Dear Sirs:

I suppose it should be no surprise that you consider homophobia to consist of any objection at all to any aspect of the gay agenda, no matter how soundly it may be based in fact and reasoning (Hot Type, October 20).

When the thinly disguised homosexual privileges ordinance passed in city council, there were many who accurately predicted that it would eventually be used for purposes well beyond the original stated intent. Now we have people using the ordinance to bash the Boy Scouts, a group that has done more good for America than 99 percent of the organizations in the country, and which has never spent any of its time or money spreading antihomosexual rhetoric or actions. No, what we have with the “gay community” is a political group who wants to go beyond “tolerance” to actively crush to its will any group that even dares to disagree with it.

In many situations, sexual orientation is irrelevant to the job, e.g., computer programming for a bank. However, in other situations, sexual orientation is highly relevant.

The Boy Scouts of America have two concerns: the first is keeping child molesters away from their scouts. This is not an unreasoned fear. The book Scout’s Honor, released last year, contains the highlights of literally thousands of cases of child molestation by scout leaders that were buried in scout files. The Boy Scouts for years kept dealing with the problem as if each case was isolated, but slowly came to realize that the whole structure of scouting is intrinsically a “target rich environment” for child molesters, who are documented as gravitating towards careers that put them into contact with young children. Radical reforms in how scout leaders may interact with scouts (e.g., no sleeping in the same tent) were enacted in recognition of this problem.

As a recent and graphic example of how molestation can literally destroy a child’s life, I refer you to Ellen Warren’s Chicago Tribune column of September 22, 1995, and subsequent radio talk show appearances by her, where she documents what has happened to a boy who was molested by his Cub Scout leader.

The second concern of Scouting is role modeling and morals. While homosexual activists love to insist that homosexuality is innate, this not only has yet to be shown by scientific experiment, but is refuted by things like the existence of bisexuals. While some people appear to be homosexual from a very young age (whether the cause be biological or psychological), a number of people enter adolescence still in ambiguity about the direction they will go in sexually. During this period it is important to have good male role models, and Scouting has a right to insist that homosexuality is morally wrong and that they want the role models for their children to be heterosexual. While gays insist that homosexuality is not a moral issue, who one goes to bed with and why and under what circumstances are issues that have been considered part of morals for millennia.

The gay rights movement itself refutes the notion that pedophilia is not involved in their assault on the Scouts. One of the planks of the 1972 Gay Rights Platform and the 1993 Gay March on Washington was a demand for the repeal of age of consent laws–such a repeal has no other motive than removing legal barriers from allowing adults to seduce children. Alyson Publishing, one of the largest and most respected gay publishers, has published books that contain instructions for child molesters on how not to get caught. Support of pedophilia is not just limited to NAMBLA.

Articles in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy (Fall 1984) and Psychological Reports (1985) indicate that 35 percent of pedophiles are homosexual. Given that homosexuals are roughly 2 percent of the general population, this means that homosexuals ARE more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals. Add to this the documentation that on average heterosexual pedophiles molest 20 children before being caught and homosexual pedophiles molest 150 children before being caught, and it becomes clear that only someone who is totally without a moral compass could not understand why the Boy Scouts do not want homosexual scout leaders.

Ross Pavlac

Evanston