Free Republic

I started the day on Bill Bennett's radio show, which is always fun. Jonah Goldberg was on before me, and advanced the proposition, after the Supreme Court's almighty constitutional bender last week, that it wasn't so bad; conservatives who just pottered around in their own world and tended to their families would still be able to lead lives largely unbattered by the forces of "progress". A few minutes later, one of Bill's listeners, Claudine, came on and said that's what Germans reckoned in the 1930s: just keep your head down and the storm will pass. How'd that work out? Claudine...

One Boy Scout died and three others were rescued after being swept away in a flash flood early Saturday, according to the New Mexico State Police. A group of eight Scouts, ages 14 to 17, three crew leaders and one adult ranger were on the two-week trek across the Philmont Scout Ranch, a popular Boy Scout ranch near Cimarron. They were camped near the North Ponil Canyon, 15 miles northeast of the training center. Rain started falling early Saturday morning, flooding parts of the ranch property, according to a news release posted on the ranch’s website. Around 4:30 a.m. Saturday,...

A former Boy Scout confessed in emotionally charged court testimony to killing his former troop leader, but said it was due to the repeated sexual abuse and rape he suffered at the hands of the man, beginning at the tender age of 8. “From the time I was 8 years old until I was 12, I was sexually assaulted and raped by Dennis Pegg,” said Clark Fredericks, a former scout who spoke in a tense Newton, New Jersey, courtroom about the reasons for his killing. Pegg also served as a Sussex sheriff’s officer, NBC New York reported. He was killed...

Few narrative historians have been able to capture the essence of war quite like Stephen Ambrose. The Eisenhower biographer published several books on the war later in his life, including Citizen Soldiers, Band of Brothers, and perhaps the best one volume treatment of the Normandy invasion, D-Day: June 6, 1944. One theme running through all of those books was the sheer ordinariness of the American GI and how, when confronted by the greatest challenges of their lives, outperformed, outfought, and outsmarted the seemingly invincible Nazi war machine. From a blurb advertising D-Day: They wanted to be throwing baseballs, not hand...

[Snip]... To be honest, the BSA hasn’t been doing well for a while. Membership has been steadily declining for decades, and recent decisions to go full Episcopalian—and you never go full Episcopalian—haven’t helped. But with this decision, and the resulting onslaught of righteous indignation, we see just how far a once-proud paramilitary organization has fallen. Why the change? The cynic in me, the one who remembers how long it took to evacuate us when we were sleeping in the woods without shelter and the skies opened up in biblical fashion that one weekend, thinks the BSA is now run by...

The Boy Scouts of America is a venerable institution. I can well remember when, as a Cub Scout in southern Louisiana, I learned the mysteries of initiation into the Scouts. It was exciting to become part of such a universally respected group. There were badges denoting achievement, uniforms indicating rank, handshakes conveying to other boys the hidden riches of membership, and, perhaps best of all, there was an oath.It was a galvanizing promise. One recited the oath while aiming for the heights, straining beyond one’s boyhood to glimpse the upright man that, with God’s help, one hoped to become....

I said it was coming. Many of us did. Two years ago this week the Boy Scouts of America voted to welcome into its ranks “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold. Shortly thereafter I warned, “In so doing, the [Boy Scouts of America (BSA)] effectively waived the only legal defense it once had to preclude openly homosexual Scout leaders and gender-confused girls from its ranks: religious and moral conviction. It’s only a matter of time until the BSA is forced to capitulate to sexual...

The soul of a bureaucrat Robert Gates has long been surrounded by men in uniform, first as secretary of defense, now as president of the Boy Scouts of America. His time at DoD coincided with the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexual soldiers — a repeal effectively imposed by the courts — and as the leader of the Boy Scouts he is calling for a repeal of that organization’s policy banning homosexual adults from serving as troop leaders or in other leadership roles. Gates, whose likeness appears in Webster’s with the entry for “bureaucrat,” says that...

Well that was then. Boy Scouts President Robert Gates Calls for End of Ban on Gay Troop Leaders The new policy is coming quicker than you can say Jack Robinson. In effect gay scout leaders are now permitted since Gates says he will not revoke the charter of troops that allow homosexuals leaders.  Any parents who leave their sons in the Boy Scouts are insane. Homosexuals represent about 3% of the population; they commit about thirty percent of child sex abuse. Not every homosexual is an abuser, but those who are look for opportunities to be around children -- especially...

The president of the Boy Scouts of America on Thursday called for an end to the group’s blanket ban on gay adult leaders, warning Scout executives that “we must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be,” and that “any other alternative will be the end of us as a national movement.” At the same time, religious organizations that sponsor a majority of local Scout troops, including the Mormons and Roman Catholics, should remain free to set their own policies for leaders, said the president, Robert M. Gates, the former director of the...

Boy Scouts Put an End to Dangerous Water Gun Fights No squirt guns for the Boy Scouts of America. Water guns are apparently such a problem that the youth organization posted a blog post titled "Water guns OK for target shooting, not for firing at other Scouts."

The Boy Scouts of America has put out approved activities for its members, and water gun fights are strictly prohibited.A blog for the organization’s leaders said May 6 that pointing simulated firearms at people is not allowed. “Why the rule? A Scouter once told me this explanation I liked quite a bit: A Scout is kind. What part of pointing a firearm [simulated or otherwise] at someone is kind?” said Bryan Wendell on the scouting website. The rule is clarified in the Boy Scouts of America National Shooting Manual, which says “For water balloons, use small, biodegradable balloons, and fill...

The local Boy Scouts of America organization was hit with a lawsuit this week, after an adult assistant scout master was found to have sexually abused a minor Eagle Scout.

Target shooters at the 27 1/4 Road range could find themselves with military company about four times a year. Soldiers with Company C of 1st Battalion, 157th Infantry Regiment, headquartered in Grand Junction, will qualify at the range in the use of small arms, under an agreement with the Colorado National Guard and the Bureau of Land Management. Charlie Company soldiers now qualify on arms smaller than an M 240 Bravo — a machine gun — at a range in Fort Carson. “It’s a five-hour bus ride in good weather and a $5,000 round-trip proposition,” said Lt. Col. Brey Hopkins,...

The Boy Scouts' New York chapter said Thursday that it has hired the nation's first openly gay Eagle Scout as a summer camp leader, which is in public contrast to the national scouting organization's ban on openly gay adult members.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and The Boy Scouts of America are facing a lawsuit from a former Boy Scout who over alleged sexual abuse at a church-sponsored Scouting trip.

The California Supreme Court has instituted a policy that prohibits state judges from participating in the Boy Scouts of America because it doesn't allow openly gay adults to become troop leaders. Earlier this year the court voted unanimously to change the California Code of Judicial Ethics, removing an exemption allowing membership in youth organizations, such as the Boy Scouts, that it claims practice discrimination. While the Boy Scouts voted in 2013 to lift its ban on openly gay youth members, it maintained its policy prohibiting openly gay adults from actively participating in troop activities or becoming troop leaders. The Christian...

February 5, 2015 (BreakPoint.org) -- In late January, the Supreme Court of California ruled that, starting January 21, 2016, judges in that state can no longer be affiliated with the Boy Scouts of America.I’m not sure what troubles me most about this story: the ruling itself or the lack of attention being paid to it.California is one of 47 states that bans its judges from belonging to organizations that discriminate against certain groups of people. In more than half of these instances, we are talking about discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or sex.In the twenty-two states...

The Boy Scouts of America settled a sex abuse case Thursday involving a 20-year-old California man who was molested by a Scout volunteer in 2007 — a decision that will keep years’ worth of “perversion” files detailing sex abuse allegations secret from the public. The announcement of the settlement in the Santa Barbara case came after three days of trial. The terms were confidential at the Boy Scouts’ request, said Tim Hale, the plaintiff’s attorney. “I can’t go into details about the number, but it was a great result,” Hale said. Hale had won the right to use the “perversion”...

Does this sound right to you at all?  It sounds almost like a parody story, something from The Onion.  But… it isn’t.From Todd Starnes: Troop leader: Customs and Border agent held Boy Scout at gunpointA Boy Scout troop from the nation’s heartland is demanding answers and a U.S. senator is expressing outrage after a group of scouts was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, with one child allegedly held at gunpoint.Jim Fox, the leader of the Mid-Iowa Boy Scout Troop 111, said the incident occurred earlier this month at a checkpoint along the Alaska – Canada border. The...