CATHOLIC CHURCH AND MORMON CHURCH'S INFLUENCE ON BOY SCOUTS' DECISION TO BAN ELEVEN YEAR OLD BOYS SHOWING HOMOSEXUAL TENDENCIES

The Boy Scouts of America, in what was crafted to sound high-minded and principled, announced that it would refuse to accept boys who showed homosexual tendencies or publicly admitted they were gay.

How old does a boy have to be join the Scouts?  Eleven or twelve?  So if he has "homosexual tendencies, the Scouts will not allow him to join?

How about some equal protection for eleven-year olds?  Who is to say that another person has homosexual tendencies?  And even if he does, why are the Scouts afraid of him?

Is it because the Boy Scouts of America have a problem with straight adult leaders who have abused boys in their charge?  Perhaps the Boy Scouts are trying to deflect justified criticism that the organization has not done nearly enough to protect young boys from sexual adult predators.

Nancy Goldstein writes in The Guardian that the Boy Scouts share many similarities with the  Catholic Church when it comes to treatment of sexual predation among their leaders.  They try to conceal, deny and cover up.  What they don't do is allow the public to see evidence of their acceptance of predators in their organization.

Goldstein writes that the decision of the Boy Scouts to ban children who they perceive to show homosexual tendencies stems from the pressure of two religious groups, the Catholic Church and the Mormon Church.

Writes Goldstein:

"Ignore all of the Scouts' official mumbo-jumbo about the (unidentified) leaders who comprised the special committee of top Scout leaders that made this decision, especially the part about their alleged "diversity of perspectives and opinions". As the LA Times notes, what's really happening here is a business decision about the organization's sustainability, driven by the influence of two of the Scouts' most powerful benefactors: the Roman Catholic and Mormon churches. About 400,000 of the 2.7 million members left in the dwindling organization, "belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", which "encourages members to become involved in the Boy Scouts, and has its own section on the Boy Scouts of America webpage. "