The Boy Scouts: Newly “Out and Proud”

Mary Rice Hasson - BSA

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Uniformed Boy Scouts marched front and center this past weekend, leading the Utah \”gay pride parade\” in Salt Lake City.

No matter that officials from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) told the marchers not to wear their uniforms. (BSA policies prohibit Scouts from wearing uniforms while engaging in social or political advocacy.)

For these Scouts, the \”gay pride\” message trumped the Boy Scout regulations.

Kenji Mikesell, a homosexual Eagle Scout marching in uniform, justified his defiance because “It just feels like the right thing to do.” Sending a \”welcoming\” message for \”gay kids getting involved in Scouting,” he says, is a “\’we want you here\’ type of thing.\”

It was actually a bit of a risky move for these ‘out and proud’ Scouts, not because the Boy Scouts are likely to impose sanctions (doubtful), but because \”gay pride\” events notoriously feature sexually explicit costumes, slogans, and images. The wrong camera angle could have been a public relations disaster.

The progressive media, however, helpfully focused on middle-aged same-sax couples and their kids, not drag queens in speedos. (The concern was real enough, however, for Utah’s Scouts for Equality to warn supporters “to use caution when promoting inclusivity in the BSA at events” that sport “adult themes and imagery.”)

What should we make of the proud march of Utah’s homosexual Scouts?

First, expect more of the same, in every city, at every \”gay pride\” parade. Parade organizers and national LGBT advocacy groups will handle the choreography, because uniformed Boy Scouts waving rainbow flags are sure to generate prime-time media coverage (even if it’s the same few Scouts over and over).

It’s a paralyzing, no-win situation for Scouting officials: if they levy sanctions against the “openly gay” Scouts who violate the no-public-advocacy-while-in-uniform policy, they’ll be kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest, creating martyrs, stirring up LGBT animosity, and sending donors scurrying.

If they let “openly gay” kids flout the uniform rule—because they are only celebrating “who they are,” after all—the BSA will invite further challenges to any BSA rules that \”gays\” might perceive as unwelcoming, unsupportive, or limiting their identity expression. (The BSA reckoned poorly if it really thought changing the membership policy to admit “openly gay” teens would lessen the pressure from LGBT activists.)

Second, the Utah pride parade is a stark reminder that, no matter how loudly BSA insists that all “sexual conduct,” whether heterosexual and homosexual, is “contrary” to Scouting’s values, or how clearly BSA says that social and political advocacy is not permitted in Scouting, the homosexual culture—inherently sexual—is likely to waft in with the “openly gay” teen.

Think back to the teenage Scouts marching in Utah. One hopes that a young Scout like Kenji skipped the other “Pride”events. But, then again, why would he? Perhaps, caught up in the celebration of “who he is,” he joined the audience at the Pride Pageant, which showcased “the most beautiful, talented and outrageous drag personalities in Utah.” Maybe, at his parents’ urging, he sought to learn how to avoid HIV, which now afflicts one in five homosexual men, and stopped by the Festival’s Health and Wellness Zone to pick up “FREE condoms, lube, dental dams and more.” And, while he was there, he might have gotten a free HIV test, just in case.

One thing’s for sure. As he moved through the crowd, wearing his uniform, Kenji undoubtedly earned hugs and high fives. For to be “openly gay” in today’s culture, especially as a teen-age boy, is to be hailed far and wide as “so brave, so inspirational.”

Of course that will have an impact on other struggling youth, perhaps encouraging some to identify prematurely as \”gay\”.

Columnist Tom McDonald puts it well:

The idea of “gay teens” is particularly problematic. There are, quite obviously, same-sex attracted teens, but the idea that teenagers, who can’t even settle on a hairstyle or a musical preference, can declare a fixed lifetime sexual identity is absurd. Adolescence is a time of flux and experimentation. The emotional and sexual tsunami of teen years is trying enough when we’re just dealing with the behavior and its ramifications.

When we attach ontology to the mix (making these desires central to being), we just make everything more confusing. A teen with same-sex attraction is now a “Gay Teen.” It’s like joining a club you can never leave.

For Catholics following the Church’s teaching, the struggle against same-sex attraction (like the struggle against any disorder or sinful behavior) is one best undertaken privately, with the support of family, confessor, and counselors, or within the context of a peer support group, like Courage Apostolate. This quiet, private approach also respects the privacy of other youth who might be oblivious to others’ struggles against same-sex attraction, or who might find their peers’ struggles unduly troubling.

The recent letter by the Chairman of the National Catholic Committee on Scouting (NCCS) suggests that Catholic troops will try and take the quiet approach, neither encouraging nor pressuring youth to disclose same-sex attraction. However, the letter also notes that, in keeping with the new BSA policy, a youth need not hide his same-sex orientation either.

Therein lies the problem. The cultural voices, including those of some progressive Catholics and denominations (like the Methodists) that sponsor Boy Scout troops, too often respond to youth same-sex attraction with celebration. Accepting the “openly gay teen” has come to mean affirming his “gayness” and encouraging him to embrace same-sex sexual desires as ‘another normal,’ without shame.

Something’s got to give.

It won’t be Catholic doctrine, that’s for sure.

But given the ease with which the ‘out and proud’ Boy Scouts rolled past official Scout policies, I suspect the BSA will continue to give ground…until there’s nothing left on which to stand.

© 2013. Mary Rice Hasson. All Rights Reserved.

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23 thoughts on “The Boy Scouts: Newly “Out and Proud””

  1. The other problems is that I see a disturbing trend in youth activities in general.

    When I was a kid, Boy Scouts were about the boys and Girl Scouts were about
    the girls. Little League was a way to get 18 kids on the field at the
    same time so they could play “real” baseball.

    I was a terrible Boy Scout (camping and allergies don’t mix), but I had several friends make Eagle. One of them is gay. He didn’t come out until after college. It never was an issue.

    But now, Boy Scouts is a “conservative” organization, Girl Scouts a “liberal” one. And Little League is about competition between parents by proxy with clinics and tournaments and clubs.

    Children are no longer allowed to be children, but are seen as extensions of the parents, and the battles parents have with each other have crept into childhood.

    A side effect of the contraceptive mentality is that if you believe that “every child is a wanted child”, it logically follows then the child’s value depends on the wants of the parents. The children that are planned with the meticulousness of a shuttle launch often have the rest of their lives planned just as meticulously. Even if the parents aren’t big planners, social pressure makes them far more structured than their parents were.

    A contraceptive society is an old society and an old society is a dying society.

  2. So many of the commentators are preaching the Doctrine of Fred Phelps instead of the Doctrine of the Catholic Church that they miss what is really going on here.
    Society is not only tolerating, but encouraging and celebrating sexual disorder. I will not speculate as to the cause of the disorder or the culpability of those who suffer from it.

    Why is this? I think that the gay movement is as much, if not more, about what heterosexuals think about sex as opposed to gay rights. GLBTQ individuals are a small minority who do things that most heterosexuals would rather not think about. What the gay movement says, however, is that sex is for pleasure and that any way we can seek pleasure is good and necessary. This message appeals to heterosexuals, thus the support of gay rights.

    Sex is good. Sexual pleasure is good. But the purpose of sex is about far more than just pleasure. Sex is designed for procreation and to bond a couple together in a lifelong union. Pleasure properly serves the ends of sex. A mutually pleasurable experience makes a couple more likely to engage in the act that leads to conception and makes it easier to bond when they do. Turning it around and letting sex serve the ends of pleasure is disordered. People forget the true meaning and power of sex in order to pursue something that does not satisfy.

    The gay issue is only the tip of the iceberg. Straight people are the problem.

    1. Who defines “sexual disorder”? The American Medical Association? The American Psychiatric Association? The American Psychological Association? The DSM (Diagnostic Statistical Manual)? Episcopalians? Reform Judaism? None consider it a disorder….The Catholic Church does. The RCC should define disorder for those who ascribe to its beliefs and God…many people do not and the RCC is not the final arbiter of “disorder” for all mankind for the past 200,000 that primates lived on earth.

    2. Disorder is something that is contrary to order.

      An activity is ordered when it is done in a way that is consistent with it’s purpose. An activity is disordered when it is done in a way that is inconsistent with it’s purpose.

      The purpose of the reproductive system is reproduction. (Duh!) The ideal circumstances for reproduction is in the context of a life-long committed loving relationship between the parents. (Also, duh!)

      Any use of sexuality consistent with this purpose is ordered. Sex between a married couple who wants a baby is obviously consistent with this purpose. Naturally infertile sex between a married couple is also consistent with this purpose. Even though no child results, it serves to bond the couple together and cements the commitment between the partners.

      Any use of sexuality inconsistent with this purpose is disordered.
      Sex outside of marriage is inconsistent with the purposes of sex bonding a life-long committed relationship between potential parents. Contraceptive sex contradicts the purpose of reproduction. In naturally infertile sex, nature makes the act infertile and the couple doesn’t do anything that goes against reproduction, even if they are aware that nature has made the act infertile. With contraceptive sex, the couple makes the act infertile, which is contrary to the purpose of sex. Non-procreative activities, including homosexual acts, are also using the reproductive system for purposes that are contrary to reproduction. With homosexual acts, they are in the context of a relationship that is not and can never be the same as that of a lifelong heterosexual paring. Only the heterosexual couple can use their reproductive system in a way consistent with it’s purpose.

      A desire to use the reproductive system in a manner inconsistent with its purpose in a relationship that cannot fulfill this purpose is a disordered desire.

      None of this involves any Catholic dogma or spirituality.

      You say the “RCC is not the final arbiter of “disorder”, so I ask you: What is order? What is “disorder”? What is the purpose of sexuality? What is the purpose of marriage?

      Oh, as for psychology, you might want to read these:

      http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/05/the-real-problems-with-psychiatry/275371/

      http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/opinion/brooks-heroes-of-uncertainty.html?hp&_r=2&

    3. James,
      You are right. The purpose of the reproductive system in all primates is to pass one’s DNA to future generations to provide for species continuity.
      Sexuality, on the other hand, involves most sensory receptive and expressive organs in the body as well as one’s emotions and innate spirituality.
      There is a world of difference between reproductive systems and sexuality. The former is a biological mechanism; the latter involves body, mind, emotions and soul. Reproduction is one small aspect of human sexuality. IMHO

  3. Same sex attraction, same sex attraction we hear often. It is very difficult for people of developing countries to understand this. Do the European countries fear that there will be no men and women but only same sex attraction “Beings” all over in the near future ? Simply some perverts and the hopeless media give strength to this new concept and selfish politicians are there to expand their hold opportunistically. I am really sad that some Catholics and few priests too go after this “Fun” without knowing anything about the Church or Jesus or Freedom.

  4. OK, let’s be simple:

    Boys Scouts of America is a private organization; Girl Scouts of America is a private organization. Girl Scouts for years have been inclusive and refusing to discriminate against lesbian and transgender girls. Until recently, BSA prohibited “openly gay” boys from membership…that has changed. 60% of BSA units are connected to religious organizations, some of which consider homosexuality “innately disordered” contrary to the positions of the AMA, APA, APsychA, etc and removed from the DSM. Most Americans do not believe sexual orientation is chosen; all primates are along a continuum from heterosexual to homosexual. This is a continuum of orientation shared by all primates.

    Government derives from the people. It is the will of the people which determines law, policy and direction and yet protects religion from having law imposed on it. If the Catholic Church wants to ban “openly gay” kids from its organizations, it is permissible, just call yourself a separate organization like Catholic Scouts of America and disassociate from the BSA. If you want to be a Catholic obey the Church’s law; if you want to be associated with BSA, follow its precepts. What could be simpler.

    Sexual orientation like gender and skin color and nationality and disability are not chosen…religion and association are CHOSEN, Very simple.

    1. What is meant by “openly gay” boys ? Does it mean that these boys indulge in sex with other boys ? Is it the standard of an American family ? Using all foul phrases , the American Catholics who are loyal to Church and Jesus are confused. Is America afraid that there will be no males and females in the near future but only same sex attraction “humans” ?They may be thinking that there will not be children and slowly the human species will extinguish and the world will end.

    2. “openly gay” for the BSA means the same thing as it means for the US military since “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was repealed. It means that people can identify with the reality of who they are…it has nothing to do with behavior..same rules apply for gay youth and heterosexual youth.

    3. Then there is no meaning for the phrase “openly gay”. What is the reality, that one is not a man and not a woman ? Any life can have sexual feelings. As far as human beings are concerned, our Church teaches the standard of morality we have to observe. It applies to all human beings whether man, or woman or enuch. Let us clarify this to all pro gay people.

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  6. See the disobedience of the AmChurch. Youth are being used as fodder to destroy Catholic principles.

    Homo-Church Invades the Catholic Kindergarten
    By Randy Engel

    [Editor’s note: Certain sections of Harcourt Religious Publishers’ Growing In Love are too explicit to be printed in a Catholic family newspaper. However, any adult reader of CFN wishing to verify these texts may contact the author using addresses provided at the conclusion of this article.]

    Introduction

    Leave it to the Church’s Lavender Lobby! Just when the moral stench of the Clinton-Lewinsky affair has begun to disperse and the air made breathable again, and the crimes of the clerical homo-peds have moved from nightly network news to the more discrete shadowland of out-of-court settlements in chancery offices, along comes the Homosexual Network within the Catholic Church to up the scandal ante with a third generation of sexual catechetics specifically designed to bring the Homosexual Agenda into the Catholic home and grade school.

    With the American hierarchy firmly in tow, and after having successfully colonized virtually every seminary, diocese and religious order in the United States, Homo-Church is moving into parish life with a vengeance. And with the parish comes the parochial school with its endless supply of potential new recruits and fresh meat. Forget the old motto of the Rene Guyon (pedophile) Society “sex by eight, or it’s too late.” Now its ‘start at five, why deprive.’……

    http://www.unitypublishing.com/Newsletter/Innocence.htm

  7. I don’t understand your reasoning. Why are you shocked that the boy’s scouts have finally caved into the pressures of the gay lobbists?

    The boy scouts are finally in lock step with the U S bishop’s schools in
    America. See quotes from the following website on what youth are taught in the sexualized catechetics with imprimatur.

    “ Growing in Love (GIL) …………is the most deceitful, lewd, perverse K-8 sex-as-religion, homo-promo series yet to be inflicted upon innocent children by bishops.

    …..Before many children are taught to read, they are being indoctrinated to embrace a “joy of sex” mentality where sexual activity will be judged on the basis of personal desires, not according to the Commandments of God or the teaching of the Church. ….

    In Catholic classrooms, the sins of homosexual acts are diminished. Homosexuality, bisexuality and other perverse aberrations are subtly and systematically normalized……

    Homosexuality becomes a God-given “gender,” a gift rather than a cross to bear.

    As in all Catholic sex education programs, including Growing in Love (GIL), sex and religion are mixed and stirred until sex becomes religion and religion becomes sex. Catechizing has become sexualizing. This is what today’s bishops across the country want for your children.
    They also want to draw in the parents as “partners” (silent partners, that is) with the diocese in the destruction of the faith and the sexualization of the minds of children. Parents who disagree are treated with contempt……

    For years, Catholic youth have been led astray by such programs….

    The Bishop’s Role
    Notwithstanding all the lawsuits, American bishops have created an
    “ad hoc Committee on the Catechism” to give a more authoritative approval to the contents of their vulgar sex education programs..”

    http://www.motherswatch.net/content/view/12/6/

    There was a time when the only formidable organization that could combat these
    aggressions was the Catholic Church. Not any longer. From the highest echelon of the Vatican, homosexuality is given the green light.
    See what is mandated in parochial schools in the motherswatch.net site. There are more. See who are the ‘silent partners’, and the donators at every mass. It’s the UNcatechized who have foistered these evil aggressions.

    Where are the valiant men to crusade for the salvation of our youths souls? Over and over it is proven they are not in the post-conciliar church.

  8. We do a disservice to disturbed youth when we use the term “same-sex attracted”. These are youth who suffered great psycho-sexual trauma that afflicts them with this grave disorder. This may be due to rape, a failure of proper same-sex parenting, or experimenting with an initial sexual experience.

    The only area that mentally-healthy adults should express never ending sorrow, excruciating penances, and public immolation for is the contraceptive mentality that is the intellectual background of every abberation in this area. If you seek infertile copulation, you can’t, in good conscience, say no to any pairing or grouping. These attitudes groom the young for every abomination. It might be helpful to remember the millstone-rope each of us will have our necks fitted with if we are found guilty of causing such anguish or being indifferent to it.

    To really address this area is to revisit the proper roles of both the feminine and masculine genus, their God-given complimentarity, and the best environment for the procreation and education of children.

    The only gift of that most demonic of decades, the 1960’s, was Paul VI’s, “Humanae Vitae”, yet with all the current nostalgia in Rome for that decades hippie-theology, that seeded the most serious decline in Church History, not once has anyone uttered a word in it’s promulgation nor defense.

    We have Belgian Bishops announcing their favoring “civil unions” as other VERY notable persons in Rome have. If we can allow homophiles to convince us that sodomites can live together, how can we say, in good conscience, that co-habiting heterosexuals should not? This seems part of a plan to be more “modern (ist) and welcoming”. It also doubles as a very nice marketing plan to fill empty churches again with dues-(parish envelopes) paying attendees. That’s not pastoring the flock, that’s retail religion!

    If the Church is to survive, without the prophetic violence Heaven has repeatedly warned us is imminent if we continue in this way, we can no longer allow cowardice, chiefly among the Princes of The Church, to be called tortured concepts of “dialogue”. “ecumenism”, or “tolerance”.

    SALVE REGINA. MATER MISERICORDIA, ORA PRO NOBIS!

  9. Tom MacDonald says: “There are, quite obviously, same-sex attracted teens, but the idea that
    teenagers, who can’t even settle on a hairstyle or a musical preference,
    can declare a fixed lifetime sexual identity is absurd.”

    When
    I read statements like this I want to fall down and give up. What on
    earth is Mr MacDonald trying to suggest here? That we merely “declare”
    our lifetime sexual identity? Has Mr MacDonald any notion of the words
    “mortal sin”? We are not talking about someone deciding whether or not
    to write with his left hand or his right hand, we are talking about
    someone committing a horrendous sin, one that cries to Heaven for
    vengeance. Would Mr MacDonald state that adolescents might at some
    point “declare” their preference for car-jacking, dog torturing or
    murder? When a child reaches the age of reason, which is generally
    conceded to be around the age of seven, that child begins to at least
    sense the difference between right and wrong, and if his mother and
    father sense he is interested in pursuing this most degrading moral
    offense those parents should be helping him out of such a death trap.

    I
    am growing increasingly impatient with utterly absurd phrases and
    concepts such as “same-sex attraction”, “born that way”, “sexual
    identity” and “sexual orientation”. It is gibberish, pure and simple,
    and is being used by unthinking or unscrupulous people to undermine
    and/or eliminate the notion of personal, chosen sin.

    Let us stop this charade and start facing facts.

    1. And your remark, James, means…exactly, what? Are all serious sins to be now attributed to mental illness? Are car thieves or bank robbers or adulterers or rapists all mental cases? Sadly, the central issue here is the refusal of many – including, astonishingly, many in the Church – to call a spade a spade, or a sin a sin. We need to get real, here, and start thinking like Catholics.

    2. I AM thinking like a Catholic.

      Catechism of the Catholic Church § 2358-59.

      2358 The number of men and women who have
      deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the
      difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

      2359
      Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.

    3. Friend James,

      Your comment precisely proves my point, namely: that the Church is refusing to call a spade a spade. The psycho-babble that now passes for “teaching” in that miserably flawed New Catechism is exactly the problem we are talking about. The modernists in the Church, who have had the upper hand now for many decades, have purposely concocted a namby-pamby Catechism of “niceness” as opposed to clear, unambiguous centuries-old Catholic doctrine.

      Have we already forgotten the words of Christ about those who have adulterous thoughts and who have “committed adultery in their hearts”? Apparently the dubious authors of the New Catechism have. We can sin “in thought, word and deed” as any Catholic should well know. Thought the degrees of culpability are obviously different, sinning by thought is a real concept that all too many have lost sight of.

      You should one day compare the Catechism of the Council of Trent with this 1980s “feel good” concoction. You will be shocked by the differences.

    4. I find that many who claim there was a “great change” in the Catholic Church have either misunderstood the old, the new or both, or they have failed to account for advances in scientific, academic, or theological knowledge over time.

      Those who complain about the Church being “namby-pamby” often have a Pelegian misunderstanding of the faith. Salvation is not a matter of our own efforts, but of us opening ourselves to the Grace of God.

      Finally, if anyone believes that the Holy Spirit has deserted the magisterium of the Church and no longer attends papal conclaves or ecumenical councils, that makes them Orthodox, not orthodox.

    5. James:

      These questions have been discussed over and over again for so long that it gets rather tiring to keep answering them. Like death and taxes, the one certain thing is that whenever someone points out the foibles of Catholic churchmen one is automatically cast outside the pale.

      Those who think the Holy Ghost chooses the Pope in conclave is either naive or disingenuous. The Cardinals, human beings to a man, choose the Pope. They can either walk into that conclave humbly, praying to the Holy Ghost for guidance or they can walk in with a specific agenda as has been the case far too often. The Holy Ghost does not trump the actions of the Cardinals; they are not protected by infallibility. The same holds true with Ecumenical Councils…even mere pastoral as opposed to dogmatic ones, like Vatican 2. And since the Pope and the Cardinals at VII clearly stated at the beginning of the Council sessions that no dogmatic formulations were to be brought forth we Catholics can safely criticize the outcome of that sadly problematical gathering and still remain Catholic.

      If you are unaware that there have been great (and grave) changes to the Catholic Church since the late 1960s then you are either not paying attention or are willfully ignoring reality. All I can say to that is that you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink.

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