Free Republic

AMHERST — An Amherst church that promotes tolerance and is led by a gay pastor has become the new chartering organization for a local Boy Scout troop whose national organization has retained a policy excluding homosexuals. But for the Immanuel Lutheran Church, the Rev. Steven Wilco and Troop 504, which will be partners, the long-term objectives are the same: giving boys a place to grow and learn leadership skills, teaching them an appreciation for the outdoors and advocating for a change in the national Boy Scout policy. Wilco, pastor of the church at 867 North Pleasant St., said there is...

The Boy Scouts of America is committed to dialogue on its membership standards within the Scouting family at the local and national levels. To continue and expand this important discussion, the National Executive Board has authorized its committees, representative of Scouting’s members, to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. The committees will review a number of issues and how they will impact the BSA, including youth, chartered organizations, parents, and financial, fundraising, and legal concerns. The goals of the committee’s work will be to: 1. Provide a channel where every voice can be...

“A Boy Scouts of America national board member, James Turley, who is also global chairman and CEO of the accounting firm Ernst & Young, recently said he “will work from within to seek a change” to overturn the BSA policy that bans gay scouts and leaders.” 1. But is Turley working on his own initiative, or has the White House prodded him with perks and favors? 2. Is it a coincidence that Turley came out swinging against the BSA’s century-old policy to ban gays from leadership and that he has such close affiliations with the pro-gay Obama administration? 3. Is...

The Boy Scouts of America got front-page ink, as we say in the newspaper trade, for their currently postponed meditations on the topic of admitting avowed gays to membership. Word had leaked out that the Scouts were considering a local option solution to the vexed question of their supposed right to determine who can become a member and who can't. At a top-drawer meeting in Irving, Tex., the topic proved too vast and complex for immediate resolution. Consultation and deliberation will take place prior to May meeting of Scouts' national council. I spoke of the Scouts' "supposed" right to...

(WMC-TV) – A former Boy Scout leader has been indicted, accused of molesting young boys. For the first time, an alleged victim's mother has issued a warning. MOREAdditional Links Details of William Todd Brewer's indictment were made public Monday after Brewer was served on Friday. Now we're hearing from the mother of one of the alleged victims in court documents. When former Boy Scout leader William Todd Brewer was arrested for sexual battery last July, one mother didn't want to think about what may have gone on inside Brewer's Senatobia rental home with her then 13-year-old son. "I would tell...

A leak from inside the Boy Scouts of America last month about discussions on possibly ending the group’s national ban on gay members changed the debate itself by creating an impression that change was imminent, according to scouting officials and taped comments from a meeting of scouting’s executive board obtained by The New York Times. Those apparently false expectations were dashed days later when the board, under intense scrutiny it had never intended, deferred action. The proposed shift in policy has been portrayed in news accounts mostly as a kind of trial balloon, floated to gauge sentiment about where scouting...

PORTLAND, Oregon — The Boys Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a Portland man who said they didn't do enough to stop a Scout troop leader from sexually abusing children. A document filed Nov. 15 in U.S. District Court in Boise said both sides agreed to an undisclosed monetary settlement. SNIP The lawsuit alleges the leader of a Boy Scout troop in Nampa in southwestern Idaho sexually abused the plaintiff over three years in both Idaho and Oregon starting in 1967, and that the abuse left...

In Philadelphia, about half of all students in ninth grade will graduate from high school. The dropout rate is especially high among black and Hispanic boys. President Obama’s answer to this problem is typical of the left: compulsion. Make dropping out illegal. In other words, force boys who are learning nothing to remain where they are learning nothing, to help make sure that nobody else learns anything, either. If they drop out anyway, turn them into criminals to be rounded up. All this would cost a great deal of money, which Philadelphia does not have. And even if you could...

At a local library a small group of individuals meet on a monthly basis to discuss Russian literature. Over the past ten years they've discussed every author from Pushkin to Dostoyevsky to Tolstoy. At the upcoming meeting they plan to discuss one or two twentieth century Soviet authors. When the date of the meeting rolls around, they find two new people there to participate in the meeting. In short order they learn that these two new participants have no love for Russian authors. In fact, they are two Estonian nationalists that hate everything Russian. They are at the meeting only...

A majority of American voters want the Boy Scouts to lift its ban against gay members and leaders, a new Quinnipiac poll finds. The Boy Scouts of America announced last week that it was considering changing its policy of banning gay scouts and troop leaders. On Wednesday the organization said that decision would be delayed until a national meeting in May. In the Quinnipiac poll, 55 percent of respondents said the scouts should drop the ban, while 33 percent said it should remain. There is a significant gender gap in the results. Women back gay scouts by a 61 to...

I'm on a rant at the moment, so I thought this would be as good a time as any to go on the record with my humble opinions about Obama's efforts to destroy America morally, culturally, financially, socially, politically, militarily, economically, etc. (My, my, Obama's a busy little dictator wannabe, isn't he?) I have been saying for several months that the gays in the military agenda is not the final objective, but just another link in the chain that will ultimately weaken and enslave America's citizens and destroy our country and way of life as we once knew it. The...

The Boy Scouts of America said Wednesday it needed "more time for a deliberate review" of its policy banning gay Scouts and leaders, delaying a final decision on the controversial membership guidelines that have dogged the private youth organization in recent years. "In the past two weeks, Scouting has received an outpouring of feedback from the American public. It reinforces how deeply people care about Scouting and how passionate they are about the organization," the organization said in a statement. "After careful consideration and extensive dialogue within the Scouting family, along with comments from those outside the organization, the volunteer...

...To that end, the National Executive Board directed its committees to further engage representatives of Scouting’s membership and listen to their perspectives and concerns. This will assist the officers’ work on a resolution on membership standards....

One of the more memorable sketches to air on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” featured actor Alec Baldwin and comedian Adam Sandler as members of a Boy Scout troop. Baldwin played a gay scoutmaster, “Mr. Armstrong.” Sandler reprised his role as “Canteen Boy,” a scout clearly suffering arrested development. In the sketch, Mr. Armstrong makes a sexual advance on Canteen Boy, brushing his unshaven face against the lad. So uncomfortable is Sandler’s character, who is not so dimwitted that he doesn’t know a pedophile when he sees one, that he flees into the woods. The sketch was uproariously funny. But what...

A former Boy Scout leader has been charged with sodomizing a boy in his troop who was under the age of 13. The abuse took place in 2005, according to court documents, but the victim, now an adult, waited several years before coming forward, reported WHSV-TV in Harrisonburg, Va. The BSA’s Stonewall Jackson Area Council released a prepared statement after the arrest. “The abuse of anyone, especially a child, is intolerable and our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who may be a victim of this type of behavior,” the statement said. ‘The behavior included in these allegations runs...

Please take time to sign the petion. The BSA is no longer taking phone calls. http://petitions.conservativeactionalerts.com/9156/i-oppose-boy-scouts-policy-change/

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama says the Boy Scouts of America should open its membership to gays and lesbians when its national executive board discusses the issue this week. Obama praised the scouts as “a great institution” that promotes young people, giving them lifelong leadership training and opportunities. During a pre-Super Bowl interview on CBS, he said “no one should be barred from that.” The Boy Scouts announced last week it was considering replacing its longstanding ban on gays with a policy to let troop sponsors make their own decision on the issue.

Gays can be leaders. Women can be leaders. Without realizing it, I think gays and women inadvertently work against their own objective of equality when they force private organizations to support gay and female leaders. As I wrote here, gays and women are already equal before the Constitution, which defines us by our humanity, not by our sexuality, and is silent on most personal matters like marriage. Furthermore, the more the federal government defines our rights, the less free, equal and human we all become. Here is what generally happens when minority groups confuse social acceptance with equality and push...

Send this URGENT alert to all your friends. The anti-family movement is pressuring the Boy Scouts to surrender. To give up their honor.  To accept unnatural behavior -- sin -- and abandon their morally sound membership policy which bars open homosexuals from holding leadership positions. According to a recent statement by Deron Smith, director of Boy Scouts public relations, “... the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation. This would mean there would no longer be any national policy regarding sexual orientation..." The proposed policy shift would place the moral welfare of 2.7 million boys...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said emphatically Saturday that the Boy Scouts of America shouldn’t soften its strict no-gays membership policy, and dismissed the idea of bending the organization to the whims of “popular culture.” Perry is an Eagle Scout and in 2008 he authored the book “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For.” It detailed the governor’s deep love for the organization and explained why it should continue to embrace traditional, conservative values—including excluding openly gay members and Scout leaders. … Even though the Boy Scouts reaffirmed the no-gays policy just seven...