Posted on 05/27/2013 9:02:28 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Members of GLAAD, a nonprofit organization that promotes LGBT advocacy, was at the Boy Scouts of America's headquarters in Irving, Texas, on Friday – one day after the BSA's national council voted to allow openly gay membership – to advocate for additional policy changes acceptable to the gay community.
Former scouts Dave and Joe McGrath, a father and son duo who both earned the rank of Eagle Scout, biked 1,400 miles from Idaho Falls, Idaho, to the BSA's meeting in Grapevine to encourage the 1,400 voting delegates of the BSA's national council to vote in favor of the resolution to allow openly gay scouts, which passed by a vote of 61 to 39 percent. The ban on openly gay adult leaders is still in place.
On Friday, GLAAD documented Dave McGrath's entry into BSA headquarters to meet with staff and to deliver the LGBT community's 95 objections to their policies. Among these objections is the BSA's standing policy that bans adults who are openly gay from becoming scout leaders and volunteers.
Both factions of the scouting community – the LGBT scouts and traditional scouts – agree that the BSA's policies are now in conflict, because it accepts openly gay membership of students, but when they turn 18, they would then be ineligible to participate as scout leaders.
Many say the BSA's only option is to ask the national council delegates to vote on additional policy changes, possibly as soon as next year, to allow openly gay adults to become scout leaders and volunteers.
During Thursday's press conference outside the BSA's convention at the Gaylord Texan, Tico Perez, BSA national commissioner, refused to answer questions about lifting the ban on openly gay adults.
The policy change for openly gay youth will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2014, and will impact 116,000 scouting units, according to the BSA.
In a statement released Thursday evening, the BSA reiterated its support for the LGBT community by stating they wouldn't allow the organization to be "consumed by a single, divisive and unresolved societal issue."
"As the National Executive Committee just completed a lengthy review process, there are no plans for further review on this matter," the statement reads. "While people have different opinions about this policy, we can all agree that kids are better off when they are in Scouting."
Justin Bickford, communications director for Scouts for Equality, told CP on Thursday that their next mission is to push for openly gay leadership in the BSA. Many traditional scout leaders contend that gay adults are already serving as scout leaders and are doing so with discretion. Their disagreement is with the perceived sexual advocacy among the few LGBT leaders who were asked to leave the BSA for promoting their agenda.
John Stemberger, the founder of OnMyHonor, a coalition of scout leaders and parents of Boy Scouts members, consistently reiterated that gay scouts and gay scout leaders were actively participating in the BSA before Thursday's vote, and said there was never a ban on homosexuals in the scouts. According to Stemberger, "the BSA has a nondiscrimination policy," and the ban was on "gay activism" and "flaunting sexuality."
"With great sorrow, this will be last time I wear this uniform," Stemberger, whose coalition opposed membership changes, announced Thursday evening during the OnMyHonor press conference. He said his role will be to facilitate the process of deciding where the newly displaced scouting community will go, after being exiled from the BSA.
Stemberger said his movement includes "tens of thousands of parents, scouts that are disillusioned, troops that are going to fold and chartering partners."
On his website, OnMyHonor.Net, Stemberger has announced a June coalition meeting in Louisville, Ky., to "discuss the creation of a new character development organization for boys. We will host a national coalition meeting of former BSA parents and youth leaders who wish to return to timeless values that once made the BSA great."
Elizabeth Pritchard, the pack committee chair for Pack 928 in Southlake, Texas, told CP that she's been calling the American Heritage Girls to ask if they plan to start a program for boys. One program that has been announced is FaithBasedBoys.org, a newly created interdenominational organization for boys 5 to 18, that is scheduled to launch in the fall, and will receive guidance from American Heritage Girls.
Others who are departing the BSA en masse are waiting to see if the Royal Ambassadors, a Southern Baptist missions organization for boys in first through sixth grades, will be expanding their program to include the estimated 200,000 to 400,000 scouts who will be leaving the BSA.
Is there any way you guys can get together and revers it? I am a widowed mom of girls, as far away from BSA culture you can get, but we look to these institutions for the future of our country.
See what the French did this weekend.
Take a look at the history of BSA.
Look at what this means historically, it is Biblical. THe progressives are Biblically wrong, Why are they winning.
Look at the corrupt origins of the pressure that happened at the same time corruption is being found out in the gov’t.
Look at the origins of militant homosexuality.
It is a lot of trouble, legally, too, I imagine.
You guys have a LOT of successful execs among you. This is a huge problem. And the time to fix it has not passed but it is short.
That radio talk show guy who broadcasts from fla at linch time nationwide is a huge fan and cannot get involved.
There are a lot of prominent personalities who cannot get involved in this, but they can support behind the scenes. Cruz and Perry both made statements.
It has to be a grassroots turnabout.
I think it might be wrong to blame them. Look at how the tea pty got blamed for lack of motivation when the truth was they were being individually harassed into submission and behind the scenes.
RE: Give them an inch, they’ll shove it in a mile.
The Arabs knew about it a long time ago, see fable in Post #12 above.
So, will they lobby for "same son" marriage, too? Does anyone doubt we'll be seeing that soon?
I don’t know.
I ask that question in turn to the millions and millions of Boy Scouts out there just as surprized and disappointed by this as I am.
A lot of you have remained plugged in to the Boy Scouts system. You attend meetings, and your kids belong right now.
What can you do to reverse this?
I am not talking about working with this. Reverse it. 100%.
I agree with the poster “stanne”.
This is all or nothing time. We need this reversed, or we need a breakup.
Given the experiences of the Roman Catholic Church and Penn State with adult male homosexuals and young boys, anyone advocating this is either an idiot blinded by ideology and to be ignored or an advocate of child molestation and deserving of a millstone.
They caved into their largest donor, The Mormon Church, for one thing.
RE: So, will they lobby for “same son” marriage, too? Does anyone doubt we’ll be seeing that soon?
___________________________________________________________________________
SEE HERE:
Actor Jeremy Irons Wonders: ‘Could a Father Not Marry His Son’ if Same-Sex Marriage Were Allowed
EXCERPT:
“It seems to me that now we’re fighting for the name, and I worry that it means somehow we debase, or we change, what marriage is,” Irons said. “I just worry about that. I mean tax-wise it’s an interesting one, because, you see, could a father not marry his son?”
When host Josh Zepps said incest laws would prevent such a relationship, Irons countered: “It’s not incest between men. Incest is there to protect us from inbreeding, but men don’t breed, so incest wouldn’t cover that. Now if that were so, then if I wanted to pass on my estate without death duties, I could marry my son, and pass on my estate to him.”
Irons added that “lawyers are going to have a field day with same-sex marriage.”
Why of course GLAAD would, they couldn’t keep their yaps shut at all. GLAAD has no Holy Spirit, the source of self control. And by thus playing out, the spectacle proves why the BSA did wrong. My hope, which I believe is based in the Lord Jesus Christ, is that private organizations would subsume what had been BSA, if by some miracle the shock of seeing this kind of unseemly rush happen does not get BSA leadership to change their minds before the policy change actually kicks in.
The BSA will wait one year, graduate an Eagle Scout Rump Ranger, then claim it is “unfair” to not allow the 18 year old homosexual to become an adult Scout leader.
Give an inch, they demand a mile.
A real man would have kicked their asses and hard. This religious identity that God is a kind and gentle god is not what the Old Testament had.
Also they have the older boys supervising younger ones NOW without being formal scoutmasters... the camel’s most of the way in the tent and (to mix a metaphor) it is one homosexually horny camel.
God had, and always has had, both sides. Kind to those leaning towards repentance and sanctification; severe to the reprobate.
Did the Mormon church want Homosexual activists to take over the BSA?
That’s news if true.
whatever the BSA did, if it was purely greed and fear of letting go of financial support then of course they are lost as are all who do so in this life.
And yet, they did.
Oh boy it will be. They posited a fantasy situation. This is one serious spiritual beachhead here.
I wonder what the Fisting merit badge will look like?
My rule of thumb is always this. If a man or woman gets involved with scouts etc., and does not have children involved, then their intentions are highly suspect at best. I would never allow another adult(with the exception of some relatives) spend extra time with my children in absence of their own.
Call me paranoid, but I do not think it is normal for an adult to want to spend time with children of strangers in situations where they may be alone with them or there is some chance there might be nudity.
The only exception to this would be some church events that are supervised by other adults or school teachers(though a lot of them are suspect as well).
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