Posted on 04/02/2013 6:47:54 AM PDT by Iron Munro
The Boy Scouts of America said Monday that the Utah Pride Center — a LGBT advocacy group — could not charter a troop, even though the group said it would comply with the youth organization's controversial policy banning gay Scouts and leaders.
The Utah Pride Center submitted its application in late February to sponsor a troop with heterosexual leaders and middle-school age boys several weeks ago, said Valerie Larabee, the center's executive director. She said the bid, which comes ahead of the BSA vote in May on whether it should keep the ban, was not a stunt.
"We feel great concern for youth that may be involved in Scouting right now that are hiding something and we don’t ask our kids when they come to our campus here whether they are gay, straight or anything else," she told NBC News by phone. "We assume that they're here because they think this is a safe place and as a safe place we think that we can offer an incredible opportunity to young people who want to be involved in BSA." Advertise | AdChoices
Larabee said they submitted their application to Rick Barnes, the chief executive officer of the Great Salt Lake Council. Barnes referred questions to the BSA headquarters, "since this was a national decision."
When contacted for comment on who had reviewed the application and why it was rejected, the BSA said in a two-sentence statement: "The BSA is engaged in an internal discussion about its membership standards policy and is working to stay focused on Scouting’s mission. Based on the mission of this organization [the Utah Pride Center] we do not believe a chartered partner relationship is beneficial to Scouting.”
Larabee said she knew their file was passed higher within the BSA, but did not know if it reached the national headquarters and said they'd had no response from the organization -- just that their application had been returned without remarks on March 4. The center took it as a denial.
"We are disappointed," she said. "It's almost like they don't even want to acknowledge that we even applied. It's like they just want us to go away."
A call placed to a Boy Scout leader who The Salt Lake Tribune said would lead the new troop committee, Nile Eatmon, was not immediately returned. Eatmon, a member of the Great Salt Lake Council's executive board, told the newspaper that he didn't see a problem with the center hosting a troop.
"I was surprised. I thought the Pride Center application complied with the Boy Scouts’ policies," Eatmon said. "All the adult members and youth that were submitted with the application were straight."
Faith-based organizations, civic and educational groups often charter Boy Scout units, providing meeting facilities and leadership among other things. More than 70 percent of the Scouting unit in 2012 were chartered to faith-based organizations, and Larabee believed their application may be a first by a LGBT group, although the BSA did not respond to a question about that.
Related: Can a gay Boy Scout share a tent with another boy? Boy Scouts survey members on anti-gay policy
The BSA announced in late January that it may ditch the national policy banning gays, instead leaving that up to local sponsoring organizations to decide. It then pushed back a decision on the policy to May, when some 1,400 members of Scouting's National Council will vote on a resolution that Boy Scouts' officers are crafting.
The membership guidelines have roiled the organization in recent years.
Last July, the BSA said it was sticking with the ban following a confidential two-year review of the policy. That review was announced months after Jennifer Tyrrell was dismissed from her post as leader of her son’s Tiger Cubs den because she is a lesbian, and a few months before California teen Ryan Andresen was denied his Eagle award because he is gay. Advertise | AdChoices
Both cases made national headlines for several weeks, and led a few hundred Eagle Scouts to turn in their hard-earned regalia in protest of the ban, which the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2000.
They preach "diversity" but their real goal is uniformity.
What they really mean is that everyone and everything must follow their rules.
If I ever came into a sizeable sum of money, my charitible contributions would go to the Boy Scouts.
Let them start their own boy scout-type troop and boldly advertise that these homosexual predators would love to have your little boys in their basements once a week and maybe on a camping trip on a weekend sometime.
Would love to see that ad on TV. Wonder what we’d call these sodomite nannies?
How about all those proud perverts leaving the rest of us alone and forming their own groups? Of course not. This is their way of making everyone seem to accept their mental illness as “normal.” History plainly shows that the society that complies is doomed.
I have four nephews who are Eagles and I know that two of them are big pro “marriage equality” guys. I haven’t heard that they have rejected the honor they won. Each of them has conservative parents who would be very hurt so hope that they won’t do that.
Initially the homo agenda was decriminalization.
Then it was acceptance as an alternate life style.
Then it became total acceptance of homosexualism as the equal of heterosexualism.
Now they want the government to force normal people to give them access to our children.
Soon it will be a Hate Crime to reject sexual advances from homosexuals.
In related news: Fox can’t sponsor chicken coop.
And then, Jerry Sandusky will get let out of prison and given an award for helping those little boys discover their true sexuality.
That is a problem with the LGBT agenda, there is a finite supply of innocence and morality to exploit. Once you have raped a child, the innocence and joy is gone forever. Why if half the country were homosexual, you would only get to exploit innocence once in your lifetime.
(The same if the country was moral)
LOL, as they ride in on their Trojan Horse. Pun intended.
Why don’t they just start their own freakin’ scouts? Call them the NAMBLA scouts or something?
I mean, really, why do they want to infest an existing institution. Why not just start a competing institution?
I think I know the answer....
if they charter a troop then would they have a final say in the policy?
seems like they were trying to late register voters.
Gay priests turned out real well for the Catholic Church. Sure, let’s turn our sons over to the same perverts in the name of scouting. This is more about destroying institutions.
Wow. They queers are relentless in the quest to rape young boys! They never give up.
“Soon it will be a Hate Crime to reject sexual advances from homosexuals. “
And following that, the brimstone begins to fall.
UGH !!!!
Let them start their own national organization.
What? That’s not what they really want? Shazzam!
Gee, no shi'ite, Sherlock.
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