Gay Camels and Rainbow Tents

The Deseret News reported yesterday that the Boy Scouts of America will be voting on July 27th of this month to now allow gay leaders to participate in Scouting.  This is on the heels of voting to end the ban on gay scouts in 2013, where the LDS church led the way by casting its mammoth vote in favor of the proposal, arguing at the time to priesthood leaders and parents that scout leaders would still be required to be chaste heterosexuals and that this would never change.  I recall my stake president reassuring me, “If Boy Scouts ever allows gay leaders, the church will pull out of BSA.”

Well, here we are.

Ironically, BSA president Robert Gates recently all but blamed the LDS church for “new LGBT non-discrimination laws from New York to Utah that now make BSA’s position to not allow gay leaders untenable.”

Meanwhile when BSA was considering a change in the gay leader ban, the church made it clear it was very thoughtfully in a “wait and see” mode.  Waiting and seeing apparently included granting Boy Scouts permission to name a 3 Million Dollar, 23,000 square foot BSA Lodge after Thomas S. Monson.  This leaves some wondering if the church is really pondering its long term relationship at all with Boy Scouts or if it has already made up its mind.  A strange investment, by the way, for an organization desperately in need of money.  So much for old fashioned Boy Scout principles of thrift.  But, I digress.

The church is now banking on being able to continue its discrimination of gay leaders based on the LGBT laws it promoted in the Utah legislature earlier this year.  It believes its “carve out” for religious institutions and rights of moral conscience will hold up apparently.  I’m less confident.  Furthermore, what protections will be upheld in other states or countries for LDS boy scouts whose LGBT laws may be less friendly to religious carve outs?  Will we no longer participate in Boy Scout Camps where gay leaders are employed for example?  The moment BSA allows gay leaders, the church’s position to still discriminate against gay leaders is tremendously injured in my opinion.

I’ve been expressing my concerns as a father and previously as a bishop (i.e. the BSA Charter Leader in the ward) to LDS church leaders for some time now.  In fact here’s what I proposed to the church back in 2013:

• Should BSA end the ban on open and avowed homosexual scouts, the church should withdraw its support and membership from BSA immediately.  Helping our kids who struggle with SSA is very different than allowing kids to “avow” their homosexuality to others.
• The church’s Duty to God program should replace “Boy Scouts” and should be expanded as needed or desired by local bishops wanting to teach scouting principles to young men.  The church gains control over its curriculum and its policies.
• Presiding Bishop Gary Stevenson or President Thomas Monson should use the opportunity to show the world that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not cave or compromise on moral issues.
• The church can address how it chooses to deal with its own members, straight and gay alike, seeking inspiration from heaven, without apologizing and without the circus of political activism surrounding the issues.

But, we now find ourselves on the cusps of affiliating with an organization that also allows its leaders to be open and avowed homosexuals.  This in addition to legalized gay marriage, with more and more Mormons favoring it and new laws in Utah that now “protect” LGBT people in housing and employment, something the church and most of its members and the Utah Legislature have always opposed.

The great irony with Boy Scouts of America is that the changes we now see have come from within.  For 100 years the Supreme Court has supported BSA in its right to discriminate against lifestyles they believed to be morally corrupt, whether straight or gay.

As a side note, Salt Lake is called by many the “gayest town in America” beating out Los Angeles and San Fransisco.  It’s being bragged up as “gayer than New York.”  Each year our city hosts a growing gay pride parade that looks mostly like this:  (Great ward activity?)

AND THIS….

I for one will not stand by while this camel is let into our church tent.  This rainbow movement is not about helping and loving people who are gay, something any caring person with a heart will want to do.  Compassion and humanity is at the heart of Christ’s teaching.  There are souls who are looking for answers and for healing.  They deserve our love and attention.

This movement, however, is not about that.  The rainbow movement, even inside the church, is about changing the Lord’s doctrines.  It’s frankly about promoting immorality and smut in our community.  It’s about confusing and corrupting our children.

Right now it’s in vogue to be proud of this rainbow.  Let it be known that this former bishop and this father is ashamed that our church is jumping on the rainbow bandwagon just to be popular, all while trying to parse and legalize the issues.  It’s a dangerous course that will lead to the further erosion of morality.

I sure hope the church and BSA vote NO on this July 27th.  If not, I for one, will completely abstain from any further support for BSA, which unfortunately is also inconveniently the activity arm of the Aaronic priesthood.

After all I’m required by my church to not “affiliate with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” and cannot even “sympathize with the precepts of any such group or individual.” 

The church voting YES this month will surely place many faithful scouters in an awkward position.