Special Bulletin 02-2013
SPECIAL BULLETIN 02-2013
The Demise of the Boy Scouts?
On June 28, 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the BSA has the legal right to “bar homosexuals from being troop leaders. The justices by a 5-4 vote overturned a New Jersey Supreme Court ruling that the dismissal of a gay Scout leader had been illegal under the state's anti-discrimination law.” (1)
On July 17, 2012, the BSA announced it would retain its policy of prohibiting professed homosexuals to serve as Scouts or Scout leaders. This decision follows a nearly two- year-long examination, started in 2010, of the policy commissioned by the Chief Scout Executive and national president.
“The vast majority of the parents of youth we serve value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family, with spiritual advisers, and at the appropriate time and in the right setting,” said Bob Mazzuca, Chief Scout Executive, Boy Scouts of America. * (2)
On January 28, 2013 the BSA confirmed it was considering allowing local BSA Troops to override a longstanding ban on openly homosexual scouts and leaders. As noted by journalist J.K. Trotter, the reasons for lifting the ban relate to funding and the BSA’s concern about public perception:
...a handful of flush corporations — including UPS, Intel, and Merck — have recently refused to donate money to the Scouts on account of their ban. It's the scout-by-scout tales both large and small, however, that appear to have captured the national spotlight and the hearts of Scout leaders from the inside of the organization all the way to the top. (3)
In 2012, Intel, Merck, and UPS decided to suspend funding for the BSA due to its policy regarding homosexuals. Below is a chart indicating the major corporate donors to the BSA. It is hard to calculate the funds lost, but the losses incurred from these three firms’ decision not to fund the BSA amount to something less than $1 million. According to the Better Business Bureau, total income for the BSA in 2010 was $310,518,000. (4)
Scouting is a private organization grounded in the moral teachings of Judaism and Christianity. No one should compel the Scouts to jettison their moral convictions about human sexuality or faith in God to placate insistent, vocal minorities.
Homosexual predators are a danger to boys and young men in Scouts: “A Seattle attorney has published online what he says are the names of 1,932 Boy Scouts of America leaders accused or convicted of sexually abusing children — a small slice of the nearly 20,000 names in the BSA’s secret ‘perversion files’.” (5)
The great majority of Scout troops are chartered in faith-based organizations (69 percent). Substantial numbers of Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, Mormon, and other traditional faiths compose a large part of Scouting. It is unfair to ask them to compromise their beliefs about sexual morality.
Boys should not be introduced to sexual controversies at a young age. They should be allowed to participate in healthy, wholesome activities without fear of predation or moral confusion. If the Boy Scouts cave to the pressure because of the fear of losing funding from activist corporations they will likely lose much more from their base.
*Mr. Mazzuca's comments were original part of a Press Release on the BSA website - that Press Release is no longer available online. Was originally located at http://www.scouting.org/Media/PressReleases/2012/20120717.aspx
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