As soon as the story broke that the Boy Scouts of America was considering a change in its national ban on gay members, Religious Right leaders immediately claimed that such a move would lead to an increase in child abuse in the Scouts.
But in a desperate attempt to play the victim, the very same conservative activists are now upset that they are facing criticism over their attempts to connect homosexuality with pedophilia.
The American Family Association’s Sandy Rios invited Peter LaBarbera of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality onto her show today to defend her repeated attempts to link homosexuality with pedophilia, all the while claiming that she didn’t really say it, except that she did.
Rios: The push back to me about this topic, I get emails about ‘how dare you say that,’ they say that I say this, I didn’t, but I am indicating it or hinting at it, that all homosexuals would go into Scouting because they were recruiting, looking for love interests, sexual objects. Is that fair Peter?
LaBarbera: I just think there’s so many levels on the Scout issue. First of all, just the whole thing of biology, I have a thirteen year old daughter, I don’t care how noble a guy is I wouldn’t want him out in a tent with my daughter. Do we want these young boys—and the fact is you read the writings of some of these men, I’m sorry it’s not nice, ‘hairless boys,’ you see this in the writings over the years, do we want that temptation in the Scouts? No. Also it’s already on record. We know that homosexual pedophiles go where the boys are. Whether it’s the Catholic Church, the schools, coaches—
Rios: Shall we say Jerry Sandusky.
LaBarbera: Jerry Sandusky, the Boy Scouts. This is already a record. Homosexuality and the Boy Scouts do not mix and it’s just something that’s not appropriate and parents don’t need that worry. You have the fact of the other problem, which there’s a lot of in homosexual life, is this boy-on-boy predations.
Responding to a listener named Lawrence, Rios said that schools should once again prohibit gays and lesbians from teaching or any job involving children because they have “sexual aberrations in their life,” arguing that openly gay teachers “opened the gates to all kind of stuff” like female teachers who sleep with male students.
After complaining that the media refused to cover the murder of Jesse Dirkhising, who was raped and killed by a gay couple in 1999, Rios and LaBarbera said that Matthew Shepard was not a victim of anti-gay violence. Rios said the facts of the case were “twisted and fabricated” and LaBarbera asserted that its “absurd” to think Shepard was the victim of a hate crime.
Like Rios, Linda Harvey of Mission America also played the victim by explaining that anti-gay discrimination is necessary or otherwise people like her would feel discriminated against.
On her daily radio alert, she said that boys will be “preyed upon” and face “mental, spiritual and possibly physical corruption” if the ban on gay members is lifted, which she says “would amount to blatant anti-Christian, anti-common sense discrimination.”
Many would cave in and allow homosexual identity and attraction to be respected and welcomed among their boys; that would mean mental, spiritual and possibly physical corruption plain and simple. Parents and grandparents the nation over are appalled at the irresponsibility of this potential move and the delay is not necessarily a good sign. What the national Boy Scouts may be hoping for is more dialogue, in other words, ways to pressure local troop leaders and national Christian groups threatening to disaffiliate if this new policy goes through. The delay also allows homosexual groups to mount bigger nationwide campaigns to spin the issue as a matter of hate versus love and tolerance. Those of us with experience with these folks know this does not reflect reality.
The Scouts may have homosexuals on staff pushing for this change. We do know that the far-left Huffington Post has been encouraging companies like Intel and UPS to drop corporate Boy Scout donations. Boy Scout board members Randall Stephenson of AT&T and Ernst & Young’s James Turley have been openly pushing for this change, and of course Barack Obama also did so in a recent speech. For our young men it amounts to saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no way’ to the idea of two guys dating, kissing and even having sexual contact. It means leaders who have these attractions. It’s a matter of saying ‘yes’ to other boys in their troop calling themselves gay. A boy in these new homosexually-affirming troops won’t be able to object or say it’s not acceptable nor respectable. In other words this policy would amount to blatant anti-Christian, anti-common sense discrimination. It’s also a threat to boys who may be preyed upon by their own peers or older boys or by adults, all of whom would have more access to those whom they are attracted.
