Recently, Robert Gates, former director of the CIA and former secretary of defense, and now president of the Boy Scouts of America, made a declaration to the assembled executives of that wonderful, time honored youth organization: “We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be.”
And what was he talking about? “The cascading events, the incessant discrimination lawsuits, and the impending Supreme Court decision on same-sex marriage” had led him to conclude that the hallowed rules that define the whole Scouting program “cannot be sustained.”
You heard me. Although the Boy Scouts officially began in 1909, and the Girl Scouts a year later, as a voluntary, nonprofit, nongovernmental organization, dedicated by oath and internal law to honor and morality and “duty to God and country”. . . this man who personally directed our national defense and investigative agencies is advocating surrender of the Scouts’ founding principles to the encroaching, virulent campaign of militant homosexual activists!
Dear God, Bob Gates . . . what are you thinking?
Is this how you see “the world as it is”? Has the United States of America become so weak, so lost, so unable to defend our very moral underpinnings, our national DNA, our constitutional defenses and rights, that we must cave in to relentless pressure on Scouting to embrace homosexuality, not just in boys and girls enrolled in Scouting but in the leaders who will be dynamic lasting influences on their young, trusting lives?
How do you think America itself came to be? By accepting “the world as it was”?
No, Bob, just in case you’ve forgotten, our ancestors laid their “lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor” on the line to create, under God, a new nation, conceived in liberty, dedicated to Judeo-Christian Bible principles, a new kind of country where people, all people, could be free to live and serve God however they chose. Remember?
God helped them create a better society than had ever existed before! That’s our heritage.
That’s America’s DNA, our core values, the republic envisioned and codified by that incredible Constitution that decreed, among so many other things, freedom — of religion, speech, the right to peacefully assemble, even to peacefully dissent from rules and regulations a Congress may have bound on us.
The First Amendment simply and forcefully states “Congress shall make no laws respecting (or concerning) an establishment of religion, nor restricting the free exercise thereof."
Bob, though Scouting is not officially or primarily a “religious organization,” its founder Lord Baden Powell and his associates presupposed and consciously created an oath and Scout law that were infused with and founded on biblical principles. To do one’s “duty to God and country” is as clearly Bible related as our Declaration of Independence: "All men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.”
And though Scouting does benefit across the country from the same privileges that other nonprofits like churches, schools, and hospitals enjoy, in whatever ways their localities provide, it is not a government program.
It is a private, voluntary, community supported organization that can make its own rules about who can, and who cannot, be included in it programs, awards, and leadership.
Bob, I know you’re a good man, and faced with tough decisions. You want to be fair and compassionate, and still keep the Scouts what they were created to be. You only signed on for two years as president; you don’t want to leave Scouting permanently marred; totally changed into something the founders would be appalled by, and that will inevitably bring about the collapse and demise of Scouting itself.
Tell the militants, who are obviously well funded and dedicated to their causes and lifestyles, Create your own Scouting organization! Welcome homosexual leaders, let parents who think their kids would benefit by that lifestyle, or suspect their kids are already homosexual, know they can have a welcoming, supportive group of like-minded people, committed to providing most, if not all, of original Scouting experiences.
Why should they have to force their way and persuasions on a long honored, proven youth organization? It is a free country, is it not?
The real issue is far deeper and more pervasive than just Scouting. Our whole society, our very way of life is on the line.
Do we just “give up” and become a pot-ridden populace, with all the mounting consequences? Do we just cave in to abortion advocates, who already account for a million or more infant deaths a year . . . in the land of the brave and home of the free?
Do you endorse the decisions of our president and former attorney general not to enforce immigration laws on our books?
Do you side with those who want to remove God’s name from all public life, prayer from schools, even “under God” from our Pledge of Allegiance?
In 1954, Special Counsel Joseph Welch confronted Sen. Joe McCarthy, “At long last, have you left no sense of decency? No sense of decency?”
On issue after issue, Bob, our courts, and our “leaders” are caving in, surrendering to “political correctness”—and abandoning, not just now but perhaps for our kids’ future, all of the moral guidelines, the DNA that made America who we are.
At long last . . . have we left no decency?
Pat Boone's public career spans a half-century, during which he has been a top-selling recording artist, the star of a hit television series, a movie star, a Broadway headliner, and a best-selling author. He is also a great-great-grandson of the legendary pioneer Daniel Boone. Read more reports from Pat Boone — Click Here Now.
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