Petula Dvorak: Theres still time for Boy Scouts to earn a badge for courag...

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Petula Dvorak: Theres still time for Boy Scouts to earn a badge for courage
Published: 29 January 2013 10:10 PM

The iconic institution in a neckerchief has marched all the way to the Supreme Court to reinforce its right to keep openly gay and lesbian adults from participating in the Scouting tradition. At long last, the Boy Scouts of America is thinking twice about that ban. Currently, the BSA is discussing potentially removing the national membership restriction regarding sexual orientation is the statement the Boy Scouts of America National Council sent Monday. Welcome to this century, Scouts. What was once a staple of American boyhood knots, camping, Pinewood Derby cars has become, for too many, a symbol of intolerance based on thinking born of a time when you actually did have to know how to start a fire with a couple of sticks. I hate it, and I dont agree with it, but I believe the Scouts leadership believed equating homosexuals with pedophiles would end their child abuse problems. Last fall, I spent many long, dark days buried in about 2,000 pages of sex abuse reports from the Boys Scouts perversion files, a trove of documents that the Scouts amassed to hunt and snare the child abusers preying on boys. The files, compiled since the 1920s, were private until a court ruling forced many of them into the light last year. The stories, interviews and incidents were stomach-churning. Some of the reports were even written in the boys own awkward handwriting. The pattern I saw emerge was consistent with some of the skewed thinking of the time. Homosexual was the conclusion reached on many investigations of pedophile Scout leaders. Whether it was evidence of a same-sex liaison, fey behavior or visit to a known gay bar, that was enough to get someone a perversion file. In some cases, there was an arrest and a conviction for the rape of a child. And still, the label some of them got was not pedophile or criminal or rapist. Just homosexual. At some point, the Boy Scouts leaders must have simply figured that banning gay men would solve their problem. Guess what? The abuse didnt stop. Homosexual does not mean pedophile. It didnt back then, and it doesnt now. Hundreds of young boys were supposed to be protected by blind hope and the elimination of anyone who was openly gay from the organization. Meanwhile, predators slipped in beneath the Scouting councils gaydar. According to the court files, the molesters were fathers who abused Scouts as well as their own children boys and girls. Men who had macho jobs and loved to talk about porn got away with sexual abuse for years. Married men, prominent in their communities and professions, fooled them all. Meanwhile, mom Jennifer Tyrrell was kicked out of her spot as a Tiger Den mother in Ohio last year after the Scouts leadership council found out she is openly lesbian. The families of her own pack loved her leadership of the boys and fought for her reinstatement. But in a Mad Men or maybe even Downton Abbey move, the Scouts said no way and quoted their ancient, creaking policy of not allowing avowed homosexuals into the ranks.

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Then a kid in California, Ryan Andresen, had his Eagle Scout application denied last fall after he came out, and a gay dad in University Park was kicked off the popcorn committee. Hearing of all these incidents, and seeing the Boy Scouts stick to the ban, scared lots of parents away from Scouting. Parents like me and my husband both of us had great experiences as Scouts suddenly felt conflicted about continuing the tradition as the Scouts stubbornness made them a symbol of hate. The national council, it appears, is listening to the grass-roots groundswell. When they were organized in 1910, the Boy Scouts of America were there to teach boys patriotism, courage, self-reliance and kindred virtues. Took them a long time, but it looks like they may be finally coming back to those founding ideas. One hundred years later, you may have finally earned your courage badge, Scouts.

Petula Dvorak is a columnist for The Washington Post. Follow her on Twitter at @petulad.

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