Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention appeared on CNN this morning to discuss the looming vote by the Boy Scouts board over its ban on gay leaders and scouts. Land argued that keeping boys "morally straight", as in heterosexual, is the "core value" of scouting, therefore letting gays in would destroy it.
Said Land, via Think Progress:
The Scouts have said for themselves for over a hundred years that traditional morality is at the core value of scouting, teaching them to be “morally straight.” […]
Homosexuals, by definition, are attracted to people of the same sex. Now I'm not accusing homosexuals of being pedophiles, but I'm accusing homosexuals of being what they say they are: attracted to males. How many people that are listening to me would allow their teenage girls to go on campouts and engage in camping activities with heterosexual males? They wouldn't. […]
This verges on being beyond the realm of the rational, and it's going to lead to human tragedy, and the human tragedy is going to be, sadly, boys and men who are going to end up in relationships that are going to be tragic. […]
Boy Scouts have the right to define character, and they define character as being “morally straight” and that involves being sexually pure and being a heterosexual.
Watch, AFTER THE JUMP…
