But I have to.
Apparently one of my posts over at Atlanta Metblogs pissed off a local Boy Scout troop leader. Steve Barton, of Troop 764 in Dunwoody, to be exact.
I bashed the Boy Scouts of America for discriminating against homosexuals and for a recent scandal here in Atlanta in which they inflated their statistics for inner city memberships so they could get more funding from the United Way. Even after they got caught, they still asked for the $1 million dollars that they would have gotten for inner city programs because of their inflated statistics. That takes a lot of guts.
In my opinion, they are lucky to get anything from the United Way in the first place. Many local United Ways cut off BSA funding over their discrimination against gays and athiests. I know it happened in Philadelphia when I was there.
Its sad, the Boy Scouts have the resources to do so much good for boys, especially inner city boys, who may not have the positive male role models that suburban kids have. And despite what Mr. Barton says (“Scouts teaches nothing bad about homosexuals”), they do in fact teach that homosexuals are dangerous, subversive, and prone to child molestation by not welcoming them into their organization. They discount the fact that it is possible to be gay and be a positive role model for children. Every homosexual is a bad seed in their eyes.
I wonder what the statistics are on child molestation comparing straight men to gay men.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been as condescending in my response to Mr. Barton, but I couldn’t help myself.
Kent:
I’m glad for you that you had some pricks of conscience about your reply to my post on the other website.
Maybe at this distance in time you will be able to re-read what I wrote and see that saying I was “p***** off” is not accurate.
And I reiterate to you one of my main points, that in a Boy Scout troop we do not have lessons on sex. Most of the older scouts eventually pick up outside the troop the BSA’s restrictions on adult leaders, but it isn’t a lesson or a subject that is discussed.
I would have answered questions of any scout, but they never asked. Closest encounter would have been me remonstrating a scout for saying “That’s so gay” in my earshot to another boy — sorry kid, that language, like all the four letter words, “sucks”, and “freakin'” are not happening in Mr. Barton’s vicinity.
This same point is made by correcting something your mother wrote. Your brother may have felt that he was “hiding” in Scout ranks (although my wager would be that that is a retroactive memory), but there is no restriction on a Boy Scout’s sexual orientation — it is only a restriction on adults. For the boys, sex is something to learn about under their parents’ care and is part of adulthood — not a part of the asexual Boy Scouts!
All the best with your blog, Steve Barton, Dunwoody, Georgia
p.s. — Advice: “I couldn’t help myself” is not a good excuse in the adult world.
Hey Steve. Here’s another thing that doesn’t go well in the adult world: Go fuck yourself.
This country gives the Boy Scouts the right to exclude anyone they want from their organization. It also gives me the right to call them homophobic.
Teaching lessons on sex has nothing to do with it. This isn’t about sex. It’s about civil rights. I don’t care you what you fuck, why do you care who anyone else does?
Was this comment welling up inside of you for more than a year? You had that long to think about a response and “Advice: “I couldn’t help myself†is not a good excuse in the adult world” is the best you could come up with? I couldn’t help myself isn’t an excuse. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I don’t take back anything I said. You are the representative of a bigoted organization that spreads its bigotry to children, why should I make excuses to you?
Your assumptions about me, my mother, and my family only prove to me that you might be better served thinking about your own life, rather than what other people are doing with theirs.