Alfred P. Doblin is the editorial page editor of The Record. Contact him at doblin@northjersey.com. Follow AlfredPDoblin on Twitter.
THE BOY Scouts of America went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend its right to discriminate against homosexuals. The case had its roots in New Jersey. An assistant Scoutmaster, James Dale, was expelled from the Boy Scouts after he revealed he was gay at Rutgers University, where he was then a student.
The nation's high court ruled in favor of the Boy Scouts' policy. That was in 2000 and not much has changed. The Scouts still deny membership and leadership positions to gays and lesbians.
A private organization has a right to choose its members based on its own set of values, the high court ruled. The core of the Scouts' argument against accepting homosexuals was the concept that a Scout was "morally straight," the last two words of the Scout Oath.
Now we find out that at the same time the Dale case wended its way through the courts, the Scouts were secretly maintaining so-called "perversion files" on leaders who were banned from Scouting because of alleged sexual misconduct. Thousands of these confidential files recently were made public. The information revealed is gut-churning. Put more graphically, it will make you want to heave.
As The Record reported this week, in the early 1980s, one New Jersey Scout leader was expelled because he was a member of the North American Man-Boy Love Association. The name of the organization pretty much explains what the group advocates.
Another case involves troop leaders in Essex County involved in a satanic sex cult. Not all the cases are as abhorrent. And not every allegation was substantiated. From a legal standpoint, the mass information dump may not result in many or even any criminal charges. The files go back to 1947 and end in 2005.
At first blush, it sounds much like the sex-abuse scandals that rocked the Roman Catholic Church. The individuals entrusted with the care and nurturing of children allowed deliberately or through neglect the very opposite to occur. In fairness to the Boy Scouts, the files and allegations of sexual abuse do not represent the vast number of leaders in the organization.
That was also true of the Catholic Church. But the number of cases is too large to ignore. Just as is the hypocrisy of discriminating against gays and lesbians who want to serve as leaders while secretly allowing possible pedophiles to leave Scouting to roam free in communities.
I receive enough angry correspondence to know some folks believe the "perversion files" prove the Scouts' anti-gay policy is necessary. But there is a huge difference between a pedophile and homosexual. For starters, there are a lot of straight pedophiles preying on children. Pedophilia is not specific to any sexual orientation.
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