I’m writing more in anger than in sadness.
As holder of an Eagle Scout badge, I went through the sadness stage back in 2013 when the Boy Scouts board caved to the LGBTQ lobby.
Well, okay, I was pretty angry then, too, watching the saboteurs within and without the organization systematically undermine it in the name of “tolerance.”
It didn’t matter that the Scouts won all their court battles, including at the Supreme Court, to maintain their moral standards. The saboteurs were intent on ending the Scouts’ common-sense, existentially necessary exclusion of boys who sexually desire males. And that was only the beginning.
Two years later, they opened their ranks in 2015 to homosexual leaders during a time when they faced hundreds of sex-abuse lawsuits. Somehow, it didn’t seem to matter that virtually 100 percent of the abuse cases involved homosexual molestation. I mean, it was only 100 percent or so, so why worry?
In January 2017, the Scouts added transgenders and finally, dispensing altogether with the original boys-to-men reason for the Scouts, they let in girls 10 months later. The Girl Scouts are understandably irked.
As of February 2019, the official name became Scouts BSA, as if getting rid of “Boy” in the title would cover this mess. Now, unsurprisingly, with declining enrollment and steep legal bills, the Boy Scouts of America have declared bankruptcy.
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Mission accomplished.
It does not feel even a tiny bit better to say I told you so.
In 1972, the Boy Scouts had 6.5 million members. Now, they’re down to just over 2 million, with the Mormons pulling up their tent pegs and starting their own version of scouting. Likewise, an exodus is underway to Trail Life USA, a Christian version of Scouting without the PC nonsense. Launched in 2013 by former Scout leaders, Trail Life has chapters in 48 states.
Trail Life works alongside American Heritage Girls, which was founded in 1995 by former Girl Scout leader Patti Garibay, who opposed the GSA’s own plunge into political correctness. Among other things, the GSA dropped God from their oath, welcomed transgenders, belittled homemaking, and hosted Planned Parenthood speakers.
With the Boy Scouts in very serious trouble, you can hear raised glasses clinking in the progressive community. These folks claim to want “inclusion” but it isn’t about that.
The real point of all the ACLU lawsuits and editorials was to destroy the Boy Scouts’ traditional moral impact on society.
“Why would any liberal want to join an organization that was, according to them, sexist, Bible-thumping and bigoted?” asks Ann Coulter in a recent column. “They didn’t. The lawsuits were kill shots.”
Indeed, they were. But it was sabotage from within that proved most damaging, some of it coming from people like Robert Gates, secretary of defense under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. As Chief Scout Executive, Mr. Gates presided over the surrender in 2013.
Pressure also came from Scouts board members who were top executives at corporations like AT&T and UPS. Former Exxon-Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson, who was briefly Donald Trump’s secretary of state, was reportedly instrumental in the policy change.
Long ago, like henpecked spouses, many corporate executives began supporting the Left’s radical sexual agenda at the nagging of their human resource departments. That’s where they employ “diversity” specialists with degrees in women’s, ethnic, and LGBTQ studies. Keep them happy or they’ll go to the media and call you a bigot.
Having whipped the Scouts into submission, the same folks are now concentrating on Christianity with the same aim: Destroy the churches, or better yet, commandeer them to promote sexual anarchy and other leftist aims. Just ask former Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who thumps a Brave New Version of the Bible, in which Jesus is a gay activist, God is cool with even late-term abortion, and anyone who says otherwise isn’t a real Christian.
Founded in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America have played a crucial role in training boys to become responsible men who care for their families, their communities and their country. Countless leaders in business, the military and politics have credited the Scouts for helping to mold them.
At a time when more children than ever are being raised in fatherless households, Scout leaders should be playing a crucial role as surrogate dads. Instead, they’re fast becoming part of the leftist Borg Collective, the magnetic hive in Star Trek that pulls all within its reach and cements them into its evil design.
The Trail Life USA lifeboats have drawn alongside the Scouts’ sinking ship. But I would wager that even Trail Life’s leaders would welcome a spirited effort to throw out the current Scout “leadership” and Make the Scouts Great Again.
Robert Knight is a Townhall contributor.
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