Gay Boy Scouts Now Allowed to be Honest (and Stay in Scouts)

All right gays! Time to get cracking, and fix up that
uniform! Image from source, USAToday.

This story is good news for any Boy Scout who is a) gay and b) unable or unwilling to hide that fact. It is of less help to devoted scouts who happen to be gay, and were hoping to move from membership to leadership. Gay scout leaders are still verboten. Or rather, they can't be open, which means they have to lie, which pretty much wrecks the scout oath.

The funny part is, there have always been and will always be both gay scouts and leaders. I was a Cub Scout and a Webelo and though I may not quite have put a name to it, I was most certainly a gay kid. I first started trying to "cover" for that when I was maybe 4 or 5, though I identified it as "don't let them know you're a sissy." A lot of us seem to have that inborn. It might be why I was in scouts in the first place, to toughen up.  Anyway, there was never any hanky panky, none involving me anyway. But we did have a raging alcoholic den leader who had to let his wife take over, so there's that.

[Excerpt]

Boy Scouts vote to allow gay members

The Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday to allow gay youth to participate in scouting. The historic vote, with 61% in favor, signals another shift in American public opinion about homosexuality but still leaves the organization with many future hurdles.. .

Read more at: USAToday

California May Revoke Boy Scouts' Tax Exempt Status

Image from source, Raw Story

Oh dear, we just can't get away from the gay stuff can we? The news is just loaded with it lately. Sorry, America. Tell ya what, if you'll just cool it on the "gays are icky and we want to exclude them" nonsense, all of this unpleasantness will just go away, m'kay? All righty then.

Let me just say that in this case, I'm irritated more with the improper whining by homophobic defenders of. . .well. . .homophobia, than I am about the Boy Scouts of America's exclusionary practices! I was a gay, atheist Boy Scout, so I feel I got one over on them. But to see conservative groups claiming persecution over things like this really irritates me. It isn't as though the BSA will be shut down. It isn't even like the BSA will be forced to accept RuPaul's Drag Race contestants as pack leaders. It's that if they want to continue to be exclusionary, they can't receive government largesse. HEY!! Conservatives!! You supposedly don't like suckling at the government teat! Show some ideological consistency for once, would you?

[Excerpt]

California moves towards revoking Boy Scouts tax exempt status over gay ban

California has moved one step closer to revoking the tax exemption for the Boy Scouts because of their prohibition against gay members. The California State Senate Governance and Finance Committee approved The Youth Equality Act by a 5-2 vote on Wednesday, sending the bill to the Senate Committee on Appropriations. . .

Read more at: Raw Story

Stephanie Miller Show Combats Conflation of Homosexuality and Pedophilia

The issue of whether or not gays be allowed in the Boy Scouts of America as volunteers or members, has sparked much conflation by idiots of homosexuality and pedophilia. On some levels, it's understandable that the issue of pedophilia can inspire visceral knee-jerk reactions. But, it is long past time for this debunked conflation to be common knowledge as false.

Obviously, pedophiles would be drawn to occupations or activities where they will have the opportunity to indulge their criminal behaviors. And, also obviously, there are pedophiles who focus on kids of their own gender, opposite gender, or any gender, depending upon the offender. However, the perpetrator's sexual orientation may or may not line up with that. For instance, many, many pedophiles who prey on boys do so because of opportunity, it being much more likely that they can be in a position of power over boys than with girls. Also, many, many of those perpetrators consider themselves to be heterosexual, indeed often having wives and families. Jerry Sandusky--for example--considered himself heterosexual, and would not have been screened out by the "no gays allowed" policy of the BSA. [Story continues below]

Equally obviously, we do not attach a social stigma to heterosexual men, even though there are more heterosexual male offenders in rape and pedophilia cases then any other demographic. The conflation of gay men with pedophilia is only due to the inability of many to see the difference between healthy, consenting adult behavior, over criminal, harmful behaviors against children. It isn't right, it isn't true, and it isn't fair.

On Friday morning, a caller to Talking Liberally: The Stephanie Miller Show (on Current TV and radio), claiming to have "nothing against" gay people, knee-jerked his way through an incredibly misinformed rant. Fortunately, the talented (and quite funny, even with this kind of serious subject) crew of Stephanie Miller--including Steph herself, Chris LaVoie, Jim Ward and John Fugelsang--took the caller's arguments apart, and hopefully educated some people along the way. Thanks, guys.