(EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter (originally published in 2013) is a response from Mark Alexander to his son, a Cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy, concerning the Boy Scouts of America national board proposal to allow homosexual Scout leaders. Alexander is both a Troop Scoutmaster and member of his area Boy Scout Executive Council.)
I received your note about news of an upcoming proposal before the Boy Scouts of America national board, which meets Wednesday, February 6th.
According to the news release regarding that proposal, “The BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.” You are correct, the removal of this restriction will permit local BSA Councils to accept homosexual members and, moreover, to invite homosexuals to serve in leadership positions at all levels of the organization.
I understand your profound disappointment in this great organization, after all you accomplished to obtain your Eagle rank. I share that disappointment as your former Scoutmaster, and many years in other leadership positions with the BSA.
A decade ago, when you first joined my Cub Scout Pack, I wrote the BSA’s National Executive Board about concerns regarding advertisers in the Cub and Boy Scouting magazines. The great Scouting stories were wrapped in ads for junk food and video games.
I was struck by the fact that on the one hand, we, as leaders, were charged with encouraging our boys to develop healthy habits for life — and on the other hand, the national organization was serving them a monthly dose of junk food and video game advertising.
The BSA responded that without those advertisers, it would be difficult to fund their glossy publications. I rebutted that this was a “Faustian bargain,” that it conveyed the wrong message in every respect. I heard nothing more from the BSA.
Fast forward to the BSA news this week. In light of all the reports and litigation over the abusive predation on boys by homosexual adults in leadership positions with churches and other organizations, the notion that the BSA is considering lifting its ban on homosexuals holding such positions is mind numbing, stupefying — in fact, shocking.
Now, clearly all homosexuals are not molesters of teens and pre-teens, but where same-sex molestation occurs, homosexuals are almost always the perpetrators. So, why would the national BSA board consider a motion to remove its national restriction on homosexual leaders, and invite avowed homosexuals to fill “select leadership” roles?
Well, for much the same reason the BSA advertised junk food and video games in its national Scouting magazines. The national BSA board includes wealthy corporate executives, who are more interested in dictating BSA policy that comports with their corporate bottom line than with the mission of Scouting. They are completely out of touch with rank and file Scouts and leaders across the nation.
Indeed, much of the pressure to put homosexuals in leadership roles is coming from two national board members: James Turley, CEO of Ernst & Young, and Randall Stephenson, CEO of AT&T, who is slated to become president of the BSA national board in 2014.
Despite the fact that the Supreme Court ruled in favor of the BSA’s ban on homosexuals in 2000, these BSA board members are endeavoring to force their social agenda on 3.6 million Scouts and adult leaders. They want Scouting to comply with their corporate policies, which have adopted the homosexual agenda under pressure, primarily from the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and the so-called “Human Rights” Campaign.
While homosexuals account for fewer than 3 percent of the population, they have some very loud advocacy organizations.
The BSA also excludes avowed atheists from leadership positions, but David Silverman, president of American Atheists, said, “If they are considering lifting the ban on gays, that’s a good thing. I would hope they remove the rest of the bigotry and admit atheists as well.”
Last summer, the BSA committee charged with conducting a two-year national study and survey on the restrictions against homosexuals, affirmed by “unanimous consensus,” upholding those restrictions. (Did they really need a two-year study to figure that out?) But now, a few corporate execs are attempting an end run around the local councils and all of us who are Scouting’s foot soldiers, and hope for a quick sweep of the board.
So what will be the consequences if the national board approves of this measure?
The national BSA restriction against homosexual members and leaders has provided a cover policy for the 290 BSA Councils across the nation, and the more than 115,000 religious and civic groups under which BSA Troops are chartered.
Abandoning this restriction will move the cultural battlefront to the front door of every council and troop across the nation — including their sponsors and chartering organizations. In short order, those of us who have devoted so many years to the BSA and other character-building organizations for young people, will be labeled “intolerant bigots” if we do not comport with the “gay agenda.” Fact is, there is nothing “gay” about being homosexual.
The BSA celebrated its centennial in 2010, but if this proposal is approved, Scouting, as we know it today, will be fractured in some areas of the nation, and will cease to exist.
Obviously, a few elitist corporate types on the BSA’s National Executive Board hail from some alternate universe. The mere suggestion of lifting the restrictions against homosexuals, particularly in leadership positions, is an insulting affront to the vast majority of Scouts, Scout leaders and parents, Scout Councils and chartering organizations.
The National Board should provide cover fire for their local affiliates, not spotlight them as targets for infiltration and annihilation. If the BSA Board is more devoted to its corporate sponsors than the organization’s mission, and fears it will collapse without those sponsors, then let it fall with honor rather than decline in disgrace.
Finally, in this era when few of our national leaders abide by their oaths of office, I know you will stand firm in the oath you took upon becoming a Scout, and repeated many times on the road to your Eagle rank: “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.”
And what is the Scout Law? “A Scout is: Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, Clean and Reverent.”
Hold your ground young man!
If you have an opinion on this matter, please contact the BSA national office at 972-580-240, or leave them a message here (http://www.scouting.org/ContactUs.aspx)
