President Obama called on the Boy Scouts to open their ranks to homosexuals.
His response came during an interview ahead of Super Bowl XLVII. CBS News’ Scott Pelley asked the president if scouting should be open to gays.
“Yes,” the president replied. “Gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everyone else does.”
BSA national leaders are meeting this week in Dallas to discuss lifting a ‘no-gay’ ban on both members and leaders.
On Monday a group of 42 religious groups will publish a half-page ad in USA Today calling on the Scouts to resist political and economic pressures to lift the ban.
The group is taking out a major advertising buy tomorrow denouncing the Scouts’ decision to consider changing their longstanding policy prohibiting openly gay Scout leaders or Scouts.
“To the Boy Scouts of America: Show courage,” the advertisement read. “Stand firm for timeless values.”
The Supreme Court upheld the Boy Scouts’ rights to determine their own membership standards – but that hasn’t stopped opponents from putting fierce pressure on the group.
“How will parents be able to entrust their children to the Boy Scouts if they trade the well-being of the boys for corporate dollars,” the group asked. “To compromise moral principles under political and financial pressure would teach boys cowardice, not courage. Every parent concerned about guiding and protecting their own children should also be alarmed by the proposed change to Boy Scout policy.”
Last year, the BSA confirmed that the “vast majority of the parents” of BSA members “reserve to themselves the right to introduce and give guidance on sexual topics.”
Why hasn’t Obama been impeached? I can hardly get my mind around that question. I was terribly upset when he was elected in 2008, I had prayed so hard that he wouldn’t. I was so disappointed, even angry. The election of Scott Brown, pro-abort, from Massachusetts was supposed to save us from Obamacare, right? – I made a lot of slobbering he’s so cute, so manly, pro-life people angry when I told them, pro-abort, no thanks. I was elated in 2010 when the Republican Party took over the House of Representatives, yay! Now we had a party with a contract with the people, they could stop Obamacare and the rest of the shenanigans because they controlled the purse-won’t put gas in that tank, right?
Father Byers, I apologize sincerely for the rant. I have not felt so much a stranger in a strange land as I do today. During the Offertory prayers at Mass, we pray for our government leaders to act with wisdom and compassion towards the poor, the immigrant and the vulnerable. I think our government leaders believe they are doing this in accordance to their own deformed consciences and misguided sense of mercy. I even believe many in our parishes would defend Obama and his administration as doing “right”.
The people in the pews, the people in our country and throughout the world and the people in government are in dire need of what can only be given, in charity and truth, by Christ through His Holy Church – conversion and salvation. I guess what I’m trying to say, is if we understand the reality of our blessings and responsibility, then we need to pray for our leadership, family members and for each other, not to simply do something, but to be something – truly converted to Christ and His Holy Church.
Well said, Cathy L. An erroneous conscience doesn’t save. Only Christ saves.