The Mormon Leadership And Gays

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18 Nov 2008 03:07 pm

The Prop 8 success - planned for over a decade - is not the only example of the Mormon church targeting the gay minority. A reader writes:

It pains me to see an organization like the Boy Scouts, which has for nearly a century produced young men of character, leadership and good citizenship, painted as a bigoted, Christianist group.

But the reputation the Boy Scouts have rightly earned for calling gay boys and leaders "unclean" and "incapable of being the best kind of citizen" (both official statements regarding their policy to ban "avowed homosexuals") is driven mainly by the Mormon Church.

The LDS are the largest religious grouping in the Scouts and were able to pressure the BSA's membership with an ultimatum: come out with a policy banning gay leaders, or we'll pull all of our members.

Today Scouting's membership is on the decline, marginalized as a religious organization of the right wing. Younger parents with kids entering the Scouting age are repelled by the prejudicial message of politics that surround Scouting. That's a real shame, because the program at the local level is still among the finest ways that a child can spend their formative years. But the grip that the Mormon Church holds over Scouting forced the organization all the way to the Supreme Court, and now further toward irrelevancy in a nation the needs Scouting.

Most troubling because of the Mormon Church, Scouting sends a message to 14-year-olds secretly coming to grips with their sexuality that they are the ONE kind of citizen not worthy of being a Scout. I was that young Scout once, and I also witnessed the near devastating impact that message had on another teenage Scout. Scouting professes to be "absolutely non-sectarian", requiring only that a Scout do his duty to God (in whatever religion or manner the Scout deems fit)... with only this one exception: don't be gay. And while there are several churches that sponsor Scouting and supported the BSA's battle to ban gays, only the Mormon Church stood up and demanded the action.

The LDS church has every right to lobby for the public law to reflect their religious truths, and if the majority of others agree, there is not much a minority of gay people can do about it. But the LDS church cannot then expect to be above criticism and exposure and some harsh words.

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