Boy Scouts open ranks to gay youth on Jan. 1

This post was going to be about the continuing anti-gay hypocrisy of the Boy Scouts. But I guess miracles happen . . .

http://www.chron.com/news/texas/article/Boy-Scouts-open-ranks-to-gay-youth-on-Jan-1-5098227.php

Lots of books and articles about the movement's English founder, Lord Baden-Powell, address his homosexuality. This is the most explicit (and angry!) one I've seen . . .

http://www.greghallett.com/pdf/Stalins%20British%20Training,%20Web,%20low%20res,%2017.7.08/STALIN'S%20BRITISH%20TRAINING-%20C4-%20Elevated%20Paedophiles.pdf

EXCERPT . . .

“In 1896, Baden-Powell was returning from the Ashanti expedition on West Africa’s Gold Coast (later Ghana) with the Ashanti Star (1895–96) under his belt. He located two 16-year-old Irish soldiers, accused them of cowardice, tied their hands behind their backs, told everyone he was going to interrogate them, cleared the carriage, sodomised the two bound 16-year-old Irish soldiers, then shot them both in the back of the head, dead. Robert Baden-Powell was 39.”

* * * * *

Doesn't mean the Boy Scout organization hasn't done good things for lots of boys, and with this total about face there will be more. But get real! Seems like they finally realized they couldn't keep out gay kids and scoutmasters without condemning the dude who created it in the first place. In light of Baden-Powell's documented obsession with boys, the title of the original manual takes on a creepier meaning . . .

Who Founded the Boy Scouts?

And this Boy Scout thing? I thought everybody knew the founder of “Scouting for Boys” was, actually, scouting for boys!

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/20/opinion/scoutings-gay-founder.html?_r=0

http://www.slate.com/articles/briefing/articles/1999/08/scouting_for_boys.html

http://www.amazon.com/Baden-Powell-Founder-Scouts-Tim-Jeal/dp/0300125135

Robert Baden-Powell's name is recognized and respected throughout the world as that of a man who devoted himself to the service of his country and his fellow men in two separate and complete lives, one as a soldier, and the other as a worker for peace through his founding and leading of the Boy Scouts.

In his definitive biography of Baden-Powell, Tim Jeal writes: "The evidence available points inexorably to the conclusion that Baden-Powell was a repressed homosexual." Jeal documents his attraction to boys, describing how he enjoyed watching young scouts as they swam and viewing photographs of naked boys.

Jeal writes, "Baden-Powell was in a position of trust which made watching, at one remove, the only way to satisfy his interest. The other was to seek the company of men...who lived in close contact with young males."

Baden-Powell spent time with friends who were also attracted to boys. Jeal writes, "Through their shared memories of Charterhouse and their undoubted 'sentimentalism', which in both their cases found no physical fulfillment, they would have had a close understanding that required no word of explanation."