“Certainly not the Mormon leadership, who wanted to homosexualize the BSA.”
please provide an explanation for this most serious charge. as i recall, mormons aren’t the only denomination to have homosexuals amongst their members or clergy. i’ve never heard any of my mormon friends promoting a homosexual lifestyle: quite the contrary.
Bishop Romney has been promoting the homosexualizing of the Scout leadership and the military, for 20 years of political campaigning and activism.
From the LA Times, 25 April 2013:
Mormon Church to Boy Scouts: Gay Scouts proposal OK
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a message for the Boy Scouts of America's plan to allow gay Scouts: We're fine with it.
The Mormon Church, which has historically opposed same-sex marriage, said Thursday that it supported the Scouts' recently proposed rules change that "No youth may be denied membership in the Boy Scouts of America on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone," as the proposal puts it.
The proposed policy change, announced last week, came after years of wrangling, soul-searching and prodding from advocates, alumni and funders to open the Scouts' ranks to gays.
You were saying?
please provide an explanation for this most serious charge. as i recall, mormons aren’t the only denomination to have homosexuals amongst their members or clergy. i’ve never heard any of my mormon friends promoting a homosexual lifestyle: quite the contrary.
4/25/2013 - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints posted a statement on its website saying it was satisfied that BSA has made a "thoughtful, good-faith effort to address issues that, as they have said, remain 'among the most complex and challenging issues facing the BSA and society today.'" It added the proposal recognized that "Scouting exists to serve and benefit youth rather than Scout leaders, a single standard of moral purity for youth in the program, and a renewed emphasis for Scouts to honor their duty to God."
The LDS church still teaches its members that marriage is between a man and a woman and that same-sex relationships are sinful. However. Mormonism does not consider homosexuality a "sin" and allows chaste homosexuals to hold "callings," or positions in its organizations, when chosen by local LDS leaders, including scout units chartered to the church. In DEC 2012, the church launched a website encouraging members to be more compassionate in discussions about homosexuality. The website said Mormons should be loving and respectful toward gays and lesbians, while appealing to gay and lesbian Mormons to stay in the church. It marked the most significant outreach yet to gays and lesbians by the Mormon church, which has about 14 million members worldwide. BSA National issued a statement the same day saying the organization was deeply appreciative of its long-standing relationship with the Mormon church and pleased to hear it is satisfied with the proposal. Scouting is successful because of strong relationships with chartered organizations like the Mormon church, the Boy Scouts' statement said.
On 4/06/2013, during the LDS's annual conference, Boyd Packer, who is next in line to assume the church's top leadership post, warned, "We need to be careful of the tolerance trend trap, so that we do not get swallowed up in it. The permissiveness afforded by the weakening of the laws of the land to tolerate and legalize immorality does not reduce the serious spiritual consequence that is the result from a violation of God's law of Chastity."
The LDS Church took a beating, from the inside and outside, for aggressively supporting Proposition 8 in CA during 2008. Since then, the Church has moved on to other battles in the cultural wars rather than to continue to take on the homosexual-rights activists for several reasons.
1. Church leadership felt like it was left holding the financial bag after other evangelical denominations failed to come through with promised aid in the fight against Proposition 8. Top church officials were heavily involved in the creation of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the primary player over the last decade in the fight to outlaw gay unions.
2. Church leadership feared that continued support of anti-homosexualsexual marriage measures would continue to generate negative publicity which in turn would limit the ability of its farflung missionaries to engage potential converts.
3. The Church wanted to be more welcoming to its members who are afflicted with same-sex attraction.
4. 2/21/2013 - Jon Huntsman Jr., a member of the LDS Church, a former progressive Republican governor of UT, ambassador to China under POTUS #44 BHO, 2012 Republican presidential primary candidate (he dropped out in JAN 2012 and endorsed fellow Mormon, Mitt Romney), and son of the highly successful American businessman and philanthropist, Jon Huntsman Sr., wrote in an op-ed for The American Conservative that he was in favor of marriage equality, arguing that it was a “conservative cause” that the Republican Party should support. “Conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the 9 others that allow all their citizens to marry.”
5. It did not want to harm Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.