A rchive Date
[ 03-09-2000 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ U.S ]
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[Diversity includes the Scouts
By R. CORT KIRKWOOD-- Ottawa Sun
September 3, 2000
The Boy Scouts won their battle against the homosexual lobby in the highest court in the land, but their fight isn't over. Across America, Scout benefactors are withdrawing financial support because of the group's ban on homosexual members.
Amazingly, the campaign is portrayed as a civic crusade; it is cast in the patois of patriotism. But it's hardly patriotic.
Levi Strauss, Textron and even Chase Manhattan Bank have pulled their support for the Scouts. United Way groups in different cities have joined them. Connecticut cut the Boy Scouts off from its state employee charity, and other municipalities won't let the Scouts use public facilities, such as schools and parks, because the group "discriminates."
A spokesman for Chase offered the New York Times this reason for kicking the Scouts in the teeth: "Their position is ... in conflict with our commitment and our values on diversity."
C. Joan Parker, a lawyer for Connecticut's human rights agency, told the Times it must "decide (whether) we (are) aiding and abetting someone that discriminates? Clearly," she sniffs, "any public entity needs to have clean hands."
As the Times reporter summed it up, "some companies and organizations say the Scouts' refusal to admit gays has come to seem almost un-American."
And how "un-American" are they? According to the Washington Times, because of President Clinton's executive order banning discrimination against homosexuals, the Interior Department is looking into the Scouts because they use parkland and other government facilities.
Hilariously, some Democrats want Clinton to resign as honorary head of the Scouts, not to protect the image of the Scouts, but to protect the image of the government. What a laugh.
Anyway, what's going on here goes way beyond the Scouts: Any organization that doesn't "value diversity" is a potential target for these misguided zealots.
Perhaps Chase and other companies that donate to Catholic charities should halt their contributions because the Church will not ordain women or change its teaching on homosexual behaviour. Perhaps the Jewish War Veterans should be abolished.
The point is this: For membership in any private group to mean anything, it must be able to decide who can join; i.e., write a code of beliefs to which members must declare loyalty, and which define them as a discrete group apart from the rest of society.
If anyone who believes anything can be a Boy Scout, then being a Scout will mean nothing because nothing will define them. The Scouts are defined by a moral code rooted in biblical teaching.
Nothing is wrong with that.
The irony is that states and corporations trying to force the Scouts to accept avowed homosexuals are themselves violating the principle of "diversity." No one, apparently, is permitted to think differently on the subject of sexual morality. And they just happen to be violating the right of the Scouts to associate with whom they want.
And don't think that defender of rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, is coming to the rescue. Instead, it is suing the city of San Diego to stop it from leasing parkland to the Scouts for $1 per year, and, the Associated Press reports, defending the "right" of the National Man-Boy Love Association to advocate pedophilia.
That's right. The same organization trying to force a boys' group to accept homosexual leaders is defending the right of organized perverts to advocate criminal sex with boys.
Stop attack
It's time to stop this attack on the Boy Scouts. Drop your accounts at Chase Manhattan; cancel your Chase credit cards. Don't buy Levis. Urge Congress to deep-six Textron's defence contracts. Send money to the Scouts.
The Boy Scouts are under fire. Nothing could be more un-American than that.
Kirkwood writes on U.S. affairs for the Sun. Letters to the editor should be sent to oped@sunpub.com
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