told me a horrifying story, the details of which I cannot repeat here, but which involved his activities as a scoutmaster to three little boys at different times and in different troops over a period of time. He told me of his sexual desire for little boys and begged me to help him avoid any service opportunity that placed him in close proximity with young men. I did as he requested. Contacting authorities confirmed what he shared, although at least twenty-five years earlier, revealing that two of the scouts, now adults, were now themselves gay and having to deal with the same lust for other little boys activated by the activities of their former scoutmaster.
He also spoke of a boy of like age in his neighborhood presently that wandered by occasionally. His eyes lit up, as you or I would salivate over the smells of a sirloin steak barbequed on the grill. He called him “fresh meat.” I warned him of the consequences of any action on his part and advised that he immediately separate himself from the boy and seek the company of another adult, preferably his wife (he was bi-sexual) or a family member. He was also advised to seek professional help for his craving appetite. He promised to follow that advice and as far as I know did, but I was stunned by the power of this appetite. Over time I counseled other gays, each having his own age preferences and not all focused on twelve and thirteen year old little boys.
President Gate’s “enlightened” suggestions met mostly with raving reviews by the establishment press with words such as equality, fairness, openness, inclusive, and progressive. I saw nothing pointing out the dangers of allowing seasoned adult male predators to prey on our vulnerable innocent little boys. Opening the Boy Scout Program, with its numerous close quarter campouts, would be heaven to scout leader predators (we used to call them perverts) such as I described above. If sodomy is against the law in every state in the union, even criminalized, why would we allow, encourage, and protect it in the Boy Scout program?
Advocates for allowing gay scout leaders into the BSA, say that this change is necessary to keep the program from going extinct. Since 70% of scout units are sponsored and funded by local churches the argument is bogus. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsors half of these and they are sure to pull out of the organization because of this change alone. Extinction is more likely to follow if this change happens. Christian parents will not knowingly send their young boys over night to known homosexuals. Contributions will dry up. There is no reason for Christians to be bullied into submission by gay activists.
Yet another problem, not addressed by Gates, is how do the Christian churches square the scout law, clean, and the scout oath requiring a scout to be morally straight, with their view that homosexuality is not being clean or morally straight? Most Christian churches teach the Biblical position on homosexuality, which is the opposite of being morally straight, and also is heavily condemned by God.
Opponents of what has been written in this column are certain to rebut, “But not all gays are pedophiles.” That may be so, but too many of them are and even one who targets little boys is one too many.
Finally, the gay movement has not shown itself to be open to compromise. To conciliate them two years ago the BSA changed its policy to allow boys who thought themselves gay to have membership. But this was not enough. Seemingly, the gay agenda seeks to destroy the organization instead. Why do they not instead create their own organization called “Gay Campers of America” and have any program they like and leave the BSA alone?
Gates statement upon becoming national president made a year ago was uplifting, “I believe every child deserves an opportunity to experience what Scouting offers.” I do not believe that this should include the danger of being sexually molested.
Dr. Harold Pease is a syndicated columnist and an expert on the United States Constitution.