The Boy Scout Fallout

theblacksphere.net ^ | 6-3-2013 | Amy Gerwing

[servo1969]

The dust has scarcely settled from the Boy Scouts of America’s landmark vote to allow openly gay young men and boys to participate in scouting, yet already another controversy is brewing with parents and churches caught up in the crossfire.

Nationwide, congregations and families are coming to terms with the BSA policy change. In an effort to remain strong in their biblical convictions, many are being forced to cut ties with the BSA despite years of financial support and mutual trust.

But in doing so, their decision to withdraw support of the nation’s largest scouting organization has come under scrutiny by the liberal media and the leftwing blogosphere. Just days following the vote, Atlanta-area pastor Ernest Easley made national news when he advised his parishioners to cut all ties with BSA.

“I never dreamed I’d have to stand up publicly and say to parents: Pull your kids out of the Boy Scouts,” Easley told the Baptist Press May 28. “If you would have asked me that five years ago, 10 years ago, I would have laughed,” Easley said. “And even as I was saying it Sunday morning, I thought, I cannot believe I’m having to address this and encourage parents to pull their children out of the Boy Scouts of America.”

Louisville’s largest church, Southeast Christian Church, also made headlines when they cut ties with the Boy Scouts after the national organization decided to drop its ban on gay youth.

“We want everyone, including ourselves, to live by biblical standards,” said the Executive Pastor Tim Hester. “Truly for us it’s a logical decision … We cannot be distracted from the mission God has called us to.”

The BSA policy change is a sad reality that parents too must come to terms with. Michael Woodward, whose eleven year old son suffers from Asperger’s Syndrome and is particularly vulnerable to outside influences, has also decided to withdraw his support of BSA.

“I cannot have my son say the Scout oath “…to keep myself morally straight…knowing that the Scout’s definition of that is now in direct contradiction to God’s definition. I cannot risk having my Asperger son led by a role model that is in fact immoral. He would follow.”

So as parents and pastors make the hard choice to cut ties with BSA on account of their new policy, the liberal media has transferred their accusations of bigotry and intolerance from the BSA to its outgoing members and sponsors. Even before making a final decision at this summer’s annual convention, the Southern Baptist Convention has come under attack by those on the left for indicating that they will recommend for its 47,000 churches to pull away from BSA.

Whispers of litigation against these churches have already spurred non-profit legal foundations like Liberty Institute to take up potential lawsuits that are sure to come down the pike. It’s unfortunate that these institutions are being drawn into an ideological fight that they didn’t start nor go looking for.

Churches, families and the Scouts themselves are what some might consider collateral damage of a decade-long battle waged by the LGBT organizations against the BSA to impose their morality on a non-government entity. And thanks to a compliant media, clearly in the LGBT camp, these institutions must fend off accusations of intolerance and bigotry while trying to stand strong in their biblical convictions.

“We hoped to keep sex and politics out of Scouting,” lamented John Stemberger, a lifelong Scout with two sons in scouting, now leading the fight to start a new scouting chapter in defiance of the adopted policy. Unfortunately the LGBT community and the liberal media had other plans.

Sadly, it’s the parents and churches that must unravel this messy BSA policy and tenaciously step through the landmine of media scrutiny as they seek to live biblically in an increasingly anti-Christian society.

[GBA]

That list needs to be balanced by totaling the litigation bounty a change like this will generate.

There are winners and losers and those who pay and those who get paid.

And, finally, after the smoke has cleared and the tears have dried, there are the real winners: those who designed this operation as a step toward winning the war they wage.

They appear to have won this battle, but a true win will depend upon which way the ever more radioactive fallout from this blows.

It is early, too early to tell, but I think the winds are changing.

[stars & stripes forever]

They are either in denial about the organization or ignorant. Some prefer to be ignorant; then they are not accountable when confronted with issues that go against their worldview.

[Last Dakotan]

Now that open gayness is no longer part of the scouts' core values...

Huh? What are you talking about?

When was open gayness part of scouting's core values?

[longtermmemmory]

The scouts just became a toxic organization.

There is no “win” for them.

The future is set for failure. No father, no mother will allow her son to be endangered by recreational sex politics or to become a pawn for recreational sex politics.

There is no substantive future source fo new VOLUNTARY recruits.

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

All those that think the BSA will go under - I think the libs have planned this for a long time, and they will move in and fund the organization as the churches desert it. The result will be a BSA that no longer teaches boys to be “morally straight” - they will redefine it into PC feel-good mush and millions of boys will be misled. Bang goes another source of Godly influence in the world. Satan wins a round - yeah, we know he loses the war, but people will be hurt nonetheless.

Those that are no longer associating with the organization need to make the break clean - no more money, no more use of facilities, don’t buy the popcorn. Try to starve ‘em out before the libs prop ‘em back up. Else there will be another Girl Scouts organization out there promoting evil in the name of innocence. Switch support to one of the church-based alternatives that are popping up as we speak.

Hate it for the kids and the millions of Scout leaders and former Scouts out there (I was never a Scout and I have only raised daughters, so I don’t have a tie) - but this will soon be a zombie organization that is spreading evil instead of good like GSA has become. Salt that loses its flavor is good for nothing.