I have also given a copy to my local Bishop and Stake President.
My Letter to the Boy Scouts of America
BSA is a seperate, private organization, and the Church holds a fund raiser for them each year for church members seperate from our Church donations. I have informed everyone that I will no longer give, or take part in that effort.
I just un-liked the BSA on FB because the page is now toxic.
I really hope that the Mormon leadership takes a long hard look at what just happened, and how much damage it risks doing to your church's long, hard efforts to establish itself as a pillar of traditional family values.
In the early 1960s, the Roman Catholic Church was stereotyped, sometimes unfairly, as a narrow and strict group which tolerated no divergence from its doctrines. For many Americans, evangelical Christians, liberal mainline Christians, and liberal secularists, the Roman Catholic Church stood for what they either hated or feared and was regarded as a threat by many to America's core values. Books like “American Freedom and Catholic Power” were written, not by conservatives but by liberals, to oppose what people thought the Roman Catholic Church represented.
The election of John F. Kennedy and the creation of the “cult of Camelot” showed America that Roman Catholicism was not monolithic, and in fact had an aggressive and effective liberal wing at its highest levels. Likewise, social conservative evangelicals figured out that conservative Roman Catholics were doing their jobs in fighting abortion when we were silent and should not have been.
Jeff, those of us who are social conservatives have learned a great deal about the LDS in the last two presidential campaigns. Your church has a reputation and the reality we are seeing does not match your reputation. If I were a Mormon, I would be gravely concerned that Mitt Romney could singlehandedly do to the reputation of Mormons what the Kennedy clan did to the reputation of the Roman Catholic Church.
The leaders of your church have worked hard — very hard — in Mormonism to portray your church as a pillar of family values. What just happened with the Boy Scouts, in combination with what happened in the last two presidential campaigns, could easily undo decades of hard work.
To the extent that you have any influence with the Mormon leadership, please use it to encourage your leaders to rethink the road they seem to be choosing. It will not end in a good place.