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Bankruptcy and the Boy Scouts
This morning, I caught a squib in The Wall Street Journal reporting that the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) is contemplating filing for bankruptcy as a consequence of “dwindling membership and escalating legal costs related to lawsuits over how it handled allegations of sex abuse.”
I was aware of the decline in participation and I had a pretty good understanding of some of the causes. But I had somehow missed the fact that there was a sex abuse scandal — perhaps because 27 years have passed since it was exposed in The Washington Times and 24 since Patrick Boyle published his book on the subject: Scout’s Honor: Sexual Abuse in America’s Most Trusted Institution.
The article in The Wall Street Journal was strangely reticent. It did not specify what species of sexual abuse was involved. When I turned to Wikipedia, which has a good entry summarizing what Boyle and his colleagues at The Washington Times turned up, I discovered that what I suspected was true — that the misconduct involved was very much like that which plagued the Roman Catholic Church worldwide in the five decades preceding 2001. Prior to 1988 — when, in response to the problem, the BSA set up its Youth Protection Program — there had been quite a number of scoutmasters and others involved in scouting who had abused the trust of the boys and young men under their care for the purpose of sexual gratification. Put simply, in those years, pederasty was almost as much a problem for the Boy Scouts as it was for the Roman Catholic Church.
The reticence evident in The Wall Street Journal article appears to stem from the political correctness of its author and, perhaps, her editor. Here is the last paragraph in the print-edition version: “The Boy Scouts group has drawn scrutiny over its slow pace to become more inclusive, including by lifting a ban in 2015 on gay men and lesbians serving in leadership roles.”
Take a moment and read that last sentence twice. Then, ask yourself what was the sexual orientation of the scoutmasters and the others involved with the BSA who abused the boys. I do not mean to suggest that all or even most of those who are homoerotically inclined are prone to the abuse of minors. I know that this is untrue. But I would suggest that heterosexually inclined men are a much safer bet.
If this claim causes you to recoil, I suggest that you ask yourself this. Suppose that you had a child — say, a pretty daughter — who was in her early teen years, and suppose that you and your spouse were going out for an evening or away for a weekend. Would you think twice before hiring a high school or college boy to look after her?
That is, you might say, a no-brainer. To hire a young man is to risk letting the fox into the hen house. Given the fact that human beings can stand up to almost anything other than temptation, the prudent thing to do would be to hire a caretaker who is most unlikely to find your daughter alluring.
In 2015, under the leadership of Robert M. Gates and Rex W. Tillerson, the Boy Scouts of America surrendered to the Zeitgeist and did what you would never do: they invited those most apt to be foxes into the hen house. Later, the BSA opened its programs to girls and transsexual boys. For the Mormons, who were major contributors to scouting, this was the last straw, and it is their withdrawal that has brought the BSA to its knees. First, in the interests of political correctness, came moral bankruptcy. It looks as if financial bankruptcy will follow.
The Boy Scouts once had a noble mission — the formation of vigorous, manly, virtuous men at home in the great outdoors. I know something about this. I was myself an Eagle Scout. Now, however, thanks to a corporate culture in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s less interested in protecting young people than in covering up scandals and thanks also to the moral weakness in 2015 of a former Secretary of Defense and a future Secretary of State, it completely lost its way. The demise of the Boy Scouts is a sign of the miserable times in which we now live.
Published in Education
Yes, there are No Mixed Troops at Scouting: BSA which used to be called “Boy Scouts”. Each Troop has its own Patrol Leader Council, Adult Leadership, which must have some Females. Any Girl Troop activity requires two female leader over the age of 21. Any Boy Troop requires two Male leaders over 21.
Cub Packs can be mixed, but not Dens. The Girls are in their own dens.
Venture Units have been mixed for decades, and somehow, BSA did not come to an end.
And if I was not clear enough before, I want gay youth to be able to experience Scouting. I take it that Paul, et. al. don’t.
I also think that most Gay men are more than capable of supervising boys without preying on them.
That’s nice. So what’s an acceptable level of gay men preying on boys? 10%? 1%?
If even 1% of gay adult scout leaders prey on the boys that is an awful lot of sexually-abused children. In 2010 there were 515,344 adult leaders in scouting. If the gays were distributed among scout leaders as they are in the general population that means there are nearly 26,000 gay scout leaders. Which means 260 troops with boys at risk of molestation if only 5% of the scout leaders are gay and only 1% of gay scout leaders are interested in preying on boys.
Is exposing boys in 260 troops acceptable? Every year? Again, that is best case, because pedophiles tend to gravitate to where children are.
I can tell you the percentage of straight men that are going to sexually prey on boys: 0%.
Can’t we all just get along?
As I made clear, I honor your efforts. But you are part of a larger organization that has surrendered to a very ugly culture, and that will harm you and destroy scouting more generally. Maybe someone could safely entrust his sons to Troop 277. But one cannot do so to the Boy Scouts of America. There is a tension between your efforts locally and your allegiance to the latter. Others recognize it and have left the BSA. Sooner or later, you will find that you have to do so as well. You might want to read Phil Barton’s comment above. He was as involved in scouting as you are, and he sees the point of my argument. In time, you will, too.
Those at the local level understand much more than you might realize, because they are on the front lines, and are acutely aware of the challenges they face. But the national organization needs the local organization far more than the converse.
By structure, Scouting is primarily regional and local. A couple of salient points, just for information’s sake:
Yes, decisions and negative media reporting at the national level have undoubtedly contributed to a weakening at the local level (charters pulling out, etc). No argument there, and you may feel free to call it a remnant if you wish. But a strong council, with good leadership, and committed charters, have the ability to continue to recruit and retain, and promote Scouting. With or without the national organization. Any many will succeed. Some will not. Happens in business all the time.
I’m a realist, but this is personal to me. The pronouncement of demise is as yet, premature. Punditry that assumes the worst certainly doesn’t make the job any easier, but I suspect not everyone truly understands that. Nevertheless, I’ll roll-up my sleeves, stay engaged, write the checks, and otherwise do what little I can to be a positive influence. And just maybe, a year and a half from now, I’ll stand proudly with my two Eagle Scout sons. They will be better men for it, and as their dad, so will I.
You mention the reticence of the WSJ reporter to specify the nature of the sexual abuse claims. I find this reticence all too common in the news media, which keeps us from developing a clear picture of what is going on, which keeps us from determining what policies might reduce the amount of sexual abuse that goes on. My unscientific observation is that when a man abuses women or girls (or less frequently when a woman abuses boys), the sex of the victims is noted. But, when a man abuses boys, the sex of the victims is rarely mentioned in the popular news media coverage. I also believe that is out of a desire not to bring up uncomfortable facts that don’t fit the politically correct narrative.
Would it be outrageous to posit male homosexuals are predisposed to pedophilia? Would it be equally outrageous to say this was the reason for the BSA ban in the first place?
I think not . . .
Same here.
There’s been wall-to-wall coverage of the scandals in the Catholic Church for 2 decades now, it’s impossible to miss, Hollywood even made that movie Spotlight lionizing the reports at the Boston Globe as the greatest whistleblowers since Watergate. While I agree those scandals were newsworthy, it still seems pretty obvious the media has a particular axe to grind with the Church and does not apply the same standards of scrutiny to reports of widespread abuse in scouting, public schools, or other institutions entrusted with the care of children.
Dear lord, yes!
Depends on the definition of “pedophilia.”
I think most heterosexual men find some post-pubescent teenage girls attractive, and most homosexual men are attracted to some post-pubescent teenage boys. I believe that true pedophilia, i.e. attraction to pre-pubescent children, is rare. Or at least I hope it is…
I don’t think Gay men are any worse predators than straight men. Further, if you ban gay leaders, you still get gay leaders. Or Bi ones. There are married gay men. How do you know if the man is gay or not?
I am sorry, but this thread seems moving close to actual homophobia.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html
and
the problem is child molesters, not gay men.
A lot of good points from all sides on a what is, for me, a morally complex subject. Well done, Ricochet.
Possibly. It depends on the particular form of abuse. The Boy Scout cases I am familiar with involved child molesters abusing prepubescent boys. Most of the Catholic Church cases did not — they involved gay priests abusing their authority over post-pubescent young men, in the same ways that they themselves had been abused and exploited in the seminaries. A gay man may not be sexually attracted to prepubescent Cub Scouts, but odds are that he would be sexually attracted to 16-18 year old Boy Scouts. Most gay men would resist the temptation, of course, just like most straight men avoid committing statutory rape on a daily basis. But to say that gay men are not child abusers is a truism that in no way addresses the concerns that one might reasonably have about putting them in close contact with one’s 17-year-old son.
After having worked a vice car, based upon my experiences sexual predators are not confined to any one group, whether it be race, creed, or gender. They have different appetites when it comes to prey, they prey on men, women, or children. They have one thing in common they hunt.
Part of the financial problem Scouting is facing is that large corporations that match their employee’s charitable contributions is that they may opt out of matching contributions to the Boy Scouts. Intel has already done this.
Whether it is the public school system, churches of any denomination, or any other profession a large segment of society is unwilling to make moral decisions. It is forbidden to forbid, or the sinner as well as the sin must be embraced.
This makes a lot of sense to me.
No. Was waiting for someone to finally suggest it. Young boys are a target rich environment, so to speak. Gay men are well aware of this. Its just fundamental to the lifestyle. Or people can just ignore all this and just blame the Pope or some BSA big wig when the eventual rampant pedophilia gets uncovered. As OP implies, its not “diverse” to let foxes guard your hen house.
I agree. Diversity and tolerance while in pursuit of goals is a good thing. Diversity and tolerance as goals are reductive and frequently interfere with actual goals.
Math and science are not improved by changing altering the color pallet, they are improved by finding the best workers in math and science.
Other Factors Likely to Contribute to the En-Dwindling of Membership:
– fewer Christians
– more anti-Christians
– people less likely to belong to orgs generally
– kids don’t really know their area peers as well
– less visibility – I don’t see the uniforms much anymore
– lack of government support (apparently meeting spaces are less available)
– fewer children per family
– working couples have less time to ferry kids around
– less press support
– fewer sponsors as PR for sponsoring ain’t what it used to be
Republicans killed the Boy Scouts?
I think that most Democrats do not even pay attention to the Boy Scouts except to attack them for an occasional political point, but I guess even that is over now that the Boy Scouts seem to have been absorbed into the collective.
As my original post intimated, I do not think gay men more likely to be predators than straight men either. I would hesitate before entrusting a pretty young girl to the care of a straight man for the same reason that I would hesitate to entrust an attractive fourteen-year-old boy to a gay man. This is not homophobia. It is common sense. Human beings are apt to fall prey to temptation. As for the findings of the National Council of Sciences “expert panel,” all that I can say is that I trust them about as much as I trust the panels of climate scientists. The psychologists told the Catholic bishops that the pederast priests could be cured. How did that work out? It is, in any case, important to draw a clear line between pedophilia and pederasty.
You can choose to not read the article I posted, which is research based. Gay men are not more likely to molest boys than straight men.
Since we put young, fit, cute girls into the hands of male coaches, you seem to be calling for an end to that practice, if you follow your concerns to their logical conclusions. Indeed, perhaps, it would be best if schools were totally gender segregated, with only males teaching males and females teaching females.
Or, we can follow the two deep leadership policies. If followed, there cannot be abuse. As we teach the parents, it also means it eliminated accusations (mostly against men) which are a big concern for men serving youth.
Eventually the National Org structure will force all local troops to accept their liberal policies, thus ending local autonomy, much the same way Washington dominates public education across the country . . .
As I mentioned earlier, that’s not the way it works. The policy changes end bans and prohibitions, so to speak; they do not enforce quotas (thou shalt have this, thou shalt include that). Charters still have the lead voice at the local levels, and the councils are regional associations of the charters. But believe what you want.
To your larger point, I suppose, if BSA National ever tried to “force” charters to step outside their unique frameworks to adopt policies that compromise their values, then yes, the charters would withdraw and local/regional councils will dry up, and the organization could fold. No council or charter is going to willingly give up its autonomy. And BSA has no funding source without the local organizations. So if they even tried to end local autonomy, they would be ending themselves.
I might add, that would totally overturn a century of how Scouts has operated in this nation.
If it happens, you can add it to a long list of things that have been overturned after a century’s usage.
The National Organization has made no moves in that direction. So, if you want to make the prediction, please, by all means, show me your evidence that BSA is going to dictate to local units they have to admit Gay leaders.
The BSA cannot win. It has a policy no one seems to like. I’d say, if the Right and the Left both don’t like your political choice, then you made the right damn choice.
But hey, all you people outside of scouting seem to have a much better idea of what is going on, than those of us in it. I guess we are all just stupid.
This is exactly what I mean. Central rule cannot tolerate local autonomy. If the left cannot control a thing, it will destroy it. Then they will go after The Next Good Thing.
Again, look at what challenges public (government) education. The left hates charter schools, private schools (especially religious), and homeschools because they cannot control them (even though ironically they do control some).