What the Boy Scouts can learn about Gays in Leadership Positions from the Catholic Church and Penn State

Raynard Jackson a president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a Washington, D.C.-based public relations/government affairs firm, wrote in his Black Press USA column Boy Scouts Shouldn’t Become ‘Gay Scouts’:

In 2000, the Supreme Court ruled in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale that Boy Scouts, and all private organizations, have the constitutionally protected right under the First Amendment of freedom of association to set membership standards. In 2004, the BSA adopted a new policy statement, including the following as a “Youth Leadership” policy:

“Boy Scouts of America believes that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the obligations in the Scout Oath and Scout Law to be morally straight and clean in thought, word, and deed. The conduct of youth members must be in compliance with the Scout Oath and Law, and membership in Boy Scouts of America is contingent upon the willingness to accept Scouting’s values and beliefs. Most boys join Scouting when they are 10 or 11 years old. As they continue in the program, all Scouts are expected to take leadership positions. In the unlikely event that an older boy were to hold himself out as homosexual, he would not be able to continue in a youth leadership position.”

The Boy Scouts of America are reported to be reconsidering their position on gays becoming scout leaders.

What can the Boy Scouts of America learn from others who have put gays into leadership positions? Perhaps the experiences of the Catholic Church and Penn State University are two case studies that will predict what could happen.

BishopAccountability.org, an “online archive established by lay Catholics,” reports that over 3,000 civil lawsuits have been filed against the Catholic church, some of these cases have resulted in multi-million dollar settlements with multiple claimants.

In 1998 the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas paid $30.9 million to twelve victims of one priest ($44.1 million in present-day terms). From 2003 to 2009 nine other major settlements involving over 375 cases with 1551 claimants/victims, resulted in payments of over $1.1 billion. The Associated Press estimated the settlements of sex abuse cases from 1950 to 2007 totaled more than $2 billion. BishopAccountability.org puts the figure at more than $3 billion in 2012. Addressing “a flood of abuse claims” five dioceses (Tucson, Arizona; Spokane, Washington; Portland, Oregon; Davenport, Iowa, and San Diego) got bankruptcy protection. Eight Catholic dioceses have declared bankruptcy due to sex abuse cases from 2004-2011.

Penn State University (PSU) had a similar experience with Jerry Sandusky. The Sandusky scandal had far-reaching outcomes for the university. The report of an independent investigation commissioned by the PSU board and conducted by former FBI director Louis Freeh and his law firm stated that Spanier and Paterno, along with Curley and school vice president Gary Schultz, had known about allegations of child abuse on Sandusky’s part as early as 1998, and were complicit in failing to disclose them.

In so doing, Freeh stated that the most senior leaders at Penn State showed a “total disregard for the safety and welfare of Sandusky’s child victims” for 14 years and “empowered” Jerry Sandusky to continue his abuse.

On July 23, 2012 the NCAA imposed sweeping penalties on Penn State—among the most severe ever imposed on an NCAA member school—including a fine of $60 million, a four-year postseason ban and vacating of all victories from 1998–2011. In doing so, NCAA President Mark Emmert stated that the sanctions were levied “not to be just punitive, but to make sure the university establishes an athletic culture and daily mindset in which football will never again be placed ahead of education, nurturing and protecting young people.” The Big Ten Conference subsequently imposed an additional $13 million fine. Spanier, Curley and Schultz have since been brought up on criminal charges for their role in the cover-up.

In addition 40 scholarships were stripped from Penn State University in the aftermath of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal.

Sandusky was a pederast, as were all of the Catholic priests involved in the abuse of young boys. All pederasts are gay according to Liberty University Visiting Professor of Law Judith Reisman, who said that “post the ‘landmark’ Lawrence v. Texas decision in 2003, paraphrasing Justice Antonin Scalia, everything goes.” Professor Reisman said, “Following Alfred Kinsey ‘sexologists’ began to occupy our schools, so that educated professionals have largely been trained to be a form of sexual anarchists.”

“Although the stupidity of advocating harmless amoral sexuality overwhelms us daily, our arrogant ‘educated’ populations say morality has no place in our sexual lives,” Reisman said. “Just as AIDS is a natural outgrowth of amoral sexual education and media, so too is child sexual abuse. We are breeding a new human character and child sexual abuse is increasingly part of that character.”