[wolfman23601]

Unfortunately, many of the “straight” scout leaders are closet cases. I wouldn’t let my son go on a camping trip with the scouts anyway. They need to require leaders have their own child in the program. Anyone wanting to take little boys on camping trips when their son isn’t one of them is probably a creep, whether they are openly homo or not.

[longtermmemmory]

so a father who sadly buried his own child is ineligible? When the child turns 18 they are timed out?

I have a colleague who has taken down his eagle scout letter from the wall over this. He is embarrassed to have been a scout now. All this over less than 1% of the population in order to satisfy some sexual fetish.

[The Ghost of FReepers Past]

I agree. Only parents allowed.

I suppose a person raised in the Boy Scouts might grow up enjoying the role of leader. But the risk is too great. Let the guy take his own family members, friends, or just go by himself. Scouts if for the kids, not the adults.

[Steve_Seattle]

"Unfortunately, many of the “straight” scout leaders are closet cases."

Last week I was sitting with some other retirees in my lcal bar when a story came on the TV about this issue. I made a sarcastic comment that, "Yeah, with the scouts already paying off lawsuits for sex abuse cases, it makes a lot of sense to bring in gay scoutmasters."

Unbeknownst to me, an old dyke-type woman had come in the bar and was sitting at a table behind me. She was offended and said, "All that sex abuse was committed by heterosexuals," to which I replied, "That makes a lot of sense, heterosexuals molesting young boys." Then she called me a bigot. Not wanting to escalate the situation, I just dropped it.

But the point is that closet gays HAVE infiltrated the scouts, just as they infiltrated the Catholic priesthood. And in seminaries where gays assumed positions of power, homosexuality quickly defined the institution and became the norm.

That will happen with the scouts if they accept gay scoutmasters. It will become the norm, just like the YMCA is now known as a haven for gays.

[SZonian]

"They need to require leaders have their own child in the program. Anyone wanting to take little boys on camping trips when their son isn’t one of them is probably a creep, whether they are openly homo or not."

Are your statements rooted in reality (anecdotal) or just perception? Do you know who really runs the Scouting programs? Volunteers. Many of those volunteers are honorable and highly devoted individuals.

So in your mind, once my Eagle Scout son turned 18 I was to walk away and let the noob parent take my place?

The noob parent who won't or can't even make the time to bring their son to the meetings or go camping with them?

I guess that I should not have offered my time, resources, money and skills to advance the program and help youth because I wasn't a parent when I volunteered?

I shouldn't have led my Troop filled with inexperienced backpackers on a backpacking trip a couple of weekends ago because I could be a "creep" or a "closet case". I should have just hoped for the best and waited to see if any of those folks became statistics or read about in the paper.

You have absolutely no idea how much treasure and time I've devoted to Scouting in 20+ years to these kids because their parents were too damned busy or disinterested to do so themselves. For you to categorize me and many like me as "creeps" simply because we're helping kids is highly objectionable.

Doing my level best to live by the Oath and Law in this reply...if you were looking for a rise out of someone with your ignorant statements, you got one.

[T-Bird45]

What you think you “know” wouldn’t even fill a thimble on this subject. You’ve made your choice for your child and that’s the extent of your “knowledge.” Plenty of leaders had sons in the program and stayed active after their son completed their Eagle. Younger parents and leaders benefit from that knowledge that you would just dismiss out of hand.

I’m plenty disgusted by the choices made by the national council in the past about gay youth members and this announcement about adult leaders by Gates was a foregone conclusion when they decided to hire him. My son completed his Eagle in 1998 and I stayed active until 2004 as my daughter became involved in the Venturing co-ed Scouting program. I’ll not allow you to broad brush me or any other Scouter that chose to stay active for an extended period.

[HotHunt]

Oh, come on! That's a wildly exaggerated generalization and says more about your own bigoted projections than you can support with facts.

My whole family were scouts and scout leaders. Your assumption that both my parents, my wife and I, my sister and her husband are "creeps" just to satisfy your perverted little mind, is completely baseless and patently false. And none of us are "homo" as you so loosely claim.

People like you are what gives the Right a bad name with your prejudicial name-calling.

[MacNaughton]

30 Unfortunately, many of the “straight” scout leaders are closet cases.

"Elvis has left the building." You are way off with this statement.

I wouldn’t let my son go on a camping trip with the scouts anyway. They need to require leaders have their own child in the program. Anyone wanting to take little boys on camping trips when their son isn’t one of them is probably a creep, whether they are openly homo or not.

I understand the thought process. I 1st encountered this kind of troglodyte thinking around 1987. I put 32 years as a volunteer in the program as a straight, single man. Never saw a problem involving pedophilia/homosexuality, though I had certainly read a lot about those problems happening elsewhere. I knew many straight, single men involved in Scouting before they married and quite a few who never married.

If you accept Pareto's Principle, then 80% of the volunteer leadership is performed by 20% of the boys' parents (with some older veteran volunteers whose children have aged out) with the additional 20% support coming from those single, straight adult males. If we as a society move in the direction you believe we should, then there will be fewer volunteers. Young, straight men are, on average, delaying marriage these days. Troops are already under suspicion by single mom households where the mom has had bad experiences with men. Conservative thinkers abhor the zero tolerance policies that the public schools have adopted on "all things pertaining to weapons" and hate speech. It would be a terrible shame, and a loss, should the powers that be at the national level choose to exclude single, straight men from BSA membership. Now, some religious denominations which charter (sponsor) BSA units may reach that point. They already have the authority to screen their adult volunteer leadership. Should the national leadership of BSA adopt "the local option" whereby the different religious denominations can accept/deny open homosexual males as members, then, in an even more extreme case, single, straight men could eventually face the same fate in this age of hysteria.