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Opinion
Promoting Sex Clubs But Discouraging
Scouting
March
2001
Massachusetts
public schools are moving toward policies that allow homosexuals
to recruit children for what many believe are unwholesome activities
but that bar the Boy Scouts from recruiting boys for wholesome
activities.
With
the direction of Governor Cellucci, the DOE, the state legislature
and the generously funded Governor’s Commission for Gay and Lesbian
Youth, our high schools are “working to keep our schools safe
for gay, lesbian, and transgendered youth.” School-sponsored,
state-funded Gay-Straight Alliance sex clubs have been established
in many of our public high schools. (See the DOE
website regarding the state’s promotion of GSAs and homosexuality.)
Attorney
Chester Darling calls this state action “really nothing more than
the corruption of our youth.”
At
the heart of these clubs is discussion of all things sexual, especially
of the homosexual variety, and outside groups are deeply involved
with them. These groups include GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight
Education Network, the group that ran the “Fistgate” conference
at Tufts last March) and BAGLY (Boston Alliance of Gay & Lesbian
Youth).
The
legal equity issues have been noted if the Boy Scouts are banned
but sex clubs receive favored treatment. Also, the sex clubs are
of concern because children attending their meetings are not protected
by the “bell-to-bell” coverage of the Parental Notification law.
This
means that parents do not have to be informed of anything that
goes on in these clubs, which usually meet outside official school
hours. Who knows what outside speakers appear or what notices
are handed out about weekend get-togethers, dances and other opportunities
to meet with older homosexuals. This is a serious loophole in
the law, according to Attorney Darling, which the Parents’ Rights
Coalition is working to have addressed by the state legislature.
On
the one hand, parents have no idea what sexual topics their children
are discussing or what gay parties they are being encouraged to
attend, with the school’s blessing. On the other hand, the Scouts
are branded “bigots” and banned in the schools.
The
Scout Law: Worth Preserving?
The public schools attack on the Scouts is obviously part
of the war on our traditional values concerning family, nation,
and religion.
The
Scout Law lists traditional virtues: “A Scout is trustworthy,
loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful,
thrifty, brave, clean, reverent.” The Scout Oath states:
On
my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
And to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times; To keep myself physically strong,
Mentally awake, and morally straight.
The
Boy Scout Handbook section on “sexual responsibility” assumes
that sex will be between a male and a female, in the context of
the Scout’s responsibility to women and children and his beliefs.
Abstinence until marriage is implied.
In
addition, a Scout has a responsibility to himself: “An understanding
of wholesome sexual behavior can bring you lifelong happiness.
Irresponsibility or ignorance, however, can cause a lifetime of
regret. AIDS and venereal disease spread by sexual contact may
undermine your health and that of others.”
Sensible
as these statements seem, they are branded “hateful.” Reasonable
policies intended to protect boys from sexual predators are branded
“homophobic.”
The
truth is that many say the Scouts’ attackers are the intolerant
ones. As the Boy Scouts told the U.S. Supreme Court, “A society
in which each and every organization must be equally diverse is
a society that has destroyed diversity.” Or, as Nat Hentoff has
said, you can’t say you believe in free speech if what you mean
is that you only believe in the free speech of people with whom
you agree.
Rather
than attack the Boy Scouts of America, they say, why don’t the
homosexual advocates just stick to promoting “Scouting for All,”
a new organization that welcomes homosexuals in all roles? The
answer is that they want to shut down traditional values in American
society as a whole. Controlling the captive audience of public
school children is crucial to this endeavor. If they win this
battle, the rights of us all are endangered.
Citizens’
vigilance may yet halt the attack on the Scouts’ First Amendment
rights. Rather than being disheartened by this situation, we should
see it as an opportunity to challenge the irrational and unfair
policies of our public schools.
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