The Boy Scouts of America is similar to the Catholic Church in its homophobia and its attempts to cover up sexual abuse within the organization. But the Oregon Supreme court recently ruled that 20,000 pages of secret ‘perversion files’ kept by them on suspected child abusers must be released to the public.
The 20,000 pages — representing files on 1,200 people — are part of a larger trove of confidential documents the Boy Scouts began compiling decades ago. In 1935, the New York Times reported the Scouts had 2,910 “cards” on men who were unfit to supervise boys.
Paul Mones, one of the plaintiff’s attorneys in the landmark case, said the Oregon files reveal “poignant and disturbing” details.
“These files were integral to the jury finding that the BSA failed to use its vast knowledge of sexual predators to protect its Scouts,” Mones said. “Though the BSA has improved its youth protection policies in recent years, the tragic legacy of the abuse of untold numbers of boys remains.”
Like the Catholic Church, the higher ups in the Boy Scouts seemed to think that they could handle the problems internally and thus avoid the scandal that would ensue by reporting predatory behavior to the police.
Well, it’s no wonder they didn’t have time to deal with the predators. They were too busy protecting the children by pushing out all the gays and atheists. For the children, you see.
Yes, but religions -- for no good reason -- are exempt from laws and rules involving “confessions” and the like. That religion built a wall of silence and society -- inexplicably -- lets them hide behind it.
The boy scouts aren’t exempt, and they are far more dependent on voluntary donations. The BSA can’t threaten anyone with “hell” for not donating or being silent.
Lets not forget Penn State. Like all other universities they must be homophilic rather than homophbic and they thought they could handle these abuse accusations internally. Gee I guess this is a characteristic of large organizations. So should the boy scouts and the catholic church and large universities protect children? Why of course they should. Should they all roundly condemn this abuse. Of course they do.
I have an email from the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue in which he claims that what he calls the “perv files” show that all this is the fault of gays and the ’60s sexual revolution (just like the problems with those priests).
Alas, catholicleague.org seems offline at the moment, so I can’t even look for a link, but at least I can share this concluding insight:
That should settle all questions, then.
Oh joy -- the League is online again!