Thursday, February 07, 2013

Religious right reveals bigoted hand in Boy Scouts situation

My buddy Zack Ford at Think Progress just wrote an incredibly good piece which I think needs more attention.

 In How The ‘Scouts’ Safety’ Argument Reveals Conservatives’ Complete Anti-Gay Agenda, Ford says that how the religious right and some conservatives addressed the situation about the Boy Scouts reveals the depths of their bigotry against the lgbt community.

I especially like this part:

Though BSA refused to share any of the details of the two-year review that resulted in keeping the policy, plenty of conservatives voices have attempted to make the case on behalf of the organization, including Mike Huckabee, Bill O’Reilly, Rick Perry, the Family Research Council, the Liberty Counsel, the American Family Association, the National Organization for Marriage, and the Southern Baptist Convention, to name a few. While some have made weak appeals to “traditional values,” the overwhelming argument against changing the policy has been a claim that Scouts will be more vulnerable to abuse if gays are allowed to participate in the organization, an argument that doesn’t even address the question of gay Scouts. Here is a sampling of the underlying assumptions about gay people that inform this point of view:
  • The LGBT community is viewed entirely as adult gay men.
  • The only aspect of a person that defines a gay identity is participation in same-sex sexual behavior.
  • Nothing is apparently more important to gay men than having as much sex as possible and talking about it at all times.
  • For gay men, there is no difference between being attracted to other adult gay men and being attracted to underage boys.
  • Gay men are so obsessed with having sex that consent means nothing to them.
  • Even though the men most commonly found abusing boys identify as heterosexual, the fact that their victims were boys means that they must be secretly gay, as opposed to just being pedophiles.
  • It’s impossible for a child to learn that gay people even exist without becoming “sexualized” and somehow put at risk.
  • So long as homosexuality is prohibited, all Boy Scouts will remain totally chaste and never think, learn about, or talk about the existence of sex.

2 comments:

Glenn Ingersoll said...

Considering that the religious rightists seem obsessed with gay sex and think about it all the time, it's beyond ironic that they pretend that preventing boys from ever encountering a gay man or the subject of homosexuality will eliminate the homosex. I mean, if thinking about gay sex makes you do it, then the Family Research Council must be in constant gay orgy.

Stephen said...

And how about this: "Is that right, for Boy Scouts who are out wanting to learn the basic tenants of scouting, to have to worry about whether or not the boy in the tent with them is attracted to them, is that right?" Perkins questioned.

Right. Because every boy that's attracted to other other boys announces it to the world and comes out as gay. So if you're a teenaged boy sleeping in a tent with another boy your age, if he hasn't told the world he's gay, there's no possibility that he's attracted to you. Seriously, the religious right has become totally unable to think logically.