I still can’t believe the way you’re willing to make yourself look foolish to relieve Romney of responsibility for his own statements and actions.
“Participate” is the larger set which incluces the subset of leaders.
Romney said “all people” — including homosexuals — should be allowed to “participate” in Scouting, and he did not exclude from his endorsement of such participation that subset of participants who serve as adult leaders.
Because he chooses his words as meticulously as Bill Clnton, and because he did not exclude them, homosexual adults participating as leaders is logically included in his endorsement.
And simply put, you cannot prove otherwise except by claiming to be able to read his mind. You can only make yourself continue to look foolish by trying.
I obviously cannot prove that he would NOT accept gays as scout leaders, because I do not have a quote where he says no. But you cannot prove that he WOULD accept gays as scout leaders, because you do not have a quote where he says he would.
"I think all citizens, naturalized or otherwise, should be allowed to participate in our government."
By your illogic, I just said we should violate the constitution and let naturalized citizens be President.
When in fact I do not want that.
Why you think you have the right to put words into other people's mouths, or to define their beliefs for them, I can't say, but you are not a mind-reader, so your attempts to claim that you KNOW what Romney MEANT, by using bad logic, fall flat.
Romney is responsible for his own words, not for your misstatements of them and your misinterpretations. He is also not responsible for opinions he has not expressed but that you insist on pinning to him.
Write to his campaign and ask him whether he would support gay scoutmasters. Post the results. That's called finding the truth.
But it's a lot easier for you to just make it up.
Do you have a math background at all? “Participate” is the larger set which incluces the subset of leaders
Yes, and if Romney said "gays should be scoutmasters", then it would be logical to insist that Romney believes gays should be allowed to participate in scouting.
But leaders is a subset of "participants". For example, boys can participate in scouts, but they can't be scoutmasters. Women can participate in scouts, but at least when I was a scout I thought they couldn't be scoutmasters. Parents can participate and be members of socuting without a background check, but they can't be in leadership.
In short, there are MANY ways to participate without being in leadership. And it also makes perfect sense to allow some people to be participants, but not leaders.
In fact, there are MANY real-life examples where people are allowed to participate, but in some class of people who do not have access to the full range of benefits.
This is so trivially obvious that I find it ludicrous that someone who owns a computer and can type words in english does not understand that "participate" is a superset of "leadership", and that while all leaders are participants, not all participants are leaders.
The owner of Free Republic is a participant. I think that all conservatives should be allowed to participate at FR. By your logic, all participants of Free Republic should be allowed to be the owner.