On Transgenders, the Boy Scouts Did What I Predicted They Would

In June of 2013, I wrote:

To encourage his demonic protégé, Screwtape explained to Wormwood, “It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing…Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

With the Boy Scouts of America’s (B.S.A.) decision to allow young gays into their ranks, another signpost warning against the sin of homosexuality has been removed.

The piece goes on to note that,

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts had the Constitutional right to exclude gay members. This was because, as the Court concluded, opposition to homosexuality is part of the organization’s “expressive message.” Part of the Scout Oath states that Scouts will keep themselves “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” The Majority opinion in the 2000 ruling noted that the Scouts “teach that homosexual conduct is not morally straight,” and that it does “not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.”

In other words, no less than the U.S. Supreme Court had protected the Boy Scouts from the homosexual agenda. Yet, in 2013 the Boy Scouts chose to surrender and become citizens of the City of Man instead of the City of God.

At the end of the piece, I concluded:

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have granted legal rights to “transgender” people. In Colorado, the parents of a 6-year-old boy, who now, supposedly, wants to be a girl, are suing their school district for not allowing him to use the girls’ bathroom. 

Radical Massachusetts laws are requiring schools to allow students who “identify” as the opposite sex to use whichever bathroom, locker room, and sports teams they choose. In addition, the Massachusetts law (ironically!) allows no tolerance for students who are uncomfortable with the transgender directives. They are to be “re-educated,” says pro-family advocate Brian Camenker. 

Thus, how long will it be before the Boy Scouts are again in court? This time it will be a couple (probably same-sex) who wants their young girl—who has decided that she wants to be a boy—in the name of “tolerance” to be able to join the Boy Scouts. However, the fight won’t last 23 years in this case. After all, the next moral compromise will be easier than the previous one.

Of course, not to be outdone, as I noted in 2015, it was the Girl Scouts who first caved to the transgender dogma of the homosexual agenda. The Boy Scouts are only now catching up. Instead of waiting on a lawsuit, it seems the Boy Scouts have gotten the hang of capitulating to the homosexual agenda, and on the gender-confused, did exactly what I thought they would. As Todd Starnes wrote today, 

The Boy Scouts of America sacrificed its last vestige of integrity on the altar of political correctness. 

On Monday, the BSA announced that girls who identify as boys will now be allowed to join the Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts—marking a complete capitulation to the gender and sex revolutionaries. 

As I wrote in The Deplorables Guide to Making America Great Again, the time has come for every church and every parent in America to sever ties with the Boy Scouts. 

Though I was never involved in scouting, I've always been an enthusiastic outdoorsman and greatly respected the mission of the Boy Scouts. That respect was waning years ago, and is now completely gone. I have three boys and would NEVER allow them to participate in an organization so "Physically Ignorant, Mentally Lazy, and Morally Lost."

Copyright 2017, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor is the author of the brand new book The Miracle and Magnificence of America
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

National Scouting Leadership: Physically Ignorant, Mentally Lazy, and Morally Lost

The plague continues to spread. Whether the church, para-church organizations, the government, schools, corporations, small businesses, and even blood banks, the plague of liberalism seems to know no bounds. Because of their desire (again) to compromise with God-given absolute moral standards on sexuality, the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are now the latest to go further down the wide path of destruction paved by modern liberalism.

The Girl Scouts of America recently announced a policy shift and will start allowing gender-confused boys into their ranks. The FAQ section of the Girl Scouts’ website reads, “Girl Scouts is proud to be the premiere leadership organization for girls in the country. Placement of [gender-confused] youth is handled on a case-by-case basis, with the welfare and best interests of the child and the members of the troop/group in question a top priority. That said, if the child is recognized by the family and school/community as a girl and lives culturally as a girl, then Girl Scouts is an organization that can serve [him] in a setting that is both emotionally and physically safe.”

Interestingly, after their surrender to the liberal sexual agenda nearly two years ago that allowed for homosexual members, I thought that the Boy Scouts next would capitulate when it comes to the gender-confused. Not wanting to let the boys outdo them, and showing themselves to be fine feminazi role models for today’s young females, the adults who lead the Girl Scouts beat the Boy Scouts to the punch!

Rather than delve into gender perverseness, it seems the Boy Scouts are still hung up on homosexuality. So much so that Boy Scouts of America (BSA) president Robert Gates recently announced that the BSA’s longstanding ban on homosexual scout leaders is now in question. Noting the “open defiance” that exists with some Boy Scout councils across the U.S. when it comes to “current membership policy,” Gates said that such issues could no longer be “ignored.”

He also noted the “social, political, and ‘juridicial’ changes taking place in our country.” Gates reminded listeners of the debates raging in the U.S. over “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation,” and rightly expressed fear that U.S. courts would force a change (full-on acceptance of all things homosexual) on the Boy Scouts.

So what’s Gates’ solution? Sounding much like the modern champion of “tolerance” that he is, Gates began, “We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it would be.” He then offered a policy “that accepts and respects our different perspectives and beliefs, allows religious organizations—based on First Amendment protections of religious freedom—to establish their own standards for adult leaders, and preserves the Boy Scouts of America now and forever.”

Ahh, the sweet smell of compromise. Given Gates’ previous desire to allow homosexual scout leaders, preceded by his efforts to end “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the U.S. military, his recent comments come as little surprise. It’s almost as if Gates was placed in his position as president of Boy Scouts of America in order to lead the Scouts down the same path that he took our military.

Of course this is what happens when a man without (or with few) convictions is faced with making a moral decision that many will dislike. Simply put, when it comes to defending the truth on sexuality, Gates’ heart and mind are simply not in the fight.

It’s a shame, because more than ever before, America’s youth need the direction of pure hearts and sound minds when it comes matters of sexuality. For example, it would be wonderful if the Boys Scouts took the opportunity to teach young boys about the “born that way” myth. In spite of the popular meme perpetuated by the homosexual agenda, no one is “born gay.” This myth is so powerful that it has deceived even well-meaning conservatives like Ben Carson and Marco Rubio.

Since the Scout motto says, “On my honor, I will do my best…to keep myself physically strong,” it would also be nice if Boy Scout leadership told the truth on the tremendous health dangers associated with sexual immorality. This is especially the case for those involved in a homosexual lifestyle.

There are abundant data that reveal the dangers of a homosexual lifestyle. Even government health organizations who’ve fully bought into the homosexual agenda can’t deny the sad and sobering statistics when it comes to homosexuality. As the CDC notes, when compared to the general population, LGBT individuals are more likely to:

• Use alcohol and drugs
• Have higher rates of substance abuse
• Continue heavy drinking later in life

Men who have sex with men account for 75% of primary and secondary syphilis cases in the U.S. and are 17 times more likely to develop anal cancer than are heterosexual men. Though homosexuals make up only about 2% of the population, homosexual men account for about two-thirds of all new HIV infections.

The Canadian healthcare system notes that the life expectancy of homosexual men is 20 years less than the average. In addition, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in Canada:

• Commit suicide at rates from 2 to 13.9 times more often than average
• Have smoking rates 1.3 to 3 times higher than average
• Have rates of alcoholism 1.4 to 7 times higher than average
• Have rates of illicit drug use 1.6 to 19 times higher than average
• Show rates of depression 1.8 to 3 times higher than average 
• Gay and bisexual men comprise 76.1% of AIDS cases 
• Gay and bisexual men comprise 54% of new HIV infections each year

If they are committed to the truth, Scouting organizations should also reveal to young boys and girls that, though they may experience same-sex attractions, they are not doomed to the devastation that comes from living a homosexual lifestyle. In other words, it is possible to come out of the homosexual lifestyle. In spite of the recent best efforts of liberals to suppress the truth—going so far as to make it illegal—conversion therapy works.

Any organization committed to helping young boys maintain a “physically strong,” and “mentally awake” lifestyle, or committed to helping young girls “respect” themselves and to be “Courageous and Strong,” should certainly make our youth aware of the dangers of a homosexual lifestyle.

Gates is right about one thing: these issues can’t be ignored. However, instead of fighting for what’s right, the former Secretary of Defense has surrendered on one of the most important moral battles of our time. How tragic that two of the oldest and most premiere youth organizations in the U.S. have taken the wide road that leads to destruction when it comes to these important truths.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2015, Trevor Grant Thomas
At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason.
www.trevorgrantthomas.com
Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World
tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

The Boy Scout's Next Capitulation

To encourage his demonic protégé, Screwtape explained to Wormwood, “It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the Light and out into the Nothing…Indeed, the safest road to Hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”

With the Boy Scouts of America’s (B.S.A.) decision to allow young gays into their ranks, another signpost warning against the sin of homosexuality has been removed.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts had the Constitutional right to exclude gay members. This was because, as the Court concluded, opposition to homosexuality is part of the organization’s “expressive message.” Part of the Scout Oath states that Scouts will keep themselves “physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” The Majority opinion in the 2000 ruling noted that the Scouts “teach that homosexual conduct is not morally straight,” and that it does “not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior.”

In his dissent of the 2000 Supreme Court decision, Justice John Paul Stevens declared, “it is plain as the light of day that neither one of these principles—‘morally straight’ and ‘clean’ [a reference to the Scout Law]—says the slightest thing about homosexuality.” It seems that the Boy Scouts have now surrendered that “expressive message” and agree with such an abhorrent and morally ignorant conclusion.

As Al Mohler warned prior to the B.S.A. vote, surrendering this core conviction “is both a legal and moral disaster.” For example, with their “expressive message” now compromised, how now can the Scouts argue legally to prevent the inclusion of homosexual leaders? The 2000 case against the B.S.A. was brought by an assistant Scoutmaster of a New Jersey troop, James Dale.

In 1990, while a student at Rutgers University, Dale gave an interview to a local paper that revealed he was gay. B.S.A. officials got wind of Dale’s interview and expelled him from his position in the Scouts. On the advice of counsel, Dale wrote to the Boy Scouts asking why he was expelled. The B.S.A. replied that they “specifically forbid membership to homosexuals.” Thus the B.S.A. has now lost the whole crux of their argument that led to the 2000 ruling.

What’s more, as so often is the case when one begins to ignore moral absolutes, the Boy Scouts have opened themselves up to further moral erosion. After decades of battles leading to, among other things, the reversal of laws against sodomy, broad cultural acceptance, and marital rights, the homosexual agenda has (tragically) made significant progress. Now we get to face the ascension of another perversion that has long been “married” to the homosexual movement: transgenderism.

One of the most significant events that launched the homosexual movement occurred in 1973. That was the year that the American Psychiatric Association (APA), by a vote of 5,834 to 3,810, removed homosexuality as a disorder from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). About two weeks ago the fifth edition of the DSM was published. Guess what was not in it? That’s right: gender identity disorder.

It was removed last year because, as the Associated Press recently put it, “a growing faction of medical experts who no longer see this as something to be fixed.” Not that the APA has a great track record when it comes to what needs “to be fixed.” As I referenced a few weeks ago, much of the DSM is simply made-up nonsense to (try to) help us make sense of what is evil. However, just as with homosexuality, by a simple vote, the APA lets us know what we no longer need to consider evil.

The Associated Press reveals, “Some experts predict that views on gender will evolve in much the same way they have for sexual orientation…Today, the gender spectrum includes those who are transgender, who see themselves as the opposite gender, and those who are gender variant, or gender nonconforming, whose gender is more ‘fluid.’ For kids, it means they identify part of themselves as boy and part as girl.”

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have granted legal rights to “transgender” people. In Colorado, the parents of a 6-year-old boy, who now, supposedly, wants to be a girl, are suing their school district for not allowing him to use the girls’ bathroom. Radical Massachusetts laws are requiring schools to allow students who “identify” as the opposite sex to use whichever bathroom, locker room, and sports teams they choose.

In addition, the Massachusetts law (ironically!) allows no tolerance for students who are uncomfortable with the transgender directives. They are to be “re-educated,” says pro-family advocate Brian Camenker.

Thus, how long will it be before the Boy Scouts are again in court? This time it will be a couple (probably same-sex) who wants their young girl—who has decided that she wants to be a boy—in the name of “tolerance” to be able to join the Boy Scouts. However, the fight won’t last 23 years in this case. After all, the next moral compromise will be easier than the previous one.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2013, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com

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Living With Liberalism: Gays, Graduations, and Swedish Meatheads

One doesn’t have to look far to witness the disaster that is modern liberalism. Sadly, leading the debauchery is the Boy Scouts of America. For over 100 years the Scouts have operated under the oath: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” That oath has now been rendered meaningless and the Boy Scouts, as we knew it, is dead.

Yesterday, in historic infamy, over 1,400 members of the Boy Scouts national council voted (by a 61% to 39% margin) to allow openly homosexual boys into its ranks. As USA Today noted, “Since 1991 the Scouts have barred openly gay individuals from participating in Scouting because it was decided that being gay was incompatible with being ‘morally straight.’” So now, all of a sudden being “morally straight” doesn’t necessarily mean being sexually straight.

As is so typical with liberalism, whenever there’s a moral standard you want to change, just be persistent, loud, and threatening. It only took about 22 years with the Boy Scouts.

Persistent liberalism has worn down Dekalb County (in Georgia). For years now, atheist organizations have sought to get high school graduations out of area churches. In 2010, a federal judge ruled (based on a lawsuit brought against a Connecticut high school) that holding high school graduation ceremonies at a church was unconstitutional, and ordered the Enfield (CT) school board to find an alternative venue.

In recent years schools in Georgia have faced boycotts from atheist students and threats from atheist organizations for holding graduations in churches. This year, Dekalb County GA decided that the fight wasn’t worth it. They have decided to pull all graduations out of local churches. This is in spite of the fact that alternative venues are often not as convenient or as equipped to hold such events.

Then there is Sweden. For days now Sweden has suffered nighttime riots at the hands of unruly youths. The young thugs have set dozens of fires, targeting many cars and even a school. As reported by RT.com news, “Community leaders insist that a main reason for the violence is the high rate of unemployment in immigrant communities, particularly in the suburb of Husby near central Stockholm, one of the worst affected by the nighttime violence.”

Using very sound liberal logic, Swedish Democrats MP Kent Ekeroth stated, “In Sweden you’ve got welfare, access to the educational system – up to university level, you got access to public transport, libraries, healthcare – to everything. And still they feel that they [immigrants] need to riot through stones and Molotov cocktails. It’s ridiculous and a bad excuse.”

Apparently it has escaped many Swedes that, when you promote a culture of entitlement, those on the receiving end are likely to erupt when they don’t get everything they expect. Ingrid Carlqvist, editor in chief of the Swedish Dispatch International concluded, “The problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people. The last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don’t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on.”

In a moment of mental clarity, Carlqvist added, “The people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing. They don’t have to work, they don’t have to pay taxes – they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem.” Yes it is! Carlqvist is correct, however, the environment that has produced this “money for nothing” culture is a result of the liberal policies favored by the Swedish people and their politicians. Thus, the Swedes bear the responsibility for creating such a liberal haven.

(See this column on American Thinker.)

Copyright 2014, Trevor Grant Thomas

At the Intersection of Politics, Science, Faith, and Reason

Trevor and his wife Michelle are the authors of: Debt Free Living in a Debt Filled World

tthomas@trevorgrantthomas.com