Posted on 05/19/2003 6:01:32 AM PDT by SJackson
It’s happening again, another badly misguided local United Way chapter banning any UWA funds from going to the Boy Scouts groups because they won’t allow homosexuals to be scout masters – a constitutional right assured the Boy Scouts of America by no less than the United States Supreme Court.
Incredibly, at a time when critics are attacking Roman Catholic dioceses in the U.S. for allowing gay priests to have access to teenage boys, thus exposing them to the strong possibility of molestation, others are demanding that gay scout leaders be allowed the same kind of risky access to teenage boy scouts.
Since the Supreme Court ruled in June 2000 that the national Boy Scouts of America (BSA) organization did not have to accept homosexuals because it is a private organization, about 50 local United Way chapters, including Seattle and San Francisco, have gutlessly surrendered to pressure from gay groups and stopped contributing to them, according to CBS News.
Now comes the Miami-Dade United Way (UW) chapter which says it will no longer give nearly a half-million dollars a year to the local chapter of the BSA after June, because the scouts won’t provide some asinine be-nice-to-gays-they’re-normal-just-like-us "sensitivity" training program for its leaders.
According to an Associated Press report, the local UW's board of directors voted unanimously to discontinue the annual $480,000 grant - about 20 percent of the Scouts’ budget. Most of that money goes to programs in the area's poorer communities, the AP reported.
"It's a serious blow to the council's ability to deliver Scouting programs," scout council spokesman Jeff Herrmann told the AP.
The local UW claims it made its decision because the Boy Scouts reneged on an alleged 2001 pledge to put into effect training programs to help Scout leaders to be "sensitive" in dealing with kids who have trouble coping with sexuality, a pledge to which Herrmann flatly denies the scouts ever agreed.
"Sex education and sexual orientation are not part of our program and we're unwilling to make them part of our program," he told AP.
The Miami-Dade UW is the latest to cut off the Boy Scouts in Florida. The UWs of Broward and Palm Beach County stopped allocating funds to Boy Scout programs about two years ago.
Their actions provoked a firestorm of protests and cost both United Way chapters dearly. When the United Way of Broward stopped giving funds to the Boy Scouts in 2001, one couple donated $200,000 to the South Florida Council, which oversees scouting programs in Miami-Dade, Broward and Monroe counties. The Palm Beach County UW says it has lost about $500,000 in donations after it stopped giving the Gulf Stream Council of Boy Scouts money from the United Way general fund.
Good! Americans shouldn’t put up with these threats to the welfare of young scouts. We can start by making direct contributions to the Boy Scouts along with other groups when our local UWAs cravenly surrender to homosexual pressures and cut funding for the scouts, and we should boycott the United Way chapter and urge others to do the same.
Companies should inform United Way they will not give if UW insists on getting involved in such social engineering practices. If your employer has a UW drive, don’t be afraid to ask if they support the Boy Scouts. Ask before you give a cent.
We must understand that gay groups are attempting to undermine the decision of the United States Supreme Court. Certain UW chapters are being foolish enough to listen to them. They cannot be allowed to succeed.
America’s war against terrorism is not the only war we are fighting. We are also engaged at home in a struggle to restore decency and morality in the public square. The battle to protect our children from those who seek an opportunity to corrupt them is a battle we cannot afford to lose.
Some observers have predicted that if homosexual activists continue their relentless attacks on the nation’s moral underpinnings they will inevitably create a backlash that will send them reeling back into the closet.
Fine. Let the backlash begin.
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Mike Reagan, the eldest son of President Ronald Reagan, is heard on more than 200 talk radio stations nationally as part of the Premiere Radio Network.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. — The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Well, I know you and I would not agree on a lot of interpretation of the Bible.
I am making a distinction between what laws are enforceable by man, and what laws are enforceable by G*d.
But I am asking about morality, not laws. I'm also asking about what is, not about what is enforceable.
If your argument is that religious morality should drive the enactment of laws, I then want to know what religion's beliefs would the government adopt to do so. And how they would get around the First Amendment to do it.
I am arguing that morality is nothing more than a worldview and that everyone has one. The Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Taoist, and Atheist all have worldviews - basic assumptions about reality that drive thier notions of things like justice, rights, human worth, etc., etc. Everyone uses their moral notions when voting, lobbying, or becoming activitst.
You have no more right to tell me not to include my notions because they are Christian than I would have telling someone else not to include their notions because they are Muslim. We bring them all to the public square, debate, and the result is our law.
However, for this law to be good, the morality has to have a basis in reality. If you look at all the major religions of the world, you will find an uncanny commonality, such that Jews, Muslims, and Christians in America are often on the same side of most cultural issues.
One of these is that homosexuality is the sign of a disturbed mind, and an individual who needs help. I think we can declare sodomy illegal, make the typical response of catching someone in the act a fine and a requirement for treatment, without violating our Constitution or the separation of Church and State (and without asking people personal questions).
By the way, the "Render unto Caesar" passage to which you refer was Christ's way of reminding the Jews that they - their entire selves and lives and money and everything else - belonged to G-d. He was chastizing them for living in such a worldly fashion and pretending to be G-dly.
Shalom.
I am asking no one to change their beliefs, you however, are trying to use the force of government to implement your religious beliefs on others and deny them theirs. They don't believe they are doing anything wrong.
I don't agree with them in that they are not doing anything wrong, as I believe that the practice of homosexuality is a sin.
However, I believe that this sin is punishable by G*d, but I don't believe that He needs your help policing His laws.
I am questioning the use of government to enforce your morality under our Constitution.
I will make the eaxct same argument, holding the Constitition in my hands, the day that (G*d forbid) we arrive at a Muslim majority in this nation who wishes to implement the Shariah.
Vaya con Dios.
If you will review our previous conversations, and that SASU Q&A I published, you will see that I would be happy to leave the whole issue of the homoerotically oriented alone if they would just shut up and go home. IT's when they try to force their way into the Boy Scouts (remember the topic of the thread here?) or the schools or wherever else, demanding that their sickness be treated as normal, that I respond.
And yes, I believe their sickness should be dealt with, as I believe the sickness of schizophrenics should be dealt with.
Shalom.
Of course that is another patently absurd notion you are trying to advance. Supposedly, the use of laws to discourage thievery somehow forces beliefs upon those who honestly believe that stealing is an integral part of survival and teaches important lessons in non-attachment to worldly goods. An angel of death honestly believes she is liberating souls by murdering people. And who are we to force our beliefs onto others, you ask?!
No one is forcing beliefs onto anyone else, Luis. We are encouraging and discouraging actions, which is our right as members of society. What you meant to say is that 'No one ought to impose their values upon anyone else.' But we all impose our values upon each other all the time. The thieves and murderers impose their values onto their victims, as in turn do the general population when they prosecute them for their actions (not for their beliefs); the homosexual activists try to impose their values upon everyone else, as do their moral-liberal supporters, enablers, and excusers.
Please let us know when you get a chance to strike out those pesky words in the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence about unalienable rights, as then your leaky arguments might hold more water.
Sodomy is a First Amendment entitlement? Incredible.
How about bestiality and incest?
I think the people with the need to post detailed descriptions of what they consider to be perverted sexual acts on a public forum are sick and in need of help.
I agree. And this "shoot the messenger" defense misses the point completely.... because the sort of graphic descriptions of perverted acts we see posted..would in be PROHIBITED from appearing in most public forums.
Can you imagine a Christian minister describing this kind of garbage to his congregation in a sermon about sexual immorality?
Anybody, no matter how opposed they are to such behavior should also have the sense to know it is completely unecessary and beyond socially acceptable norms to broadcast graphic descriptions of such acts in public forums.
And anyone who does so repeatedly is a deeply disturbed individual who as you said, needs help.
You are still making up thread topics?
The topic of the thread concerns the United Way withholding $$$ from the Boy Scouts BECAUSE GAYS FAILED TO FORCE THEIR WAY INTO THE ORGANIZATION!
I admire the BSA for their stance, and IF the United Way should ever offer them funds again, they should turn them down!
Do you have a reading and comprehension disability? You continue to make this thread into something other than what it is about!
You can't turn on the television, the radio, open a magazine or even a newspaper without being hit squarely in the face with sex...heterosexual sex.
Should all of society shut up about sex and go home, or just that part of the society that you don't like?
ROTFLMAO!!!
This from the foremost advocate of taking away other people's unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness because you don't like what they consider to be happiness?
Only the liberals and communists use Orwellian words such as 'gay' to denote a miserable, unhappy person, and invent a new disease called 'homophobia' to denote the disapproval of men smearing themselves with excrement, as if God Himself suffers from a mental illness.
Only the liberals and communists try to redefine the family, claiming that any 'loving and caring relationship' suffices. But after 500,000 recent deaths from sodomy, where is the 'love' in murder? And where is the 'caring' in suicide?
No, I am imposing my values onto everyone else, as are you, and everyone else.
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