Now if we could just identify all the pedafiles and predators by a look. I wonder how many of us would be in utter shock at who they are?

Wasn't there a lawsuit agaist the scouts for not allowing a child that didn't believe in God? Wasn't he allowed in anyway? Can't remember.

As far as gays having sex in parks and public places?
Well, hate to tell ya. I sure have had. Several times. On walking trails, behind trees, on the grass, agaist the car in the park. In ther car. We were careful (got caught anyway. They almost took us to jail but decided to let us go.), but stupid, as young people usually are. Well, once I wasn't so young.I am quite sure others here have too.

Thing is...many times a park has become sort of a safe park for gays. We have one here that is well known to be visited by mostly gay people and straight people know it, and still come.

Kat

Phil:
“”As to your comment "Because If I was sending an 11 or 12 year old out to camp, I certainly wouldn’t want them out of shouting distance from help. Get real."
As a scout kids are exploring countryside, camping and hiking and a number of other activities. Any possibility that they would be within shouting distance of help would be pretty remote.

I guarantee you that those kids are out of shouting distance huge portions of the day. With luck they may have one or several other kids with them. But its a wonder that large numbers of them aren't lost wandering remote areas by themselves. “”

Ok, you let your kid go to school, you’re 11-15 year old is often out of your sight and you don’t, can’t always know what they’re doing and who they’re with.
That’s the reason, as you say, parents should be teaching their kids about the dangers out there. And about how to get out of a bad situation.

But with all this concern, it doesn’t bother you in the least to send youy kid out into some remote place, to wander on their own, not even in shouting distance of others. But you’re afraid of an older scout.
A scout who would only have some authority if they had come up through the ranks of the organization. This same organization whose praises are being sung here. An organization that builds character, morals and a genuine concern for all. Yet for some reason, there is something that says, gay boys are somehow less able to comprehend these values than heterosexuals. And this is what you’re afraid of.

That, sir is clearly an idea formed soley on the basis of bias learned from a bigoted and discriminating society. If what you fear ( a 17 year old sex drive) was such a powerful force every girl would be raped before she was 17. But somewhere out there, at leas SOME heterosexual boys, are contolling their urges, but you can’t believe that a homosexual could

Everything I said was true Redy. Sorry but it happens and yes gays come here to NC to attack our laws! That is true too.

Yall are sounding like someone has hurt your feelings. Your arguements are petty and quite frankly sound desperate!

Oh well, **** happens!!!

and the hate continues.....

"and the hate continues..... "

Because disagreement is hate to liberals?

SILENCE THE INFIDELS! DEMOCRATS ARE SPEAKING!!!!!

))) place, to wander on their own, not even in shouting distance of others. But youre afraid of an older scout.

Yes - rocks, trees and squirrels pose no threat to teenage boys. With some training, I would readily send a daughter out into the wilderness with a trusted companion. I would be cautious about sending my daughter out with a strange teenage boy. Makes sense to me, I'm wondering if you are inexperienced with wilderness survival.

)) A scout who would only have some authority if they had come up through the ranks of the organization. This same organization whose praises are being sung here. An organization that builds character, morals and a genuine concern for all. Yet for some reason, there is something that says, gay boys are somehow less able to comprehend these values than heterosexuals.

No, no, no - nowhere is anything like this being said. What level of risk is acceptable to a parent? Its a personal decision - acknowledging the fact that teenage boys MIGHT take advantage of a younger boy or girl does not translate into saying gays can't learn morals.

)) That, sir is clearly an idea formed soley on the basis of bias learned from a bigoted and discriminating society.

Bigoted society plays a role in this convo, yes.

)) If what you fear ( a 17 year old sex drive) was such a powerful force every girl would be raped before she was 17.

No. See Kerry's comment on straw men. For many responsible parents, a very low level of risk is still unacceptable. Fact is, -some- teenage girls do get raped by teenage boys. Probably also some boy scouts get raped by other boy scouts. That it happens at all makes it a risk worth considering - nothing to do with ALL teenage girls getting raped.

)) But somewhere out there, at leas SOME heterosexual boys, are contolling their urges, but you cant believe that a homosexual could

You keep putting words in other's mouths. I don't see anyone saying this at all - all we need are SOME boys with sexual interest in other boys to fail to make this an issu

my phone ran out of text buffer... I don't support the ban on homosexuals. I think the US scouts should learn from other countries.

I just hate seeing all the prejudice, intolerance and mis-representation in this thread from people who preach tolerance.

Red, I respect and appreciate your effort to awaken people to the reality of bigotry - I just wish you would give fair/honest treatment to other's views. I hope you know that I am not arguing against your overall position here.

Famous Eagle Scouts
and Other Well Known Scouting Alumni
Famous Eagles
Bill Alexander, U.S. Representative from Arkansas
Gary Anderson, U.S. Representative from New York
Charles Bennett, U.S. Representative from Florida
William Bennett, Former Secretary of Education
Bill Bradley, Pro basketball star and U.S. Sneator from New Jersey
Milton Caniff, Comic Strip Artist "Steve Canyon"
Willaim Dannemeyer, U.S. Representative from California
Arthur Eldred, (First Eagle Scout)
Gerald Ford, 38th President of the U.S.
Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Governor of Louisiana
James Lovell - Astronaut
Richard Lugar, U.S. Senator from Indiana
Sam Nunn, U.S. Senator from Georgia
Ellison Onizuka, Challenger Astronaut
J.J. Pickle, U.S. Representative from Texas
Samuel Pierce, Former Secreatry of HUD
Harrison Salisbury, Pulitzer Prize winning Author
Willaim Sessions, Former FBI Director
Steven Spielberg, Film Director/Producer
Wallace Stegner, Pulitzer Prize winning Author
Percy Sutton, Chairman of CBS John Tesh, TV Celebrity
James Stewart - Actor
James Brady, Former Press Secretary to President Reagan
William C. DeVries, M.D., Transplanted first artificial heart
Walter Cronkite - Journalist, T.V. commentator
J. Willard Marriott, Jr., President, Marriott Corporation
H. Ross Perot, Chairman, EDS Corp.
Daniel J. Evans, Former US Senator and Governor of Washington state
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Famous Scouts
David Hartman, Actor (Life Scout)
Henry "Hank" Aaron, Baseball Superstar (Boy Scout)
Richard Gere - Actor
Bruce Jenner - Olympic Gold Medal Decathlon (Cub Scout)
Jim Morrison - Rock Legend (Boy Scout)
Merlin Olsen, Actor, Sportscaster (Boy Scout)
Eddie Rabbitt, Country/Western singer (Boy Scout)
Richard Roundtree, Actor (Boy Scout)
Alberto Salazar, 3-time winner, NYC Marathon (Life Scout)
John Schneider, Actor/Singer (Cub Scout)
Howard K. Smith, Former ABC-TV commentator (Boy Scout)
Mark Spitz - Olympic Gold Medal Swimmer (Cub Scout)
George Strait - Country/Western Singer (Cub Scout)
Joe Theisman, Sportscaster, former NFL player (Life Scout)
Peter Ueberroth, Former Commissioner of Baseball (Cub Scout)
Paul Winfield, Actor (Cub Scout)
Steve Young, NFL Quarterback
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ASTRONAUTS
EAGLES:

Adamson, Armstrong, Bagian, Bluford, Bowersox, Brady, Carr, Carter, Chaffee, Covey, Creighton, Duke, Eisele, Fullerton, W. Gregory, Griggs, Hoffman, Jones, Lee, Lind, Llewellyn (King's Scout, U.K.), Lovell, McCulley, O'Leary, Onizuka, Oswald, Parazynski, Reightler, Searfoss, See, Tanner, Truly, D. Walker

LIFES:

Anders, Basset, Brand, Bridges, Casper, Cooper, Evans, Fabian, G. Gardner, Givens, Gregory, Kregel, Low, Mattingly, McArthur, Mitchell, D. Scott, Spring, Springer, Van Hoften, C. Williams

STARS:

Barry, Cameron, England, W. Fisher, Garriott, R. Gibson, Gordon, Grissom, Haise, Lounge, McNair, Stafford

1ST CLASS:

J. Allen, Bean, Clifford, Coats, Engle, Freeman, D. Gardner, E. Gibson, Hammond, Henize, Linnehan, Nelson, Overmyer, Schirra, Schweickart, W. Scott, Shepard, Veach, Worden

2ND CLASS:

Bolden, Buchli, Carpenter, Cernan, Culbertson, Mullane, Parker, Pogue, Shriver, Swigert, W. Thornton, White, Young

TENDERFOOT:

Aldrin, Bursch, Hawley, Lousma, McDivitt, Michel, Schmitt, S. Smith

EXPLORER:

O'Connor, D. Williams

GIRL SCOUT:

E. Collins, Davis, A. Fisher, Helms, Jernigan, Lawrence, Seddon, Sherlock, Sullivan, K. Thornton, Janice Voss, Weber

CUB SCOUT:

A. Allen, C. Brown, Conrad, Foale (Wolf, Germany), Gernhardt, Henricks, Leestma, Lopez-Alegria, McBride, Meade, Readdy, Rominger, Shepherd, Thomas, Thuot, Wolf

RANK UNKNOWN:

C. Brown, Bull, Clervoy, Garneau, Harris, James Voss


What do you think? Is it really worth destroying!!

And eh????

Does the BSA need to learn from others... Thats some pretty successful results for a group of bigots!!!

This is what my arguement is about. Not the homosexual point, they just picked the wrong fight!!

They didnt even list military leaders in there did they???
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.............

I agree with COALINA 04....sorry if I messed up your name. Why are gays trying to be part of a group whose value system is opposite of what they believe? What is up with this? That is like a Black Person, or Jew trying to join the KKK and then complaining of unfair treatement because they don't want them there. ....use some common sense....this is incredibly simple......Ok have your gay rights, but don't violate others beliefs and rights.

Fanta, Its just my opinion, which doesn't matter because I'm not involved. I respect the right of a private club to make its own choice. I think the concerns raised in this thread about sexual conduct are valid, but that out-right banning gays is simplistic solution that needlessly sacrifices inclusiveness. Other countries have gays in their scouts (its claimed, and I believe), we can learn.

Scouting may be a great institution but when you outright refuse to grow/evolve, that's when you start to stagnate. In general there is always room for growth; in general, change is necessary.

Mass, if you read Philosophers points and his arguments I am not putting words in his mouth, they're falling all by themselves.

His concern, at least in the last few posts, are that an older, bigger scout, might force that advantage onto a younger scout for the purpose of sex.

All the points I've been making are the same points you have stated in your last post.

"Some" people are going to get taken advantage of, by "some other people". Whether it's a girl getting date raped, or a boy being forced to have sex with another boy (of either persuasion). The point I was trying to make is simply that. Not every kid is trustworthy. BUT, if you believe that the Boy Scouts yields such stout hearted men. If you belive that what they teach provide strong morals and values, than why would there be any more danger from the gay kid.

The truth is, I would be far more concerned, if I was a parent of a gay son who wanted to be in the Scouts. Only because I know the kind bigotry that's out there, and I've seen my share of kids get beat up for no reason other than they're gay.
In spite of that concern, I would have to let him try - because I've been fed on the same program that everyone has. I would trust that the scouts and the scout masters would protect him.


As far as being alone overnight on a camping trip in the woods - take a look at where the most bodies are found. If your kid said I'm going camping in the woods with my friend Josh and they're both 11 or 12, would you drive them there and drop them off? I can't believe there isn't a bit more management of those kids than to leave them alone for hours unsupervised. A kid can get pretty lost and pretty far away and pretty dead in that time.

Ok, so I’m away from my computer for a day and this thread skyrockets to seven pages. I don’t really have any interest in reading them all so I’m just going to comment on KerryO and Redy’s responses following my last post all the way back on page two.

All Quotes are from KerryO:

"No, the Fans of Irony here are looking at your coming in here throwing the term 'fag' around like you just won it in the Powerball lottery. And the more literate of the assembly are probably thinking about the line from Shakespeare "Methinks the lady doth protest too much."

For someone who professes to be so smart, you seem to misunderstand the definition of irony. Explain to me what is ironic about an anti-homosexual making anti-homosexual remarks?

I believe I used the term ‘fag’ only once. I may have used it more, but go back and take a count. I don’t think you’ll find more than three occurrences of that particular title. I used it for two reasons:

1. Because typing ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ got old.
2. To be provocative and piss people like you off.

I obviously had some success with the latter, as it has made you so blind with rage you forget that I had only dropped the word once, twice, or at most, three times.

Again someone pulls the old chestnut “if someone is anti-homosexual they must really be insecure and possibly gay themselves“. That is really the most crack-headed assumption I have ever heard, but I guess it’s repeated often enough where the masses buy into it.

You know what I’m not a big fan of cats. Does that mean that I’m insecure about me not being a cat or that I am secretly feline? The whole thing is just an attempt to silence people who might otherwise protest what they feel is wrong.

As far as me ’protesting too much’ I thought this was supposed to be an open forum for debate and discussion. Someone presented a view which I didn’t agree with and I protested it. Others made attacks on my person and I defended myself. Makes sense to me. But I guess that I don’t have a right to do that since my thoughts aren’t consistent with yours.

“One more time: _hatred_ is the operative term in the definition and, not incidentally, the context in which this little skull session is based. All the rest are just textiles to clothe the Emperor in Moral Superiority, even as his arse is still in plain sight.”

Once again, according to Merriam-Webster‘s, the definition of a phobia: “an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation”. Hatred can not be the operative word in a definition of which it isn’t a part. But I’ll play along. Let’s say hatred is a necessary condition of a phobia. So is irrational fear, which many supposed ‘homophobes’ lack.

What’s funny about the whole thing is your metaphor involving the story of the Emperor’s clothes. What you have done is to take a false statement and present it as fact (the bare Empower) and then you dress it up with a sentence and a half of worthless fluff (the clothing). It’s perfect illustration of irony, so Mr.98%. you might want to take notes so you can better understand the concept.

“Only that private club is trying to feed at the public trough while not respecting its rules-- rules designed to reverse decades of institutionalized sexism and prejudice. Hasn't it been shown that everyone benefits from a more harmonious society where the majority is estopped from running roughshod over the rights of minorities to live and breathe in a social sense?”

You can call it the “public trough” if that serves your agenda, but the fact is prominent figures of society are able to aid private clubs that they support as long as they aren’t appropriating public funds without the proper legislation. If the Mayor of Town “A” gives the scouts free publicity by shaking hands with them on television, or grants them a permit to hold a march through town (and they meet the requirements for the permit), that is up to him or her.

The only ‘rule’ that exists in this country is the rule of law. You can’t decide you don’t like something and then claim that they are breaking our ‘rules’ when no laws are being broken. The scouts are a private club and have the right to exclude whoever they want. You may not like that, but tough break. I’m not in favor of any Gay-Pride organizations, but if the mayor of my town wants to grant them permission to have a rally downtown, there isn’t much I can do about it.

Yes all minorities should have rights and it would be a much more pleasant and harmonious society if every minority-group could carry on as they wished. Wrong. Child-molesters, rapists, and drug dealers are a minority in this society, but it really isn’t beneficial to society to have them running about doing as they wished.

" Given that, in a terrible truth of nature, innocent babies are born with AIDS as the result of exclusively heterosexual contact, your premise fails. Utterly. Besides, people like yourself hating gay men can be shown to pre-date the AIDS epidemic.

But you might want to talk about glorifying non-reproductive sex with Rambill-- he's our resident oral sexpert.“

I never claimed that this wasn’t true. The only thing I brought up was the fact that homosexuals have greatly contributed to the rapid spread of AIDS in this country, more than any demographic group. What does my or anyone else hatred of gay men, or women, have to do with the fact that the sexual promiscuous and deviance of gay men (Gay women are of course sexually deviant too, but AIDS is difficult to spread through female-on-female sex. Of course there are heterosexual perverts and deviants, but the fact is homosexuals are deviants by definition) has lead to the explosion of AIDS in this country and the spill-over into the heterosexual community?

By the way, you happened to neatly dodge my question (gee, could that have been on purpose?). So I’ll pose it again. What is progressive about homosexuality? What benefits does it have to bestow upon mankind?

“Perhaps, but not nearly as priceless as appropriating the last name of two states for one's nom de plume. AND THEN MISSPELLING IT!! (BTW, that's 'you're', NOT 'YOUR'. Sheesh!)

Oh, and could you spit those seeds from those sour grapes somewhere else?

-Kerry O. “

We’ve been over this countless times, it was a simple typo; which wouldn’t seem to be worth too much of anyone’s time obsessing over, but knock yourself out.

I don’t know why you find it so ‘priceless’ that I chose to use Carolina as my handle. it is actually common practice to refer to the two states as the Carolinas or to refer to the general region as Carolina.

Redy: You misunderstood me, I didn’t mean for homosexuals to start their own exclusively homosexual club, though I stated that I could give a rats-ass less if they did. I merely made the suggestion that homosexuals or homosexual advocates make a club that doesn’t exclude them.

Fanta you wrote:
""Everything I said was true Redy. Sorry but it happens and yes gays come here to NC to attack our laws! That is true too.""

27 gays arrested in one day for lewd behavior. Fanta,please direct me to this story. Such a thing doesn't happen without a headline, somewhere. Were they a group, an orgy, were they locals, were they drunk. What's the story? Also, Gays go everywhere to fight injustice. If your laws are not just, why would you have a problem with that?

You also said:
"Yall are sounding like someone has hurt your feelings. Your arguements are petty and quite frankly sound desperate! ""

No hurt feelings, in fact the desperation, if any, you hear may only be me holding back, trying to respect and contain myself to the topic. I'm going off track in responce to others.

By the way - nice touch adding all those ex-scouts! Course one wonders if there be "boast" behind some of that affiliation. It's not uncommon to see electecd officials boasting about a nearly non-existiant military career either. (sorta of a joke)

But as I've said, there is a lot of charachter that the BSA offers, I'm just sorry it's not offerred freely to all kids.

))) why would there be any more danger from the gay kid.

I don't want to get into the definition of gay - but in a mono-sex environment, only same-sex encounters are possible. Its that simple. Same-sex-interested teen males may not be more dangerous than opposite-sex-interested teen males - but hey, there are no girls in boy scouts, so we can all take a deep breath and relax on that topic. I think the perception of bigotry is wrongly magnified by not taking this into account - we have already segregated the genders (boy scouts, girl scouts), so opposite sex encounters are a non-issue.

))) As far as being alone overnight on a camping trip in the woods - take a look at where the most bodies are found.

Because they are -abandoned- there by panicked or not-to-bright criminals, not because they were picked up there. I've done a lot of camping - the wilderness is the -safest- place from other people. Just wear orange if its hunting season hehehe.

)) If your kid said I'm going camping in the woods with my friend Josh and they're both 11 or 12, would you drive them there and drop them off?

Maybe, if they are training for wilderness survival. I was a member of another teen group that did wilderness survival, in the tame version we would take a truck to one place, hike a few miles to the main camp, and set up personal tents within a half mile or so of that, and then do our thing, which included hours at a time unsupervised, possibly wandering the country side. That's the POINT, to learn self reliance.

))) I can't believe there isn't a bit more management of those kids than to leave them alone for hours unsupervised.

That's the point, to teach independance. There are no predators, they've been trained in first aid and orienteering - let explore and be free.

I know it because I live here. Its my home and I am very updated on current events for my area too!

Im looking some, I found one in Waynesville with 40 arrests thats pretty recent. It involves a preacher to, and involves restrooms. The other one may have been 5 yrs ago. Ive lived here for ever and events tend to run together at times. Im looking though and Im sure Ill find it, if you really want me to.

I would rather not, and Im sorry the gay/lesbian Community picked a fight they cant hope to win. It really doesnt help their cause one iota!!