Please don't misunderstand me: I don't question your right to hold your opinions, or to have whatever rules for admision that you think is best. All I say is, that I am not sympathetic to the underlying beliefs that lead you to these opinions. As I understand you don't feel that a gay man could properly teach your kids some fundemental values, supposedly(?) values of heterosexuality - the nucleus familly basically, and that being around gays in their childhood may increse the probability that kids grow up to be gays. This illustrates, pardon me, quite a bit of ignorance about the entire concept of being gay/homosexual. Being gay is not learned. Whether they are the result of genetics or the enviroment, I don't know, and I don't think anyone have sufficient information to know with any degree of certaincy. However, I can say that noone "recruited" me to homosexuallity - during my entire childhood I met one or two gays (that I know of), and still I grew up to become a gay man. This is IMHO the thing that has caused the most misunderstandings about gays; since we know, almost instinctivly, that there is no such thing as "gay recruting" we tend to get irritated with people who still think there is. Unfortionally this irritation leads some of us to label anyone, eg. the BSA, as homophobes or gay-haters, simply because they are yet suspicious about gays. Ironically this behaviour tends to make everyone else more suspicious of gays, and a vicious circle have started.
The bottomline of all this is, that even though I don't agree with your idea that gays can't act as good rolemodels for your kids, I also realize that this is not necessarily because you are intrinsically hostile towards gays, it may very well be because of a genuine concern for your kids. I can only hope that further awareness of the gay community, and of gays in general, will cure this division, and make eg. the BSA realize that there is no real reason for it's current fear of gays. I also sincerely belive this will happen in the not-so-far future.
Let me be brief. The Supreme court case was not about what we believe or donot believe about gays. Nor.....is it even about gays. What the point of the judicial arguement really was is the fact that we admit to our volunteer ranks only those who share our beliefs since much of our program is about morality and right and wrong.
Personally, I believe that a gay person is no more likely to molest a boy than the general population. This is not what we are worried about.
When a gay is activist, the very fact that he/she is accepted by the BSA would fly directly in the face of our beliefs. We desire people who share our purpose and beliefs, not those that wish to change them. To those that do, I say "go your own way, but respect us for ours."
One of my responsibilities is youth protection training. This involves spotting child abuse of any kind, dealing with it with the help of the proper authority and preventing it from happening in the first place.
My personal feeling is that common sense would tell you that a activist gay man and a bunch of impressionable 12 year olds on a over nite or full week outing do not go together very well.
Could something happen?......yes. Would something happen?..........who knows?..... Could I have prevented it if it did happen?.............Absolutely!
Most of the molestation cases that I am aware of, occurred with straight men who were peodophiles. We look hard at everyone who comes to us. If they lie, there is little we could do to eliminate them. If they engage in behavior that is against our priciples, they must go! That goes for everyone!
I hope I have explained this. Please know that these are my opinions and mine alone.
Read my post #105 for more on this. But basically the point is this. The BSA is a private organization that is open to everyone that shares our beliefs and they must adhere to BSA guidelines. Being openly gay, just like in the military, is not in line with those guidelines, nor are many other things. We must have this right to freely associate with those who share our goals in order to do what we do.