No
Charity for the Boy Scouts
By Hans Zeiger,
OSOT Team Member
What organization is more despicable and vile than the ACLU, People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Public Citizen, Greenpeace, the
National Abortion Rights Action League, and the National Organization
for Women? The Boy Scouts of America.
So says the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in a decision last week
upholding the State of Connecticut’s three-year old choice to exclude
the Boy Scouts from its state employee charitable contribution list.
Even though the state is eager to condemn the Boy Scouts for its ban
on homosexuals, it gives prominent place to homosexual front groups
like the Hartford Gay/Lesbian Health Collective and Parents and Friends
of Lesbians and Gays.
The Connecticut State Employee Charitable Campaign gives millions of
dollars to a variety of non-profit organizations each year. Local Boy
Scouts councils were a grateful recipient of state worker contributions
until 2000. That’s when administrators of the charitable campaign
decided to drop the BSA in protest of its moral code.
A notorious terrorist-sympathizing hate group like PETA is unquestioned
on Connecticut’s approved index of charities. But a mainstream
bastion of moral character and honor is struck off of the list with
great fervor.
So who’s the real excluder here? It would be one thing if the Boy
Scouts were the only beneficiary of state employee charitable giving.
Instead, America’s finest youth organization is condemned loudly
while a host of anti-Scout organizations continue to receive big bucks
from the Connecticut State Employee Charitable Campaign.
In approving the State of Connecticut’s discriminatory decision,
the Second Circuit Court of Appeals set dangerous precedent. Fortunately,
the Boy Scouts will be appealing the case. “Rest assured we’re
working on it. We’re going to take some action,” BSA spokesman
Gregg Shields told Culture and Family Report.
The Connecticut ruling is not an isolated incident. In another effort
to keep the Boy Scouts out of the public square, radical Leftists in
Philadelphia are pressuring the city council to end a 75-year old agreement
with the local Boy Scouts. The Philadelphia Cradle of Liberty Boy Scout
council operates a headquarters on a half acre of public land that was
granted to them in 1928 “in perpetuity.”
The special interest groups working to destroy the Boy Scouts could
easily start the Queer Scouts of America or join any one of the many
homosexual youth groups that already exist. But they see the Boy Scouts
as a ripe target for the infusion of their radical agenda into our society.
The Left has consistently misrepresented the Boy Scouts as they’ve
spat upon and booed the young men doing a good turn daily. It is not
because the Boy Scouts are a homophobic hate group that the war is waged
against them. In fact, Scouting teaches its youth to respect others,
including homosexuals.
Thus, it is because the Boy Scouts teach the undeniable link between
the preservation of the American family and honor, integrity, and virtue
that the Left is in combat against Scouting.
Homosexuals are denied membership in the Boy Scouts for the same reason
that girls are not allowed in the Scouts. Camping and hiking and troop
meetings are occasions that mold the masculinity and character of young
men. The local Boy Scouts hall is not the place for the culture war
to be waged. It is a private group as are any of the 900 groups that
Connecticut state employees can still voluntarily give their charitable
money to. It is a private group worthy of public adoration and encouragement
as the City of Philadelphia has given it for three-quarters of a century
and should continue to do for another three-quarters of a century.
The Boy Scouts taught me to respect opposing beliefs, and to stand up
for my own. For several generations, the Boy Scouts have been doing
a good turn daily to pass on values and life skills to young men. Now
its time for the rest of us to do our good turn by standing up for the
Boy Scouts.
Hans Zeiger is a Seattle Times columnist, activist, and student leader.
As an 18 year old Eagle Scout, Hans is the president of the Scout Honor
Coalition. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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