Who’s Being Discriminatory and Intolerant?
By Geoffrey Biddulph
In the recent Supreme Court decision Lawrence vs. Texas, the court firmly decided that private sexual manners between consenting adults should be just that – private. s won the freedom to carry out their sexual activities without fearing legal sanction.
Now it’s time for activists to let others be free. Specifically, the Boy Scouts.
Supporters of the Boy Scouts and other concerned citizens will demonstrate on Saturday against the United Way of Miami-Dade, which decided in May to withhold nearly a half-million dollars in funding for the Scouts.
To many people in Miami, the United Way’s decision is a sign of a culture descending into Orwellian confusion. Up has become down and intolerance has become “tolerance” in this strange, brave new world that allows pressure groups to persecute people for their private beliefs.
The Boy Scouts, a private group, does not allow open s membership. The U.S. Supreme Court has supported this right. Regardless of whether you agree with the Boy Scouts or not, you must support their right to choose their membership based on their own criteria. This is basic common sense. Private groups should be allowed to choose their own members. Chess clubs should be filled with chess players, not checkers players, and baseball teams should be allowed to play baseball, not cricket.
The moment that the government or society at large begins interfering with this basic right is the moment we descend into chaos. Do we really want a society where our neighbor can determine for us what kind of group we can belong to? How is it “tolerant” to allow specific pressure groups to interfere with our basic right to associate with whom we choose?
groups today have the right to form a Gay and Lesbian Scouting organization separate from the Boy Scouts of America, and nobody would try to stop them. So why aren’t they allowing this same freedom to the Boy Scouts?
Pro- groups are in a philosophical bind on this issue. On the one hand, they say that sexual decisions between consenting adults should be legalized because people should have the right to keep their private. But on the other hand, they want to make all organizations accept open, public – specifically . So, which is it: is sex a private matter or is it a public matter?
Over the years, many s who have decided to keep their sexual activity private have been members of the Boy Scouts. There are probably scout masters today who are gay but have decided that their sexual decisions are irrelevant to their ability to be a good scout master, and therefore they have kept quiet about their orientation and nobody has tried to chase them from the Boy Scouts.
Many parents with children in the scouts believe strongly that is a private matter. Our society today is filled with enough -related problems. Can we have one place, our Boy Scout troops, where kids can think about things other than sex?
The Boy Scouts is also an organization with a religious nature. Scouts are told to do their best to do their duty to God. Many of the biggest supporters of the Boy Scouts are religious groups, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Catholic Church. These and many other churches teach that is wrong.
Again, regardless of whether you agree with the opinion of these religious groups on , you cannot disagree with their right to hold their own private religious beliefs. Religious liberty is one of the basic founding principles of the United States. activists, by trying to end support for the Boy Scouts, are not only fighting against the scouts, they are fighting against a belief system with which they disagree. This in the end is discriminatory and intolerant of the beliefs system of others.
All thinking people can agree that violence against and harassment of people for their private sexual decisions is wrong. Boy Scouts are taught to be friendly, courteous and kind to all people.
Why can’t activists extend the same courtesy to the Boy Scouts? A truly tolerant and non-discriminatory policy toward the Boy Scouts would be to simply ignore them or to start up a competing Gay and Lesbian Scouting organization. Let the people decide which one they want to join. By fighting against the Boy Scouts, activists and the United Way have demonstrated that they are the ones who discriminate, not the Boy Scouts.
2003 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
