re: #107 A Mom Anon

From a local news story…

So churches are now dumping the Boy Scouts because there might be a gay kid among them somewhere. Because no gay people ever go to church. So there’s no way they’ll be gay people all around them if they get rid of Boy Scout troops they promised to sponsor. Maybe it’s just me, but breaking a promise to a bunch of kids might be a little more assholish than not kicking out the gay kids. Hopefully groups will step up and give the various troops a new home.

CNN has a front-page story on their website on this now - unsurprisingly, the charge is being led by the Southern Baptists.

Baptists plan exodus from Boy Scouts

Baptist churches sponsor nearly 4,000 Scout units representing more than 100,000 youths, according to the Boy Scouts of America.

That number could drop precipitously.

The Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, will soon urge its 45,000 congregations and 16 million members to cut ties with the Scouts, according to church leaders.

The denomination will vote on nonbinding but influential resolutions during a convention June 11-12 in Houston.

“There’s a 100% chance that there will be a resolution about disaffiliation at the convention,” said Richard Land, the longtime head of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, “and a 100% chance that 99% of people will vote for it.”

“Southern Baptists are going to be leaving the Boy Scouts en masse,” Land continued.

The reason I say “unsurprisingly” is because of the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.
For example: the reason for their creation, via a split from the main body of the American Baptists in 1845 was due to their support of slavery - a practice they didn’t condemn until 1996 (note: this date is not a misprint).

Some more from their Wikipedia entry:
en.wikipedia.org

After Reconstruction, SBC members were among the southern legislators who voted for disfranchising laws and constitutions that, by the turn of the twentieth century, essentially eliminated blacks as voters, reducing them to second-class status. They also had passed Jim Crow laws establishing racial segregation. During the following half century, into the 1960s and the Civil Rights era, most Southern Baptist pastors and most members of their flocks rejected integration and defended white supremacy, further alienating African Americans.

Bigotry is a fundamental principle of this organization, and the split from the BSA can’t come soon enough.