I'm not certain why I'm posting this here in this forum, or if it even belongs here. I'm sure someone will tell me if it doesn't. I've always been free with the checkbook with contributions for both Boy and Girl Scouts through the United Way. Not all United Way locals have
a policy against funding organizations that discriminate against gays or other members of our society. In the future I plan on taking a much closer look at who I'm supporting.
The following is a post I copied from the scouting for all website. Very, very tragic. My thoughts are with Justin's family. May he RIP.
6/19/01
It's Too Late for Justin. We Don't need anymore Helm's Bigotry and Hatred. We Don't need the LDS Church dehumanizing
our Gay Youth any longer. We don't need the current leadership of the Boy Scout's of America rejecting our gay kids. No
more hatred. No more bigotry. No more homophobia. A little more love, acceptance, understanding and compassion.
Young Justin shot himself to death in Oklahoma City on Fathers Day with the pistol kept locked in his parents' bedroom.
A gay teenager must digest a lot of torment and verbal abuse in a society which teaches that homosexuals are an abomination.
Oklahoma's largest daily newspaper regularly editorializes that homosexuals do not deserve protections under the law, and that
the Boy Scouts are right to exclude homosexuals on moral and religious grounds. Oklahoma's largest talk-radio station recently
hosted a guest arguing that "homosexuality is not something you are - it's something you do" and that homosexuals are trying to
wreck the Boy Scouts and "get their agenda taught" in public schools.
The U.S. was once completely comfortable with slavery-for-some. Later, the U.S. was comfortable with the legal exclusion of
blacks from voting. Indeed, the exclusion of women from voting was based on Biblical passages.
WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING OR SAYING FOR GAY RIGHTS MAY SAVE THE LIFE OF A GAY TEENAGER
IN YOUR CITY. SILENCE IS DEATH. SPEAK UP.
NATHANIEL BATCHELDER, - - OPKLAHOMA CITY
A year after Supreme Court ruling, Scouts' gay-exclusion policy remains divisive
The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) In the year since a divided U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gay leaders, the group's membership and donations have held steady. But if the Scouts are heartened, so are their critics.
Scores of institutions nationwide schools, companies, churches have severed or reduced ties to the Scouts as a gesture against discrimination.
"What's amazing is how this issue has stayed alive and become a mainstream issue for people who've never taken a stand before on anything that could be considered a gay or lesbian cause," said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a New York-based gay-rights group.
As the first anniversary of the court ruling approaches Thursday, the debate over gay Scout leaders seems likely to persist.
The Scouts' national leadership has been asked to modify the gay exclusion policy by leaders of nine major scouting councils New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Boston and three from greater Los Angeles.
School boards in several of those cities and elsewhere have dropped sponsorships of Scout units or curtailed other forms of support.
The Minneapolis school board stopped sponsoring more than two dozen troops, although it allowed the Scouts to continue using school facilities under their new sponsors, the Masons.
Nationwide membership in the Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts and Venturers dropped 1.2 percent last year to 3.35 million, a decline which Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields attributes to demographic trends rather than fallout from the Supreme Court's 5-4 ruling.
The high court decided the Scouts were within their rights in 1990 when they ousted James Dale, an assistant scoutmaster from New Jersey, after learning he was gay.
Although numerous companies and charities including more than two dozen local United Ways have cut back on funding for the Scouts, other donors have stepped in. Shields said revenues for the national operation rose from $91 million to $93 million last year.
In Pittsburgh, an anonymous donor gave the Scouts $1.5 million after reading the organization was losing financial support. A fund-raiser on a Seattle radio station produced $130,000 after the United Way of King County decided to halt funding.
"It really has been a very encouraging year," Shields said. "The depth of support has been amazing the calls from people who have been Scouts, even 30 or 40 years ago, asking, 'What can I do?' It's been tremendous."
Few communities have been as torn by the ruling as Oak Park, Ill., a Chicago suburb proud of its reputation for diversity.
In January, the Scouts' head office rejected the charters of seven Scout units in Oak Park because their sponsoring parent-teacher organizations challenged the gay exclusion policy.
Many Oak Park families have stuck with the Scouts under new sponsorships. Others have shifted their children to the Camp Fire Boys and Girls, whose nondiscrimination policy encompasses sexual orientation.
"It was a very painful time for Oak Park," said Kathy Egan, who cut ties with the Scouts after helping run a Cub Scout pack for four years. "Our children they're hurt, they're angry, they're depressed about it."
The head of the Camp Fire program for greater Chicago, Jean Lachowicz, said about 120 Oak Park boys have left the Scouts to join Camp Fire clubs.
The region's chief executive for the Scouts, Irene Szinavel, said many Oak Park families remain dedicated to the organization.
"Obviously parents need to decide what's best for their own children," she said. "I'm excited so many have chosen the Scouts."
In Chapel Hill, N.C., the Binkley Memorial Baptist Church ended its 39-year sponsorship of the Scouts.
The church sought to apply its own nondiscrimination policy to its Cub Scout pack and Boy Scout troop, but the Scouts' head office, in Irving, Texas, refused to renew the church's charter.
Pastor James Pike said the church had received anti-gay hate mail and is letting the Scouts continue using its facilities pending alternative arrangements.
"We hope someone at the national level (of the Scouts) will wake up and realize what century this is," Pike said.
Tom Dugger, the Scouts' chief executive for Chapel Hill, said Pike's congregation did not reflect majority sentiment in the region. He said gifts to the local United Way designated specifically for the Scouts surged 33 percent in the past year.
Even Congress has stepped into the debate. Both chambers have endorsed proposals to strip federal funding from school districts that discriminate against the Scouts. Whether the measure will become law, or have a real impact, remains uncertain.
Major opinion polls show most Americans support the Scouts' right to set their own guidelines. But each week brings some new example of grass-roots pressure against the Scouts' policy.
"I'm disappointed that we lost the court ruling, but never have we lost so successfully," said Cathcart, of Lambda. "It must be driving the Boy Scouts crazy to keep thinking this is going to die down, and yet it doesn't stop."
On the Net:
Boy Scouts of America: http://www.bsa.scouting.org
Scouting for All: http://www.scoutingforall.org
Camp Fire: http://www.campfire.org
Lambda Legal: http://www.lambdalegal.org
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press