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New York Scouting Group Says Ban on Homosexuals Is 'Stupid' NewsMax.comThe Boy Scouts of America’s ban on homosexuals is "stupid" and "repugnant" and should be lifted, according to members of the BSA’s New York City chapter, one of whom in a spasm of Eastern elitism called the members of the national board "no more than a bunch of rednecks from Texas." The city that helped inflict the likes of Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer upon the U.S. Senate now appears ready to lobby the national organization to allow practicing homosexual scoutmasters to mingle with young boys and admit homosexual youngsters to scouting, which demands of its members the highest moral standards. According to the New York Times, The Greater New York Councils, Boy Scouts of America, announced it will challenge the BSA’s national policy after the New York City Council threatened to ban government agencies from sponsoring the Scouts' Law Enforcement Explorers program, now operated with the assistance of the City Police and Correction Departments. Reacting to the threat, some scout leaders pleaded with a City Council committee yesterday to give them six months to a year to try to arrange a change in the national policy before acting on any city ban. "We denounce the national policy; we do not think it is right," Deryck A. Palmer, a lawyer and member of the Boy Scouts' New York City board, told the committee. "We would like to be an agent of change. We ask you to join us to be an agent of change." In a statement to the council, former New York Mayor Edward Koch accused the BSA of bigotry, but the most outrageous comment came from a member of the New York scouting board, Michael O'Connor, who said he was so angered by the policy that he considered the national board "no more than a bunch of rednecks from Texas." According to the Times, about 130,000 New York City youngsters are active in Boy Scout programs, 30,000 of them through the traditional Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts groups and 86,000 in a so-called Learning for Life program in city or parochial schools. About 7,000 boys and girls from ages 14 to 20 are enrolled in the Law Enforcement Explorers program. It gives youths an insider’s view of the Police Department or other law enforcement agencies. They meet in police precinct buildings, and uniformed officers help run the program. The local BSA officials told the Times that the Learning for Life and Explorer programs already have a written policy banning discrimination against youths or leaders based on sexual orientation. And informally, the leaders said, Boy Scouts in New York City are not actively banned if they are gay. But, the Times noted, several City Council members said that as long as the local scouting group was associated with a national organization that banned homosexuals, no Scout programs, including the Explorers, should be sponsored by the city. Similar protests forwarded to BSA headquarters by local scouting groups in Rhode Island and California have failed to influence the national organization, which firmly resists admitting homosexuals to the scouting ranks – a policy the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld as lawful.
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