On the Family Research Council blog, three concerns are articulated as to why the Boy Scouts should continue to ban gays from scouting.

In the debates over the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) policy against homosexuality—debates recently rekindled by reports that the BSA may lift that policy nationally—most of the focus has been on the impact (or asserted lack of impact) from having openly homosexual adults serve as Scoutmasters or other leaders or volunteers.

On the one hand, gays and the Scouts can seem like an unimportant issue, but in reality this is possibly the single most important story about gay rights so far in 2013. So expect to see enormous pushback by the far right homo-haters like the Family Research Council.

Fallacious Reason #1: Parents control when their kids learn about things

Many parents, regardless of their specific opinions, wish to reserve to themselves the right to choose the timing and circumstances under which they will introduce and discuss with their children sensitive and controversial issues of sexuality, sexual orientation, and sexual ethics. Having leaders who are open about their homosexuality may run the risk of preempting that parental prerogative.

They start here, because they want parents on their side, and they think this is the first way to evoke their fear. The reality is our children learn many things from the media and from their friends and all over the place.  The only way that parents can maintain control over their children’s exposure to “controversial” issues would be to lock them away where they have no connection to the outside world.

There are however, two red flags in this excuse. The first is the very notion of “controversial issues.” There really is nothing controversial, unless you can’t come to terms with accepting that there are gay and lesbian people, and that they are, for all practical purposes, just like you, or at least just like most straight people. The second, is that little word, “may.” The concern is about something that may happen-or may not. Like, it may rain tomorrow, or it may not.

Fallacious Reason #2: Parents will be denied the right to instill their own moral beliefs to their children

Many parents hold a traditional view of sexual ethics, including a conviction that sexual conduct between persons of the same sex is morally wrong. This view is still held by a majority of all Americans, so it is likely that it is held by an even larger majority of parents with sons in the Boy Scouts. Having openly homosexual leaders as role models in the Boy Scouts would send a message that homosexual conduct is morally acceptable, thus contradicting their own convictions and their right as parents to transmit those beliefs to their children.

This one is a bit trickier. In it is the FRC’s real agenda- to maintain the position that being homosexual is morally wrong. But that alone isn’t their reason. Their reason, is that parents deserve to pass along to their children the parent’s moral beliefs, as if this stands in the parent’s way. Their reason sounds far less sanctimonious and self-righteous, and fits with their self-delusion of protecting “the traditional family.” The FRC is right about one part of it. If sexual orientation is not a reason to exclude people from the scouts, it will send the message that conduct between consenting adults is acceptable, but they are all wrong about how this impacts a parent’s ability to pass along their own moral beliefs. Parents pass these beliefs on by their actions and the way they role model their beliefs to their children. The actions of youth or scout leaders won’t affect that.

The FRC agenda is every bit as sanctimonious as it sounds, and their methodology as manipulative as it can be. You see, our youth may believe that gays and lesbians are monsters, only as long as they do not come into contact with real life gay and lesbian people. and then at that point, the youth will begin to make their own decisions about morality. Their choices will coincide with their parents when the reality and rationality of those choices make sense in a real world setting, and will move away from their parent’s if the parent’s ideas seem irrational and unjustified.

Fallacious Reason #3: The ban is required to stop child sexual abuse.

Finally, the policy against homosexual leaders is consistent with efforts to reduce the risk of Boy Scouts becoming victims of child sexual abuse.

This one really makes my blood boil. There is no connection between open and out of the closet gay and lesbians and child sexual abuse. If anything it is the shame-based closet that places youth at risk, as the recent sexual abuse case of Jerry Sandusky demonstrates so clearly. If anything, out and open gay scouts and scout leaders makes it safer for youth, not more dangerous.

Talk about morality! Isn’t lying a sin and an example of depraved behavior?

And yes, homosexual activists vehemently reject the evidence which suggests that homosexual men—most of whom are not child molesters, and who do not commit most acts of child sexual abuse—are nevertheless, relative to their numbers, more likely to engage in such actions than are heterosexual men.

This is a red herring and a lie. There is no such evidence, and a comparison of gay and straight men really means nothing here. The real important distinction would be to look at open, out, and honest gays and lesbians compared to closeted persons who pretend they are straight. These individuals must by consequence compartmentalize their lives and deny their true selfs, and abuse for they have an inability to act consensually.

…the logic of this concern is simple: Most parents would not want their daughters to go on overnight camping trips with adult men who are sexually attracted to females. By the same token, they would not want their sons to go on overnight camping trips with adult men who are sexually attracted to males.

This part causes blood boiling too, for it creates a false premise. It posits that attractions is all about gender and nothing else which isn’t the case at all. As a gay man, I am not attracted to all men. I’m not even attracted to all gay men, and definitely not attracted to all straight men. Sexual attraction is far more complicated than that.

And too, noq-consenual sexual contact has nothing to do with attraction, but rather, it is about power. A closeted person who isn’t honest with himself about his own feelings, uses a power differential over youth to selfishly meet their own needs at the expense of the youth.

Out, open and honest gays and lesbians don’t corrupt and abuse power differentials because they are not hiding from themselves and do not meet their own needs by harming others. This is fear mongering and the use of lies to make gays and lesbians out to be monsters.

via FRC Blog » Why Bar Homosexual Scouts, as Well as Scoutmasters?.

Image by Clay Bennett, Chattanooga Times Free Press