Gay by association |
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| Well,
the insanity that's ravaging the Middle East seems to have spread over
the Atlantic and is now corrupting the brains of Illinois voters. The
results of a WGN/Tribune poll questioning the Supreme Court decision against
the Boy Scouts of America were released today and show just how ridiculous
things have gotten. The poll, which asked over 900 registered voters how they felt about the decision, reveals that 52% of those surveyed actually agree with the Supreme Court. The decision, if you'll recall, supported the BSA's right to discriminate against gay people as leaders of their troops. They had fired one of their leaders, James Dale, from his leadership position in New Jersey after they found out he was gay. Dale sued the Scouts and won his case, the Supreme Court of New Jersey deeming it illegal to discriminate against gays and demanding he be reinstated. The BSA refused and appealed to the Supreme Court in Washington, winning their appeal at the end of June. The Boy Scouts, in a brilliant show of tolerance and fortitude, have said that gays as leaders run "contrary to the organization''s values." They said that Dale "had created a reputation for himself" by publicizing his sexual preference and that his being gay "hampered his ability to be a role model for Scouts." How, exactly, did he publicize it? It's not like he took out ads in the local paper pronouncing, "James Dale Ð I'm gay and I'm OK" or bought airtime for commercials during the Super Bowl. And I'm betting that whenever he introduced himself to strangers, he didn't say stuff like, "Hi, my name's James and I'm a raving homosexual." No, the only way he publicized it was by not hiding it; by not being ashamed of it. Dale was the co-president of Rutgers University's Gay/Lesbian Alliance and had given speeches relating to gay rights and such. This, as it turns out, was how it was discovered that he was homosexual Ð a newspaper ran a piece on one of his speeches and one of the members of the BSA saw it. Dale was fired two weeks later. And if this wasn't bad enough, those stodgy old coots in the Supreme Court, headed up by Chief Nimrod Harry Rehnquist, supported the BSA's bullpoop, saying in their majority decision that Dale's presence in the Scouts violated their Oath and Law, which requires all members to be "clean" and "morally straight." Are you frigging serious? Give me a break. Let's break this idiocy down a little bit Ð Dale needed to be clean to be a Scout Master. Well, I've talked to him on the phone and he assures me that he enjoys the regular ritual of bathing, usually a hot shower in the morning before work, and that he has never had a drug or alcohol dependency in his life, so those can't be why he wasn't deemed "clean." I dug a little harder, though, and found what must have made the BSA label this man unclean Ð jokes. I talked to one of his drinking buddies, Sam Gritchman, and he revealed the hideous skeleton that has been residing in Dale's closet. "He likes to tell dirty jokes when we're out with the guys," he said. |
When
confronted with this bombshell, Dale admitted that he has been known to
tell the occasional experiences of the nun, the hooker, and the cook or
tales of two men walking into a bar. "I don't do it often, but I guess
I have to admit I've done it. They're not that bad really. Only marginally
dirty. Say, have you heard the one about the elephant and the donkey?"
Abruptly hanging up the phone before he could get himself into more trouble, I pat myself on the back for doing the work that overpaid lawyers and a deluded New Jersey court system couldn't do. The Boy Scouts were right -- this man really is unclean. Marginally dirty jokes. I'm surprised they let this man out in public! What exactly are the Boy Scouts so afraid of, really? It's not like leaders such as Dale were or are converting the Boy Scouts into their own personal forum for gay rights. The BSA's lawsuit doesn't mention anything about Dale telling the boys how to woo a man or anything like that. It's not like he created a sodomy or fellatio badge for kids to earn after practicing these skills. That would be wrong. His simply being gay, though, is not. Allowing the Boy Scouts to discriminate against gay people because it "violates their code" would be like allowing them to discriminate against blacks because they don't match the pictures in their pamphlets and books. By claiming that simply by being there, gay people are promoting homosexuality and are forcing the BSA to do the same is ridiculous. It simply shows that you're living like an ostrich, only your head isn't in the sand this time, but somewhere a bit higher, if you catch my drift. Using this logic, then, that a mere presence indicates promotion, the buildings the Scouts hold their meetings in should boot them out onto the streets. That is, unless they endorse such blatantly anti-gay organizations as this. The fact that the BSA's meetings are held in public buildings says that the owners and otherwise inhabitants of these buildings also don't want gays inside them Ð I'm just following the train of thought you guys in the Supreme Court have laid out for me. So it seems logical to assume that these pollsters would want to give the BSA the old heave-ho, but the results say otherwise. A resounding 82% of those polled said they should be able to stay right where they are. This means that 30% of the people who think what the Boy Scouts are doing is absolutely intolerable feel it's OK for them to stay where they are. "I don't think gay-hating is right," these voters seem to say, "but putting an American tradition like that out on the street?" "That's just wrong." Exactly. |