What We've Lost

This.

Kentucky Megachurch Tells Boy Scouts to Fuck Off and DIe

And the freakazoids are flat-out lying about the reason.

Mark Boxley at the Courier:

Southeast Christian Church will break ties with a Boy Scout troop because it believes the youth organization has become too polarizing, its executive pastor said.

The organization’s National Council voted last week to allow openly gay youth but maintained its ban on gay leaders.

Tim Hester, executive pastor of Southeast Christian, said the youth organization’s consideration of that issue started the discussion that eventually led to the church’s board of elders deciding against renewing the church’s charter with Troop 212, but it wasn’t the deciding issue.

The charter was going to be broken regardless of the Boy Scout vote, he said.

“Truly for us it’s a logical decision,” he said. “We cannot be distracted from the mission God has called us to.”

The Scouts have until the end of the year to relocate.

Southeast Christian is known as "Six Flags Over Jesus" because you can't hardly see the religion for the conference facilities and recreation center and club houses and support groups and every kind of social amenity for members and members only.

Sponsoring a Boy Scout troop was just one part of its mission to separate people from their secular community and secular government by supplying all their needs at church.

You'd think their frantic need to proselytize would see gay Scouts as a juicy new opportunity to brainwash the young, but their homophobic hatred trumped even their evangelism.

Personally, I'm glad to see the Scouts escape the freakazoids. I hope a secular sponsor will step up soon.

What the Boy Scouts Hate More Than The Gays

Never mind the buttsecks - it's the refusal to kowtow to an invisible sky wizard that really gets their goat.

 

PZ Myers:

Ryan Andresen was a kid who went through the whole routine with enthusiasm, and even got to the point where he’d completed his Eagle Scout project and was going to be given the highest award in the organization. And then they turned him down. Two reasons have been given.

One is that he was openly gay.

SNIP

There’s no denying that being gay puts you on the outs with the Boy Scouts. But there’s another reason: it turns out that everyone knew long in advance about his sexual orientation, but the final straw was that he’s a goddamned atheist.

“This scout proactively notified his unit leadership and Eagle Scout counselor that he does not agree to scouting’s principle of ‘Duty to God’ and does not meet scouting’s membership standard on sexual orientation,” Deron Smith, a spokesman for the organization said in a statement. “Agreeing to do one’s ‘Duty to God’ is a part of the scout Oath and Law and a requirement of achieving the Eagle Scout rank.

In other words, this was a fellow with enough integrity that he refused to check off one box on his form: he had done all the work, he’d probably put up with a lot of crap on the way (his Eagle Scout project was on bullying), and then, at the last minute, confronted with the choice to lie and conform, or to be honest to himself and others, he chose honesty.

I think he’s a better man for being true.

That ought to be the death knell for the Boy Scouts, when turning down their highest award becomes a point of honor.

Boy Scouts Committing Suicide-by-Homophobia

When they write the Boy Scouts of America obituary, this will be listed as the cause of death.

Andrew Wolfson at the Courier:

The father of an adopted son and daughter, Greg Bourke was revered as a leader of their Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Louisville.

“He upheld the highest ideals of Scouting,” said Donald E. Overton, a fellow assistant Scoutmaster in Boy Scout Troop 325 and an Episcopal priest.

Rick Tonini, chairman of the St. Matthews Fire Protection District, described Bourke as “a dignified leader and role model” who led troop members door to door each year helping the fire department raise money for the WHAS Crusade for Children.

And Brooke Hinkle, whose son, Seth, was in Bourke’s Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop, said, “Greg made Seth the person he is,” teaching him responsibility.

But while Bourke, 54, is still a leader in Girl Scout 1575, he no longer is part of the Boy Scouts. The reason: He is gay.



Bourke was forced to resign last week, about three months after he wrote to Boy Scouts of America executives, told them he was an “openly gay person” and asked, “Am I welcome or not?”


Bourke, who has lived with his partner for 30 years and has worked 18 years as a systems analyst for Humana Inc., had to resign under a Boy Scouts policy, enacted in 1991 and reaffirmed last month, that bars gays from being Scout leaders or members.

Actually, the practical effect of the policy is to bar only openly gay Scout leaders and members. The pathetic closet cases frantically throwing more furniture up against the door to maintain their homophobic facade get to keep destroying Scouting from the top down.

Commie, Homo-Loving Eagle Scouts

I belong to the late-hippie generation that ridiculed Eagle Scouts. I take it all back.

 

AP

A Louisville Boy Scout has returned his Eagle badge to protest the organization's stance against allowing gays.

 

SNIP

 

WFPL reports that Jackson Cooper, who is a former senior patrol leader of Louisville Troop 342, says in his letter that he thinks the decision has damaged the organization's reputation."Most people didn't realize this was the policy and my hope in writing the letter is that enough attention would be drawn, regardless of whether they hold those beliefs personally, the leadership would find those positions untenable just as a matter of public relations," Cooper wrote.

 

SNIP

 

"There may or may not have been any homosexual boys in our troop. I can't honestly say that I know. But I do know that my now deceased mother, a lesbian, would not have been allowed to serve as a den mother if her orientation had been public knowledge at the time. The thought that I have invested such a large part of my life with an organization that would have turned my own mother away breaks my heart."

It's a nationsl trend.

Click over to see the letters at Boing Boing. They're great.

Eagle Scouts really do tend to be impressive young men. I remember someone telling me years ago that one should never fail to give an Eagle Scout an interview for a job --- they are almost always stand-up, responsible workers. I don't know that it says anything about their talent or their value as a person, but it does show that they are focused and accomplished.

For that and other reasons, those who achieve the title value being Eagle Scouts quite highly. To resign and turn in their medals means something.