Don't ask, I'll tell...

[Bryan]

This is my first message on this talkboard. Wish me luck.

 

Confusion about this issue is quite common, and I hope that I can provide some illumination.

 

For those who are skeptical about Scriptural teachings due to some laws from Leviticus that aren't being followed, please read Acts 15:24-29. The laws in Leviticus were intended for the Jews. By the time of Paul, there were new converts to Christianity who had never been Jewish. They wanted to know whether they needed to be circumcised.

 

In effect, they were told that they didn't need to become Jews in order to become Christians.

 

There were only four laws from Leviticus that Christians would be required to obey. We must abstain from food containing blood. We must abstain from food that has been sacrificed to idols. We must abstain from the meat of a strangled animal. And we must abstain from "sexual immorality," an extremely broad term that encompasses the act forbidden in Leviticus 20:13.

 

Notice that the Ten Commandments are in Exodus, not Leviticus, so we are still bound by those as well.

 

I hope this has been helpful. Thanks for the opportunity to post in your forum.

[OldGreyEagle]

So that medium rare prime rib is off limits?

Or my grandmother's Czarnina?

Not picking, I just want to be sure I understood you and welcome to the fourm

 

 

(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[packsaddle]

OGE, you can pass the prime rib right over to me and the duck soup sounds good right now as well. Does Grandma still make it?

 

Rogue391, I saw the SouthPark stuff and nearly fell out of my chair. It was a cutting satire that was much enjoyed by me and some of my volunteer colleagues. I imagine there would be considerable discomfort if viewed widely at National.

[ScoutParent]

Welcome to the discussions, Bryan!

[OldGreyEagle]

Packsaddle,

 

Unfortunatley both Grandmother and mother are currently making czarnina and kielbasa for the celestial hosts, but memories of the duck cage that would be on Grandma's porch from the friday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve and the steaming bowl of soup served with Christmas Dinner is still very strong.

[Bryan]

Thanks for the warm welcome, everyone.

 

In case there are those here who are not aware, there has been a lot of research into homosexuality and very little of it serves to encourage the acceptance of homosexuals as Scout leaders.

 

The average homosexual man has had roughly 250 sexual partners in his lifetime. He is many times more likely to contract HIV and other STDs. He is roughly seven times as likely as a heterosexual man to have sexual relations with teenagers who are under the legal age of consent. He is much more likely to become alcoholic or addicted to drugs.

 

If you need links to the research, I can certainly provide them.

 

National spends an average of $50,000 every month on legal fees to defend itself from lawsuits by molested Scouts, to defend against such lawsuits as the Dale case, and to pay damages and settlements to molested Scouts. This may serve to explain why National is so immovable about this issue.

 

Imagine how much good that amount of money could do for Scouting, if it wasn't needed for these court battles.

[packsaddle]

OGE, I'll wager those memories represent some of your life's best times. I have similar ones. My mother still lives and I have tried repeatedly to reproduce some of the things she did in the kitchen, even with her help. It's just not the same because I think those great memories are part of the recipes. Bon appetit.

 

Bryan, welcome to the forum. So spending $50k/mo is incentive to maintain BSA's policy how?

One point that many of us have tried to make is that the policy is not to exclude gays, but rather to exclude persons who avow themselves as gay. BSA addresses absolutely none of the concerns you seem to have. Policy, as applied, does nothing to detect a sexual predator regardless of sexual identity...until their actions show them to be predatory. Then it is too late. The background check will weed out persons with court convictions, not personal ones. Those abuse lawsuits would be there anyway and the policy just adds others (Dale) needlessly. If you think statistics support the argument that Dale or TJ have predatory or some other kind of felonious tendency, I disagree. Every person, including you and me, should be judged as individuals, not as part of some pejorative group (Jews, blacks, Presbyterians, WASPS, etc.) Or have I misinterpreted civil rights laws? The constitution?

If you are concerned about drugs and disease, I share your concern. But the appropriate policy to address those concerns would require mandatory testing. Is that what you advocate?

[OldGreyEagle]

Hi again Bryan,

 

Used to live in Bloomington, worked for St Joeseph's Hospital Medical Center owned by the Sisters of the Third of St Francis centered there in Peoria.

 

The forum has heard about the statistics you cite,(I think), we have seen a whole bunch thats for sure. What I find interesting is in the whole time I have been a member of this forum, since September 3, 2000, the gay issue has been discussed up one tree and down another. Statistics have been cited and cussed and discussed as flawed because of who gathred the data or antiquated because of the time period when the data was collected. I am not sure I have seen anyone change their mind because of anything stated here.

 

So, we can launch again into what the bible says, then counter with is the bible relevant because not all scouts view the bible the same way you do. A bible quote will do little to convince a Hindu that you are right. And do the look at nature bit except this time Rooster wont answer (or will he?) but assuredly some one will. The one observation I do have relating to this issue is that while a member of this fourm, I have seen multiple news stories that tell of Scouters sexaually molesting scouts. As far as I can remember, and members here will let me know if I am wrong, all these alleged perpetrators were married with children. I cannot think of one time that a newspaper account posted here told of a scouter who was accused of sexaully molesting a scout and it turned out that the scouter was an active homosexual who kept his sexual preferences secret form the troop as did Dale does TJ. And I have no doubt that if an active homosexual scouter(such as TJ,) was ever arrested for sexaully molesting a scout, it would be on this forum. But thats not the history. The men arrested are all desribed as fine family men. If national is spending 50 thou a month on lawsuits and damage payments, my experience is that its the non-gays causing the problems. I am not so naive to think there are no more than a handful of homosexual scotuers, but if their track record is supposed to be so horrible, how come they are not in the paper?

 

And what about Nana's Czarnina, is eating it wrong?

[packsaddle]

Bryan, I implore you to tell OGE that it's wrong. I'm getting hungrier by the moment.

P.S. don't forget the prime rib thing.

[ScoutParent]

stick with the pierogies with sauteed onions, farmers cheese and mashed potatoes...now that's food

[KoreaScouter]

As I understand the BSA position (and please correct me if I'm wrong), it's not that homosexual members pose a molestation risk -- we have YP policies and procedures that should mitigate that risk. The position is that they do not provide an appropriate behavioral role model. If that is in fact the position, then Bryan's second post would be right on the money. In other words, OGE, your assertion that straight, married, family men have been the molesters may be 100% accurate, but as far as BSA's policy is concerned, it's 100% irrelevant.

 

If this underscores anything, it should be that nobody gets a "pass" when it comes to YP policies. Let me tell you a little story. A campout a few months ago with our feeder pack's second year WEBELOS den along. One of my Scouts, there on my tour permit, gets upset at a scary story told around some embers by one of the WEBELOS leaders to his critters. I was a little perturbed by this, since I know my Scouts, and know this one does not like scary stories (otherwise fearless), and I make it a point, as do the other Scouts in the troop, not to tell them when he is within earshot. Anyway, he's now a basket case, and one of the other WEBELOS leaders, who happens to be his next door neighbor in real life, now intends to let my Scout stay in his tent for the night. Of course I vetoed that immediately as an absolute no-go. What did I get in reply? "Oh, he's married with kids, a registered leader, and the Scout's his next door neighbor...". My reply: "Read this (GTSS section on adult/youth accomodations); I don't care of Lord Baden-Powell is his next door neighbor; unless B-P's his dad, he's not sleeping in his tent -- this conversation is over". So, it ended as it should have, but it's real easy to get on that slippery slope. That leader left Scouting about a month later over an "unrelated" disagreement with his pack.

 

KS

[NJCubScouter]

Bryan, I'll deal with your posts in reverse order. Packsaddle and OldGreyEagle have answered your second post, I would just add 2 things:

 

One, the BSA itself disclaims any justification for its anti-gay policy based on prevention of child molestation. That is what the Youth Protection guidelines, and the ban on leaders (gay or straight) who have been convicted of sex crimes, are for.

 

Second, the part about the average gay man having had 250 sexual partners is irrelevant, even if it is true. I have known heterosexual men who have probably had far more sexual partners than that. Wilt Chamberlain, if you believe his claims of having had sex with 40,000 women, boosts up the average pretty far all by himself. The point isn't what some people do, or what an average person does. The point is what a particular person who has applied for a leadership position in the BSA does. If a person (gay or straight) is openly leading a lifestyle where they have a different partner every night and make no secret about it, I doubt first of all that they are going to apply to be Scoutmaster, and if they do, it seems doubtful to me that they are going to be accepted. Orientation has nothing to do with it. On the other hand, if all you know about a person is that he has been living with the same person for 30 years and never talks about his sex life, why does it matter whether his roommate happens to be a woman who calls herself Mrs. Applicant, or a man, and they have a rainbow flag hanging outside their house. (OK tj, packsaddle, littlebillie etc., I need help here, would the latter be considered "avowed"? I'm looking for an example of "avowed" but not too blatant to be a Scouter.)

 

One thing I feel compelled to keep pointing out about the James Dale case: From the court opinions we do not actually know anything about his personal life, meaning who he may have done what with and when, behind closed doors. All we really know is that he was the co-president of the Rutgers Gay Alliance (or similar name) and that he spoke at a seminar about the struggles faced by teenagers as they deal with the discovery that they are attracted to persons of the same gender. So the "250 average" business goes out the window. It doesn't apply to the Dale case or, I suspect, the vast majority of other situations where an openly gay person has been (or currently is) a Scouter. Promiscuous or "married," if you "admit" being gay, you're out.

 

And I have to ask, since your statistics are for gay men, what about Lesbians? (Does that still get capitalized? It's tough keeping track of these things.) If they are avowed, they can't be Scouters either. And yet I see no dire health statistics about them in your post. So it can't really be about health statistics, can it?

 

But now to your first post, Bryan. I found the part about Christians not eating meat containing blood to be interesting. For Jews (of which I am one, though non-observant), this is one of the Kosher laws. To my knowledge, Christians do NOT observe this law, at least not in the way that Jews who "keep Kosher" do. To be Kosher, an animal must be slaughtered in a way that drains out the blood, and when the animal is butchered and the meat prepared for cooking, it must be in such a way that the "blood parts" are removed. (I'm not an expert in this, so I can't explain it any better than that. I'm sure there are Web sites that do, though.) This is one of the reasons that Kosher meats cost considerably more than the comparable non-Kosher variety, because a significant amount is "wasted" along the way. (Though I suppose that an observant Jew (or the Lord, for that matter) would not look at it as "waste.")

 

The point is, I have never known of a Christian who goes through all this to eat a steak or a hamburger. (And not that many Jews either, but some. The ShopRite near my house has a Kosher meat counter, and I am sure the guy there knows all about this, not that I necessarily want to ask.) I have never even heard a Christian talking about needing to have meat prepared in a certain way so that there is no blood in it. So if Christians do observe this Levitical law, it must be in a completely different way.

[OldGreyEagle]

You are right KS, BSA's reason for not accepting avowed Homosexual's is because of the role model issue. I understand that. I agree as a private Organization we have the right to make that choice.

 

I only wanted to point out that Homosexual does not equal Pedophile. A sexual predator cant be classified as gay or straight, only pedephiliac.

 

I didnt mean to imply anything else.

[SR540Beaver]

Geez, I hate to go off topic and open another can of worms......but what the heck! Many here argue that BSA is based on traditional values. Therefore, we exclude atheists and homosexuals because they are not good role models. What about divorced leaders? Traditional values takes a dim view of divorce. Many Christian denominations believe that marriage is for life and that if you get a divorce and remarry, you are commiting adultry.....repeatedly! Divorce is harmful to children. Divorce shows an inability to work thru difficulty and to stick with a committment. Not very Scoutlike is it? Perhaps we should think about excluding all of those divorced leaders as well. Just like homosexuality is for many Christians, divorce is a moral issue. Couldn't you say that a divorced scouter is a bad role model?

[OldGreyEagle]

Throw out the divorced leaders cuz they arent good role models???

 

Well this will test Roosters resolve, Does that mean that Ronald Reagan, the first American President who was divorced was/is not a role model? Gives one pause to think about how much we can judge another person before we step off the edge.