Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I'll buy that.
I can't help but wonder, though, if forcing them to accept gays would do anything but hurt their opinions of homosexuals. I've always felt that diversity cannot be forcibly created, only allowed to happen on its own.

Jello, I did not know about the governmental funding. That IS something that would give BSA less of a choice about who they do and do not allow in power.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I think that if they accepted homosexuals it would ultimately be good for the organization (as well as individual scouts, of course), but I would never want them forced to do it regardless of how good the outcome might be. I would much rather see another organization with more accepting policies replace it as this country's dominant scouting group for boys, but that will be a long time in coming. If I ever have sons I will definitely see what other organizations are out there if they're interested in scouting.

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Rape (of children or anyone) IS about power. It has nothing to do with sexual gratification. Many rapists/molestors are otherwise happily married, sometimes with kids of their own (that they may or may not be abusing). Wikipedia has some interesting theories - some of them I do not agree with. But it'll answer some questions.

BOT - I agree with all of you that a homosexual is no more likely to abuse a child than a heterosexual. Sexual orientation has NOTHING to do with it. Lahi - I PERSONALLY know a guy who abused young boys, and he always defined himself as heterosexual. (If you're wondering how I met this guy, I worked with him at a day care - yes, they did do a background check...he'd never been caught before. He was caught with a young man in his car. This was long after I'd worked with him; I hadn't seen him in a year or so - I read about it in the paper.)

Anywho, private organization or not, it's a crying shame that people are discriminated against when there's really no reason behind it. EVERYONE who works closely with kids should be subject to strict background checks, no matter their gender or sexual orientation. And someone said it earlier that under NO circumstances should an adult be allowed to be in a situation with a child with no one else present. That's for the child's protection as well as the adult's (to avoid any false accusations).

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well i for one don't really have a problem with gay peoples

Ooo IJ, check out 4-H... no weird uniforms, no badges... pretty fun...

and i agree. If the nation's youth grows up segregated from youths who might be homosexual or bisexual, it might create emotions and actions that could be considered homophobic. And the cycle goes on...

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Hey! There was a South Park on this! Anyways, I like the idea of " no adult should be alone with a child on a camping trip" or whatever, but when you think about it, it might get a little excessive. I mean, what are they going to do, have every parent come with the child on the camping trip thinking another parent will molest their kids while they're sleeping? (ok, thats a little excentric, but you get my idea, right?!?)

No, but there should be an adult and a group of kids or more than one adult and the child in question. Always more than two people is the idea.

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First of all, I must point out that, according to my own research, that things like rape and molestation distinctly fall into the category of predatory behavior. Being gay does not make someone a predator, and being straight does not insure that someone not a predator. So, at least for me, the issue isn't about whether or not allowing gays to participate would contribute to predatory behavior.

I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, as a pastor in a church body that does not allow for homosexual ordination, I am concerned about the repercussions of discouraging organizations like the BSA to do away with moral requirements like this. On the other hand, I'm not sure that exclusionary policies are necessarily helpful to themselves or to outsiders.

Now, the BSA isn't exactly what you would call a religious institution these days. But my understanding of its history, it was considered such at one time. This further complicates the matter.

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I am doubtful of Jello B.'s claims about the federal funding and such. We did occasionally use school classrooms for merit badge classes when I was younger, but good money was paid to rent those out. But all the scout troops I have been involved in have been fully funded by the scouts and the religious organization that sponsored the troop. I know that most scout troops are sponsored by religious organizations (more than half, don't know exactly how many) and those are not funded at all by the federal government.

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My understanding was that government funding for them was cut several years ago, precisely because of this issue. But that religious organizations and private individuals more than made up for the loss. But that has been a while; there might have been changes since then.

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um, officially the BSA has never been and is not a religious or paramilitary (i only mention that one because they explicitly state that) organization, but there are clear ties to religion. i have never been pressured to believe in God by the scouts so i wouldn't particularly count them as a religious organization because they are pretty PC about openness and all that stuff.

and yeah they are a private club and im pretty sure that Didy is right about having the funding cut by the gov't because of related issues.

Interesting...when I was in the BSA, I recall one of the key traits to follow (we had 12, and I don't remember them all, but we had to recite them each meeting) was being "reverent," which implies being religious and believing in some diety. Also, I recall that our troop along with many others had a Chaplain Aid as one of the offices. Moreover, while some of the members of my troop were Muslim, every campout I went to had some sort of organized prayer that felt very much like a Christian prayer to me.

Someone earlier said that there are other organizations like the BSA that do not require members to be of a certain religious belief or sexual orientation. The problem is that such organizations have very little publicity when compared to the Boy/Girl Scouts of America. I've never heard of any specific organization myself that offers the same or similar type of development for young children as the Boy/Girl Scouts offers other than the Boy/Girl Scouts.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

I think the "reasoning" works like this. Most child molestors are homosexual men. (I have no idea if this is actually true, although I wouldn't be surprised. It is the public's perception, though, since these cases have higher visibility.) Since a child molester is more likely to be a homosexual man, a homosexual man is more likely to be a child molester, right? Logically, of course, this is invalid reasoning; the converse of a given statement is not necessarily true. Unfortunately, people use invalid reasoning all the time, and often don't even know that they're doing it. Even people who should know better. It's human nature.

Probably not so much that pedophiles are homosexuals, but perhaps that pedophiles sometimes target boys. In fact, the most common type of homosexual behavior in ancient Greece was in fact pedophilia (it was even described by Plato, if I'm not mistaken - Jibbly!).

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Er, right. I could have phrased what I said more carefully.

Hay, that is an unfair stereotype. I am in the boy scouts, and we do no such thing.

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Wow, It's been like three or 4 years since I've last been here

Ya know, this who argument about homosexuals could also be applied to the school system. Child abuse goes on in school too...

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It does say morally straight in the oath of BSA.

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Yeah--MORALLY straight...not sexually straight.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Who are they to define homosexuality as immoral?

THEY are a private organization who decide what their rules are.. Yeah, I know, I know... Just sayin'.

Not saying I agree with 'em, but the DO get to decide what rules they want.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

Yes, but they still don't get to define morality. That's a concept that goes beyond what rules they write for themselves.

Then who DOES get to define morality? Is it the individual? A certain percentage of a social group? The government? A specific religion?

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Why not just drop the whole idea of morality altogether since it's so problematic?

Because I think life would be more problematic without it.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

You're right there, PMG. Morality is a social construct, and without it we won't be able to survive in any society. The Boy Scouts obviously adhere to the Christian rules of morality, but the problem here is that it clashes with the new Liberal morality (where it's pretty much "immoral" to discriminate against gay people).

The definition of "Liberal Morality" is "anything I don't agree with is bad."

They're not anti-discrimination, because they're for Affirmative Action and are all too eager to discriminate against religion.

They're not pro-free speech, because they're in favor of shutting down certain kinds of talk (religious especially).

All I'm saying is that there doesn't seem to be any baseline they're working from.

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Different kinds of Liberals work from different kinds of baselines - from what I call the real Liberals (who are opposed to any kind of discrimination, even against those they disagree with), to those other kinds of Liberal that we see too much of these days (who are not really Liberal, but rather Leftist authoritarians).

But that's Liberalism on an individual level. On a social level, there's more of an even balance of real Liberalism, and the more impure forms are left on the fridges.

In other words, you may come across people who will try to make your life hard if you're Conservative, but you'll still have the freedom to be Conservative in a truly Liberal society.

If that makes sense.

For the record, I consider myself rather socially liberal (duh), but two things I do NOT condone are Affirmative Action (because it IS still a form of prejudice of one's skin color and other petty attributes that should be about as important as the wood grain used in your neighbor's coffee table) and limiting one's right to free speech. I adhere to the old addage of "I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

I believe religion is an absolutely wonderful thing and enriches peoples lives in ways that I cannot put into words. I am an advocate of people praying wherever they want to (including school), so long as it's on their own terms and no one is forcing them to do it or to do it a certain way.

Meh...maybe I'm more moderate...I just believe that everyone should have equal opportunities.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

Couldn't agree with you more, PianoMan. Everything you said could have been a post by me, except for the socially liberal part.

Does that mean I'm moderate, too?

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