Ah, the homophobic brownshirts strike again. It’s hard to decide what is more depressing: the fact that Boy Scouts of America continue to suffer so little backlash for their insane homophobia, or the fact that a letter to the editor like this is met with the kind of rancid and socially retarded responses as can be found in the comments section on the Times-Argus site.
I’m impressed that a lesbian couple was open-minded enough to let their son participate in the cub scouts in spite of that organization’s known disapproval of their “life style.” I’m not surprised, however, that a district director would be a stickler for enforcing the formalized homophobia his organization has chosen to embrace.
The Boy Scouts of America is free to be the smug club of cool badges and bass-ackwards community spirit if it so wishes. That’s their perogative. And people who decide to let their kids participate presumably do so knowing full well what they’re getting themselves into, and either agree with the boy scout’s deliberate disrespect of others, or feel they can live with the massive cognitive dissonance between the benefits and the sad agenda inherent in the world of scouting. But the backlash from any reasonably enlightened community (such as Vermont) should be to shun the Scouts from any community activity or benefits — there really isn’t any reason to encourage or assist a group that takes a deliberate anti-social and profoundly flawed and disrepectful approach to community and inclusiveness. Just as we can respect the Klan’s right to their opinions and freedom of speech, we can let the Scout’s have their little knot-tying-and-gay-bashing events, but it sure as hell doesn’t mean we should consider them on a par with the chess club or the track team.
(ht Green Mountain Daily, photo from here)
