Tony Perkins, Richard Land play the pedophile card in attacking Boy Scouts policy debate on gay scouts

Tony Perkins, head of the SPLC-designated hate group Family Research Council released another press release the other day. In it, he predictably reduced the Boy Scouts debate excluding gay scouts and scoutmasters to pedophile fear-mongering:

Apparently, children only matter when it's politically convenient, because President Obama told Scott Pelley yesterday that 'gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does in every institution and walk of life.' This is a man who said he isn't sure he'd let his sons play football for fear that they'd get hurt--yet he can somehow justify putting boys in physically risky situations like these? No father, including Barack Obama, would want his daughters sharing a tent with grown men in the name of 'access'--but you don't hear anyone calling that politically incorrect! At the end of the day, this debate is about safety and time-honored principles of morality. If that ruffles a few politically correct feathers, so be it.

This is a red herring. Decades ago, in response to the phenomenon of pedophiles organizing scout troups in order to prey on kids, the Boy Scouts changed its policy. Either Perkins knows that and is lying or he didn't bother to research Boy Scout policy before exploiting the issue.

Separate accommodations for adults and Scouts required. When camping, no youth is permitted to sleep in the tent of an adult other than his or her own parent or guardian. Councils are strongly encouraged to have separate shower and latrine facilities for females. When separate facilities are not available, separate times for male and female use should be scheduled and posted for showers. Likewise, youth and adults must shower at different times.

     This kind of cynical demonizing of a minority is exactly why the Family Research Council richly deserves its hate group classification.
     Below, Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention, takes up the disinformation-at-gays-expense baton:



Some of Land's talking points:

• Claimed gay-inclusive policies would be a "catastrophe" for Boy Scouts without explaining why that policy hasn't been a catastrophe for Girl Scouts
• Redefined the word "appendage." That most people in the US live on either the west or east coasts doesn't seem to bother Richard Land — to him, they are mere outgrowths of the minority who live in the center: “What they’re doing is to appease their left coast and right coast appendages. They’re cutting out the heart and soul of Scouting in the rest of the country.”
• Made the following distinction-without-a-difference: The Southern Baptist Convention's policy of allowing a local option for female pastors is different from a Boy Scouts' local option for gay scouts because: "Our confession of faith is not binding on any particular Southern Baptist" but the Boy Scouts are different because “You can’t have a local option to a core conviction”
• Made distinction-without-a-difference #2: Richard Land: Do parents really want to allow their teenage boys to go on campouts with men who are attracted to the same sex? They wouldn't allow their girls go on campouts with men who are attracted to women... CNN's John Berman: When I was a cub scout, we had Den Mothers. Richard Land: We're not talking about Cub Scouts, we're talking about Boy Scouts.
• Claimed he wasn't accusing gay scoutmasters of being pedophiles, but then said: "It's gonna lead to human tragedy, and the human tragedy's gonna be, sadly, boys and men who are going to end up in relationships that are going to be tragic."

The head of the Southern Baptist Convention takes four of the USA's Supreme Court Justices!
     The Supreme Court's very split decision in Boy Scouts of America vs. Dale was 5-4.
     Land's expansive interpretation of that decision, which hinged on freedom of association: "The Scouts have said for themselves for over 100 years that traditional morality is a core value of scouting — teaching them to be morally straight... Boy Scouts have the right to define character and they define character as being morally straight and that involves being sexually pure and being a heterosexual."
     Here's what the dissenting opinion by Justices Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer said regarding Land's definition of "morally straight":

As these terms were defined in the Scout Handbook, Stevens said, "it is plain as the light of day that neither one of these principles—'morally straight' and 'clean'—says the slightest thing about homosexuality. Indeed, neither term in the Boy Scouts' Law and Oath expresses any position whatsoever on sexual matters."

Media Matters notes that in the past, Land has claimed that gay people are working to usher in the "full-blown paganization" of America and are "recruiting" children, saying this is "really child abuse."