There is another Boy Scouts child molester scandal brewing with new reports to be released within the next few weeks that are proving that I was right about not wanting my son to join. I didn’t want my son to join the Boy Scouts. Between their bigoted policies against homosexuals and their intolerance towards agnostics and atheists I have never liked the idea of my son being involved in Boy Scouts. This coupled with a a 1980s pedophile case that ordered the organization to pay nearly $20 million in damages has always left a bad taste in my mouth about the Boy Scouts. But my son badly wanted to participate. A lot of his classmates and friends are Boy Scouts. My husband agreed that I didn’t have to go to meetings so I reluctantly let my son join. And now I’m going to make him quit due to some awful new reports that are developing concerning the one-hundred-year-old organization.
From Reuters.com:
The Boy Scouts of America could face a wave of bad publicity as decades of records of confirmed or alleged child molesters within the U.S. organization are expected to be released in coming weeks.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported the organization failed to report allegations of sex abuse of scouts by adult leaders and volunteers to police in hundreds of cases from 1970 to 1991. In some cases, the Boy Scouts helped the accused “cover their tracks,” the paper said.
From Slate.com:
The Los Angeles Times reviewed 1,600 of the Boy Scouts’ confidential “perversion files” dated from 1970 to 1991 and found more than 500 cases in which officials learned about abuse directly. In around 80 percent of those cases, there is no record of the Scouts reporting the claims of abuse to authorities and in more than 100 cases there seems to be clear evidence of efforts to hide the abuse. Worst of all, there are clear signs that some of the abusers went on to hurt other children.
The Boy Scouts claim that they are no taking extra precautions to protect children within their organization and released a statement on Sunday:
“The BSA (has) continuously enhanced its multi-tiered policies and procedures, which now include background checks, comprehensive training programs and safety policies,” the statement said.
To me this is a case of too little, too late. I don’t care if a kid is never abused again within the Boy Scouts (although that would be a great thing, of course), for me it’s also the knowledge that this organization turned a blind eye towards the sexual abuse of its members. Like we’ve also seen with the Penn State scandal and the Catholic church. My own son may never be hurt by a leader in the Boy Scouts, but that doesn’t negate all the kids who came before him who have been hurt. And I can’t support an organization who ever participated in such a repulsive coverup, no matter what good work they do in communities.
My son will probably be disappointed in my decision to pull him out of Boy Scouts, but I can’t allow him to be involved in a group that ever allowed children to be hurt in this way. We’ll just have to find another way for him to participate in camping activities and earning merit badges.
(Photo: Jason L. Price/Shutterstock)
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