So, I’m a cub scout den leader. Second grade boys (“wolf scouts”). Last night was our penultimate den meeting of the year, so I’m asking the boys who is going to summer day camp because that will give them a big head start on their requirements for their next year’s rank (bear scout).
“Sam” tells me, sadly, that he’s not allowed to do scouts anymore. “They made a decision that we disagree with.” (The Boy Scouts of America, in case you missed the news, have announced that they will no longer bar gay scouts from joining (gay leaders are still right out, officially)).
For fuck’s sake, you big bigoted bigots:
Your son loves cub scouts. He just won a trophy last month for his pinewood derby car. You’re going to pull him out because he might be exposed to a gay third grader? Here’s a fucking clue: most third grade boys don’t like girls anyway, even the ones who grow up to be Straighty McStraight Ladykiller. So screw you for making your son suffer for your prejudices. You don’t even know that there is a single gay boy in the whole pack; you’re just taking some stupid “stand” so you can act like some fucking martyr to your twisted faith.
Speaking of which, when this topic came up before, you said you disagreed with the (at the time potential) policy change “because we’re Christians.” Oh yeah? Well double FUCK YOU, because now you’ve just implied that I’m not a Christian because I believe in, oh I don’t know, welcoming children into our group regardless of whatever nascent sexual orientation they might have. I’m trying to recall that passage in the bible where Jesus tells us to ostracize sinners, maybe you can help me find it. OH YEAH HE SAYS THE OPPOSITE.
Getting back to your son, look at the lesson you are teaching him. What is it exactly? “Gay people need to be avoided”? “Gay people are a threat”? “We Christians are better than those people”? One day - and I pray it won’t be too late - Sam is going to meet some real live gay people and find out that they’re perfectly nice and normal and good and not some kind of depraved monsters. And then he’s going to have a crisis of belief - either his parents are full of shit, or their religion is. And one thing I do remember Jesus saying is something about causing children to stumble, and millstones.
Sam is a really sweet kid. You’re doing a great job of screwing him up.
If Sam’s family really are Christians, you’d think they realized that Christ spent much of his time hanging out with the scumbags of his day (prostitutes and tax collectors). Somehow I don’t think He’d approve of treating gay people as if they had cooties. But I’m only a lapsed Roman Catholic, so what do I know?
Sure but they were supposed to stop being prostitutes and tax collectors. He didn’t hang with the rough crowd because it was fun, but because that’s where his message was needed. I would rather christians stay far away from me if they’re going to just evangelize.
Jesus hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes because he loved them, and wanted them to know that God loved them. When you pull your kid out of scouts in the cloak of Christ because they allow gay kids, you’re pretty much sending exactly the opposite message that Jesus was.
PS. In case my use of quotation marks was too subtle, his name isn’t really Sam. But the kid is an innocent victim here.
And unless you are running a VERY unusual Scouting troop, I somehow don’t see the subject of sexual orientation coming up in the first place (and certainly not with a bunch of third-graders). So why is withdrawing from the institution necessary at all, unless it’s just to keep the kid from catching Gay Cooties? Who knew homosexuality was spread via knot tying, campfires, and carving blocks of wood into race cars?
I’m sure they pulled the kid out so their righteous indignation’s stand would play to whatever bigoted social community their parents belong. Their communities acceptance is more important than their child’s community, which is almost more pathetic that vanilla homophobia.
Right, they’re not even reacting to the presence of actual gay scouts, because we wouldn’t even know if we had any. Maybe we do. I guess they don’t like the idea that if a nine-year old came to a leader and confessed that he was gay, we wouldn’t revoke his Good Citizenship badge and kick him out.
I forgot to mention that Sam’s dad is the president of our homeowner’s association. Maybe I should complain that we allow gay people to live in our neighborhood (even though I don’t know of any).
I totally agree with the OP being angry about the situation.
As a former Cub Scout and Boy Scout from the 1960s I can tell you that sexual orientation was never considered at that time. Heterosexuality was assumed. That was, of course, naive but Cub Scouts? Really? These are 7 to 9 year old kids. They’re running around with toy guns and making tree forts. Girls? Well, just in general they’re icky. There are exceptions and you can see it occasionally when a 6-year-old falls ‘in love’ with a girl, but that is an outlier.
Gosh, I really don’t understand how people can be this uncaring and rigid. I’m glad I am not a Christian because if I were I’d be even more irritated.
Totally with you on this one, Skammer.
Nothing much to add other than compliment you on a well-written pit. You have captured the essence of the parents’ stupidity, selfishness and hypocrisy.
When I was in third grade, I was–well, not quite lusting–I was greatly appreciative of the charms of Phyllis Coates (the brunet Lois from The Adventures of Superman and Maureen O’Hara (the first Jane in the Weismueller Tarzan movies). Why couldn’t a male third-grader today know that he thinks Shia Lebouf (however it’s spelled) is hot?
My brother has gotten his kid involved in the Scouts, and he’s doing extremely well. They’re thinking about going to one of the big camps this summer (Piedmont?). He’s extremely conservative and very anti-gay - I can’t wait to hear what his reasoning is going to be.