I view this guy's comments as the common sense viewpoint of Scouting.
Gay rights advocates have argued that homosexuals should simply be given the rights that everybody else has. In other words, that they be treated by
society no differently than anybody else. Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. As the "lawsuit alleges sexual assault" article makes clear, the Scouts
have an obligation to protect their members.
Society has traditionally disallowed sexually charged situations in which one party is particularly vulnerable. People that advocate the right of consenting
adults to do anything they choose will get quite upset if it turns out that one of the participants was actually a young child. Whether or not that child
"consented" is irrelevant.
Actual action is not necessary to raise objections. If parents of a group of Girl Scouts age 15 to 17 find out that a 23-year-old man is going to be the sole
adult in charge of the upcoming camping trip, the hollering will begin well before anything sinister actually happens. The 23-year-old man will be
removed from the trip, whoever put him in charge will be reprimanded or fired, and someone more appropriate will run the camp. No "heterosexual
advocacy" groups will swing into action to fight for the "right" of the young man to supervise a group of teenage girls. Everybody implicitly knows why
that is a bad idea.'
Now, perhaps the man would truly behave honorably. He may have no lecherous designs on the girls. As far as society is concerned, however, that's just
too bad for him. It's not worth the risk.
It is the same situation with putting a gay man in charge of younger boys. That is just a bad idea. Everybody knows why it is a bad idea. Will this cause
some inconvenience to gay men that have no intention of making sexual advances toward boys? Yes, but, as with the case of the man supervising teenage
girls, that's just too bad. It's a potentially explosive situation. When vulnerable children are involved, society is right to protect them, even at the expense
of an adult's "right" to be trusted not to take advantage of their vulnerability. |
