Boy Scouts

On today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Mat Staver and Matt Barber discussed the decisions by the Boy Scouts to delay the vote on lifting the ban on gay scouts and scout leaders as they wondered what the organization could even be thinking by contemplating such a change, saying there is no way that boy scouts can remain "morally straight" if "you have adults modeling for children what every major world religion and thousands of years of history have held to be immoral behavior."

As Staver said, "it makes no sense to have a Jerry Sandusky as your scout master and essentially that's what this policy would open up the doors to" while Barber asserted that gay activists are demanding access to your children, so "what father in his right mind" would let his son join the scouts if he knew that a gay man was serving as scout leader, especially since all gay men define themselves by the fact that they "sexually crave sex with other males" because they are "hyper-sexual":

Rep. Steve Palazzo (R-MS), best known for voting against Hurricane Sandy relief after pushing for federal aid after Hurricanes Katrina and Isaac for his district, is now championing the opposition to any change in the Boy Scouts of America’s policy on gay members. In an interview last week with Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, who has repeatedly linked homosexuality to pedophilia, Palazzo warned that liberals are “using our very culture against us” and that “it’s time for the silent majority once again to step into the fight and protect America from the direction it’s heading.”

Palazzo: Conservative Christians across America have to wake up to reality that the liberal, the very well organized liberal base of this country is very organized and they are using our very culture against us. We have to stand up and have our voices heard. I know it’s difficult because people, you know they get up, they send their kids to school, they go to work, Friday nights they’re at the ball field, Saturday’s they’re in the yard, Sunday’s they’re in church, but if you don’t like the way this country is going and the direction it’s going down then it’s time for the silent majority once again to step into the fight and protect America from the direction it’s heading.

The congressman compared his efforts to maintain the BSA’s ban on gay Scouts to fighting in the Marines and accused President Obama and “his highly organized liberal machine” of having “unfairly attacked” the organization. “These people who are out there protesting and petitioning, I don’t think they care one thing about the Boy Scouts of America” and want the organization to fail, Palazzo said.

Of course, Palazzo endorsed Mitt Romney, who also urged the BSA to lift its ban on gay members.

Palazzo: I guess the Marine in me is you know when we hear gun fire we don’t run from it we run towards it, we want to help people whether they’re our fellow Marines or whether someone’s been innocently in the crossfire. That’s one of the reasons I’ve engaged in this conversation, I’m just not wired to stand by and watch an organization that wasn’t doing anything be unfairly attacked by Obama, which I’m pretty safe to say he was probably never a Scout, and his highly organized liberal machine. You made an example of Canada; Canada did something like this and within five years fifty percent of the membership has declined. These people who are out there protesting and petitioning, I don’t think they care one thing about the Boy Scouts of America and in fact I think they would like to see the organization probably go the way of a lot of other faith and family based organizations have gone in the past ten years.

Perkins: What prompted you to weigh into this? I will say I’ve actually talked to a few members, actually some more on the Senate side, encouraging them to weigh in and there is a little reluctance on some. So what prompted you to step in?

Palazzo: You know I’ve jumped out of C-130s before, I jumped out of a few Hueys; maybe I’m just not afraid of weighing in on things that are extremely important to me. That’s the way I’m wired as a parent of three young children, as a former Boy Scout, Cub Scout, whose actually benefited from the values and principles this organization espouses to just say listen I’m tired of watching organizations be unfairly attacked.

In a letter to the BSA board [PDF], Palazzo attacked gay rights advocates who he said “only seek to impose their liberal agenda with reckless disregard of the impact that this significant membership policy change would have on our children.”

I urge the Boy Scouts of America to refuse to give in to peer-pressure from politicians and media outlets by allowing openly gay members and adults as part of the organization. They only seek to impose their liberal agenda with reckless disregard of the impact that this significant membership policy change would have on our children. They fail to recognize that such a significant change to membership policies would compromise the overall message of the Boy Scouts, undermine its spiritual principles, and create conflicting membership policies among local chapters.

The American Family Association’s Sandy Rios today continued to press the Boy Scouts of America against opening the organization to gay members on her radio show. She said that opponents of the ban like AT&T CEO Randall Stevenson, Ernst & Young CEO James Turley and Mitt Romney (!) who are affiliated with the BSA should be forced to pay for any future settlements of all the child abuse cases that Rios claims will be a consequence of having openly gay Boy Scouts.

I think I have a solution, I just thought of it this morning. I think these guys, let’s put Mitt Romney in there, and let’s put the guy with Ernst & Young whose name is James Turley, and let’s put Randall Stevenson the CEO of AT&T, and any of the other organizations or corporate sponsors who are pushing the Boy Scouts for this policy change. I think actually we might let this go through with the stipulation that whatever lawsuits are brought from now until the end of time against Boy Scout leaders who have sexually molested their Scouts, that they personally are responsible to pay them. Let’s go after Mitt Romney, let’s go after the guy at Ernst & Young, let’s go after Randall Stevenson at AT&T, let them write a check and just say, ‘I believe in this so much that I am willing personally to cover any costs on the outside, ridiculous chance that some Boy Scout should be molested by a gay Scout leader or seduced. If there is any harm then I’ll pay, I will pay.’ If they are willing to sign that statement, go for it. While we’re at it, we should have AT&T and all the other organizations like Ernst & Young that are pushing for this put their corporate—just think of all the money, the potential of lawsuits.

The AFA has even called for Stephenson to resign from the BSA board for “using his corporate influence to bully the BSA into gay assimilation,” and joined a whole host of Religious Right groups demanding that both Stephenson and Turley step down.

Along with the AFA, the coalition includes ex-gay groups like the Restored Hope Network and Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays (PFOX) in addition to Mat Staver’s Liberty Counsel; Rick Scarborough’s Vision America; Scott Lively’s Abiding Truth Ministries; Linda Harvey’s Mission America; Peter LaBarbera’s Americans For Truth About Homosexuality; Brian Camenker’s MassResistance... and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, which apparently still exists.

Before the Boy Scouts of America announced that they would delay discussions about the organization’s ban on gay members, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council argued on his radio show that it is “ironic” that “the very ones who are pushing this policy change in the Boy Scouts are some of the same ones that were screaming about the Catholic Church” over its handling of widespread child abuse cases. Perkins claimed that those who want the church to be held accountable for shielding priests who abused children “are putting the Boy Scouts into the same compromising situation.”

It’s kind of ironic to me, I thought…just on its surface it seems very ironic to me that some of the very ones who are pushing this policy change in the Boy Scouts are some of the same ones that were screaming about the Catholic Church and wanting them to be more transparent and liable for the damages that were done. The Catholic Church has paid out millions of dollars as a result of those cases of abuse that took place and now they are putting the Boy Scouts into the same compromising situation. It just does not add up.

Perkins said that “homosexual activists” will not serve as “male role models” since they want to gain access to the Boy Scouts in order to have “influence” over “impressionable children” just “as they have in the schools.”

We’re talking about young, impressionable children that even in this society today there are certain things we don’t allow them to decide for themselves. So we’re going to put these impressionable children in situations that could affect their safety. But beyond that, the whole purpose for the Scouts is to provide for male role models and at a time in our nation when over forty percent of our children are being born out of wedlock and in some places in the nation seventy percent-plus of our children are growing up without dads in the home, they need these male role models and the Boy Scouts does a great job in providing a male role model. I think a part of what is at play here is that the homosexual activists — not all, some — want to be able to get into the Boy Scouts to influence the next generation on the issue of homosexuality just as they have in the schools.

He even compared the BSA to Judas Iscariot for taking “thirty pieces of corporate silver” and jeopardizing “the well-being of the children” by shifting the policy on gay members.

This is the question they should ask themselves: will this policy change make Scouting better for the boys under our watch care? Will it make it safer? Will it make their experience in this journey from adolescence and childhood into manhood, will it make it more successful? I don’t think they can answer that in the affirmative, but that’s the question they should ask. It comes down to them making a choice between the well-being of the children who are under their watch care or thirty pieces of corporate silver. This is about standing up for principle, standing up for what’s true and what they know in their hearts is right, and not caving to the pressure of corporate elites who are trying to reshape America in their image.

Today, the Boy Scouts of America board said that it will postpone a final decision on the future of the ban on gay members until May. Two days before the announcement, the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios said that gay men are child predators by nature and consequently should be banned from Scouting.

While responding to an email she received from a listener named David who opposes the current prohibition on gay Boy Scouts, Rios argued that gay men “like youth, most of them like young men” and go into professions like teaching and coaching so “they can be around boys.”

Like other supporters of the ban, Rios cited Jerry Sandusky, who is married to a woman and wouldn’t have been affected by the ban on gay members.

“These are our children and their safety and well-being trumps any desire of any gay man to be a Scout leader or a gay boy to be a Scout,” Rios said. “If you want to be that and you can’t I’m sorry but we can’t all be what we want to be, we can’t put others at risk just because we want something.”

If you know anything about this you know that gay men love youth. They may not all like prepubescent boys but they like youth, most of them like young men, that’s why they go into professions and work with boys, that’s why they become teacher and coaches and shall we say Jerry Sandusky priests? They go places where they can be around boys, that seems to be a favorite thing and if you think that’s not true you know it is true. Not all gay men are pedophiles but all male pedophiles who like boys are gay. It seems to be a problem in the gay community, not a problem shared by all of them but everyone that has a problem with this seems to be gay, so you figure that out.

I would have to say that zero percent of straight men are interested in boys, zero percent. So if anyone is going to straighten this out it just might be a straight man, not a gay man, that defies logic just a bit. By the way David, these are our children, these are our children and their safety and well-being trumps any desire of any gay man to be a Scout leader or a gay boy to be a Scout. If you want to be that and you can’t I’m sorry but we can’t all be what we want to be, we can’t put others at risk just because we want something. At least we used to understand that, now it’s like whatever you want to do you can do it and the rest of us be…you know what it shouldn’t be that way David, these are our kids and we’re trying to protect them.

Meanwhile, Buster Wilson of the AFA went on another anti-gay diatribe, insisting that parents “are not going to allow their boys to go on camping trips with a gay Scout leader.”

They’re going to change the policy of no gays in the Boy Scouts to changing it to let every Boy Scout entity decide for themselves. Well the President weighed in on that before the ballgame last night…he said, quoting now: ‘My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life.’ Unbelievable. Now he’s talking about the Boy Scouts and he’s talking about gays and lesbians should have every opportunity in the Boy Scouts that everybody else does. Doesn’t matter, Mr. President, does it, that that will destroy the Boy Scouts?

And for all the mocking that comes from all the folks on the left it will destroy the Boy Scouts. It will wind up, as I said last week, just being a few, a small percentage of people who believe you should be tolerant and accept anything and everything. That small percentage and then the gay community, that’s all that will be in the Boy Scouts if they change their rule. Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist churches are the largest number of organizations that host Boy Scout troops, they have said that the churches will withdraw from Boy Scouts in mass droves. So many other people have said they will pull their boys out. They are not going to allow their boys to go on camping trips with a gay Scout leader, out in the woods with a gay Scout leader for three or four days.

Texas Governor Rick Perry stopped by "WallBuilders Live" today to voice his opposition to the upcoming vote by the Boy Scouts of America on possibly ending the organization's ban on gay scouts and scout leaders. Perry, the author of the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For," was predictably opposed to any such change, calling on the organization not to "break the hearts" of those who love it by caving to the "cruel intolerance" of the left:

What this gets down to Rick is that scouting is not about sex, it's about building character.  And the Boy Scouts is not the proper intersection for a debate over sexual preference.  It is with this very aggressive, almost cruel intolerance by the far left that is making it so.  So I really urge the Boy Scouts of America leadership not to succumb to this and I happen to believe that it is every scout's, and certainly my Eagle Scout duty to speak out before scouting breaks the hearts of so many who love it.

Those just very, very aggressive, intolerant individuals on the left are what is driving this agenda and the Boy Scout leadership, I hope, will really listen and think about what the long-term impact of this is going to be.

This is about popular culture shifting in America.  The values that the Boy Scouts are based upon are not values that shift ... and Americans will be ill-served when one of the great institutions that it has in this country starts following pop culture rather than the clear, strong values that have served this country for over a century in the Boy Scouts.

There was no way that Generations Radio hosts Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner were going to miss out on the debate over whether the Boy Scouts should allow openly gay members. Swanson and Buehner, who previously warned that legal civil unions would allow the government to snatch homeschooled children and give them to pedophiles, have similarly dark premonitions of what will happen if the Boy Scouts allow gay members. Allowing openly gay Boy Scout leaders, Swanson says, is no different than letting convicted child molesters or serial killers teach preschool. The Boy Scouts, Buehner warns, are not far from “opening a new summer camp called Camp Sandusky.”

Swanson: You don’t want homosexuals adopting, you don’t want them involved in foster care, and you certainly don’t want them involved in the Boy Scouts.

Buehner: In other words, if God won’t give them children, don’t give them children?

Swanson: Yeah.

Buehner: Look. I think what’s happening here is NBC is probably cheerleading for an outcome they hope will happen, trying to create some pressure where there was no pressure. But we will know if the Boy Scouts of America announce they’re opening a new summer camp called Camp Sandusky. If they open Camp Sandusky, they’ve pretty much given in.

Swanson: That’s it. Yep, that would be it. That would be the end of it. I would hope that there would be some families out there that say, you know, if the Boy Scouts open up Camp Sanduksy, if the homosexuals are invited into the Boy Scouts to be scout leaders, I would hope there are some families out there that would still be concerned. And not to say that the Gospel shouldn’t make it, tell the homosexuals, they’ve…again, people have come back to us and say, ‘You guys aren’t very loving, you’re not very loving, you know, you don’t want to reach out to these people.’ Just the fact that we don’t want child molesters coming out of our prison system and working with our Boy Scouts doesn’t mean we don’t want people going into the prison system and witnessing the Gospel to the child molesters. I think people have a hard time getting two things in their mind at the same time. Just the fact that you don’t want a serial killer, you know, in your preschool taking care of your little girls and boys doesn’t mean that you don’t love them enough to bring the Gospel to them.

Buehner is none too hopeful about the future, warning that allowing gay people into the Boy Scouts could start a slippery slope that eventually leads to a mass exodus from the country or “a call to arms.”

Buehner: The proper, the Puritan revolution, the American revolution, all happened under a lesser magistrate, that is, a local magistrate, lesser in the sense of law, that keeps order. It needs to be done in a legal way. So that’s when we begin to flee the country. That’s when we start thinking about it. So, right now, you might want to think, depending on how the Boy Scouts rule, you might want to take your children out of Boy Scouts. But if the homosexuals then take away rights to homeschooling and you’re not able to disciple your children in the fear of the Lord, then you might have to leave the country or the state or whatever. And then thirdly, if that is shut off, if you can’t leave the country peaceably, then it’s probably a call to arms.

With the Boy Scouts of America board planning to vote Wednesday on whether to allow local troops to accept gay members, Religious Right activists are ramping up their efforts to keep the ban in place. And Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel believes that Satan is the real culprit behind the potential shift in policy.

Barber blamed “spiritual pressure” from Satan — “the Prince of the Earth” — for the potential decision of the BSA board and claimed that Jerry Sandusky may soon “join the jamboree.”

The Prince of the Earth seeks to corrupt and ultimately destroy all that is righteous, honorable and good. It’s little wonder, then, that for years the Boy Scouts have faced a malicious and unrelenting assault at the hands of those “who call evil good and good evil.”

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If the BSA, with its proud tradition of teaching millions of young boys how to become honorable young men, gives in on this, the organization is toast. Oh, it might limp along as something else – something entirely different, worldly and weak – but its long history as an upright, ethical and God-honoring safe-haven for boys will come to a disgraceful close.

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Still, under immense socio-political – indeed spiritual pressure, the Boy Scouts appear poised to play a very dangerous, self-deluded game of “the Scoutmaster wears no clothes.” They’re flirting with the queer idea of an about turn – of betraying both absolute truth and the very boys they serve.

Instead of teaching young men to stand up to the bully, they would model surrender – teach them that, when you reach an adversarial fork in the road, take the primrose path of least resistance.

But it’s much worse than all that. We mustn’t ignore the pink elephant in the room; the Penn State factor. Should the BSA cave beneath the weight of sexual anarchist intimidation, Scoutmaster Sandusky joins the jamboree.

Liberty Counsel joined the Liberty Institute and Alliance Defending Freedom in a letter to the BSA insisting that any change in policy will undermine their “religious liberty and First Amendment rights.” Meanwhile, the American Family Association said that “the homosexual machine will continue to attack” the BSA until no troops have bans on gay members.

Liberty Counsel’s posted a graphic on its Facebook page that says that Boy Scouts will compromise their ability to “participate in healthy activities without fear of predation or moral confusion.”

The Iowa-based Family Leader warned of “sexual abuse” in the Boy Scouts if the ban is lifted:

The Boy Scouts of America, under intense financial pressure from homosexual activists, are considering changing their 100-year old policy of not allowing openly homosexual Scout leaders and Scouts. This pressure tactic is an attack on religious liberty, would teach our youth the wrong lessons, and should put every God-fearing individual on alert.

The Scout oath includes promises to keep oneself “morally straight,” and to be courageous. If the Boy Scouts’ leaders compromise on moral principles under political and financial pressure, it will only teach boys cowardice, not courage.

The current policy is also designed to protect Scouts from sexual abuse. How will parents be able to entrust their children to the Boy Scouts if they trade the well-being of the boys for corporate dollars?

Janet Porter of Faith 2 Action also argued that the Boy Scouts will “put boys at risk” in her radio alert:

Will the Scouts put boys at risk by inviting homosexual activists to become the scoutmasters at their campouts in the woods?

While the Boy Scouts of America have for many years taken a protective stand against homosexual scoutmasters, they are inviting public opinion on whether to put impressionable boys at risk by changing their policy.

They are “discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation.”

We need to call before their board meets and likely decides this week at 972-580-2000. Urge them to stand firm in the best interest of the boys in their care, rather than the interests of homosexual activists. Then, ask others to call at 972-580-2000.

The AFA’s Randy Sharp told the group’s leader Tim Wildmon that including gay Boy Scouts is “a very dangerous and unhealthy thing.”

Wildmon: Who is putting pressure on them?

Sharp: Mostly it’s the homosexual lobby in America, the Human Rights Campaign, groups like these that are trying to pressure the Boy Scouts into opening up their membership to open homosexuals to serve not only as leaders and mentors but also to boys who may be questioning their sexuality or have claimed to be openly gay. The Boy Scouts find that when you’ve got the homosexual leaders it’s a very dangerous and unhealthy thing.

Wildmon: That’s the reason they’ve always had the policy. That’s the Boy Scout pledge, isn’t it, “morally straight”?

Sharp: Absolutely, it’s in the oath.

Wildmon: That means “morally straight” sexually too and being homosexual would not be being straight.

Sharp: It’s not being very moral either.

Wildmon: Exactly.

Buster Wilson of the AFA last week went on a tirade against the Human Rights Campaign and maintained that “there is a day of reckoning that will come” to them for creating the “Boy Scouts of Gay America.”

Folks, in any other avenue in American life that would be called extortion. In any other venue of American existence that would be seen as villainous and as extortion. The Human Rights campaign, for all humans except those that are not gay, it’s a joke. They ought to be ashamed and there is a day of reckoning that will come.

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If the Boy Scouts cave to the extortion-demands of the Human Rights Campaign through all of the corporate sponsors they’ve threatened then we will lose this venerable group for good. It will be a trophy on the wall of Big Gay and their agenda and we will see one more portion of moral American life gone.

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If they wilt under the pressure of the Human Rights Campaign and they fold like a cheap tent they will cease to exist. Let me tell you what the Boy Scouts of America will become, if they change their ruling and they give into the pressure and the extortion of the Human Rights Campaign this is what’s going to happen: the Boy Scouts of America will falter and fall and become nothing in the end but the ‘Boy Scouts of Gay America’ because that’s the only folks that’ll support them.

Conservative leaders are continuing to rally opposition to a proposed plan to end the national ban on gay members in the Boy Scouts of America with warnings about pedophilia and “indoctrination.”

Family Research Council vice president Rob Schwarzwalder told Janet Mefferd yesterday that fathers cannot trust their sons to be around gay people.

Mefferd called gay rights advocates “totalitarian” for opposing the ban and lamented that the “violins are playing full blast” in the media when they cover stories about gay youths kicked out of the Boy Scouts.

Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel said in a statement that “people like Jerry Sandusky” would be “permitted to be Scoutmasters” if the policy changes, adding, “To allow homosexual Scoutmasters or homosexual Scouts will put young boys at risk.”

Concerned Women for America started a letter-writing campaign against the move before gays attempt “to infiltrate the next generation.” The group even claimed that if gays are allowed to join the Boy Scouts, it would mean that “our religious liberties are being taken away”…somehow.

The Texas Pastors Council called on parents to “defend our children” and not “allow our boys to be targeted by those who believe there is no moral code and no definition of gender” and stop those who are bent on “forcing their immorality on society.”

Pastors, if the scouts fall, the church is next in the sights of the activists committed to forcing their immorality on society – WILL YOU COME?

Fathers, if we allow our boys to be targeted by those who believe there is no moral code and no definition of gender – WHO WILL DEFEND OUR CHILDREN?

Mothers, your voice of courage and protection of the virtue of our children is desperately needed – WILL YOU STAND ALSO?

Florida Family Policy Council president John Stemberger went on another anti-gay rant, alleging that the BSA will “open a can of worms that would cause a mass exodus” and “devastate the Boy Scouts permanently.”

If the BSA departs from its policies on allowing openly homosexual scoutmasters and boys in the program it could destroy the legitimacy and the security of this iconic institution.

As an Eagle Scout, former Scoutmaster and a Vigil Honor Member of the Order of the Arrow, I have a deep personal interest in passing on the rich experience of Scouting to my two sons and I pray that the BSA does not open a can of worms that would cause a mass exodus from a program that America needs now more than ever to train boys to become responsible men. A change of this policy could transform and devastate the Boy Scouts permanently. Additionally, the vast majority of Americans do not support changing the policy to allow openly homosexual scout leaders, so this proposed change makes no sense on many levels.

2000 presidential candidate Alan Keyes in WorldNetDaily warned of “homosexual indoctrination” and “idolatry” in the Boy Scouts if they change the policy:

The simple words of the Scout Oath were meant to encourage boys in the habit of walking this straight path; hence the endeavor to be “morally straight.” But the oath first of all made it clear that the Scout looked first of all to God as the standard of moral rectitude. Try as they might, the present-day trustees of the Scouting movement will never fit the square peg of God’s standard into the round hole of homosexual sin. Moreover, though they begin by admitting practicing homosexuals into the ranks, they must end in acknowledging homosexual activity as morally correct, else they will involve the whole movement in the perjurious administration of an oath openly violated in practice. For in that moral sense, it is not possible to be gay and morally straight at the same time. Thus what the present trustees of the BSA reportedly may do involves rejecting God’s standard for male sexual behavior. And it involves doing so in a way that willfully abandons the straight path blazed by the footsteps of Christ.

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By accepting a humanly fabricated redefinition of the moral standard, the BSA will fall prey to the inevitable logic of such idolatry. “Their idols are … the work of human hands … those who make them become like unto them; so do all who trust in them.” (Psalm 115:8) It will speedily become evident that what masquerades as tolerance is actually indoctrination, seeking to mold boys according to the standard the BSA trustees will have raised above God’s standard. For if homosexual activity is morally acceptable as an expression of love and good fellowship, then those who express their love accordingly do what is right.

But the aim of Scouting is to encourage young men to do what is right in various ways. Therefore, once the moral prejudice against homosexuality is regarded as a violation of right, doing things that habitually assault and break down this prejudice becomes part of “moral training.” Just as, on many campuses now, refusal to experiment with homosexuality is frowned upon as a sign of bigotry, so henceforth in Scouting braking down this prejudice would be recognized as a meritorious activity. Though camouflaged in different words there will be a merit badge for this experimentation as part of the regime of homosexual indoctrination. God knows what that will lead to; and given now widely publicized possibilities, so should the BSA Inc.