The Hypocrisy Files

BY RAJA KRISHNA

What do the Penn State football program, the Catholic Church, and the Boy Scouts of America have in common?

If you answered, “They’re all organizations with startling histories of sexual abuse made even more sickening by the fact that they have, for decades, arrogantly attempted to handle their moral shortfalls in-house,” you’re right on the money. If you said, “they’re all organizations whose names have been sullied by allegations of child abuse”…close enough. I pose this question because the Boy Scouts of America recently released a slew of documents, christened by the upper echelon of the Boy Scouts themselves as the ‘Perversion Files,’ which detail hundreds of instances of sexual abuse within the ranks of one of the “nation’s largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations.” 

The contents of the files themselves aren’t quite as surprising as their existence in the first place. After all, any organization that bestows upon its employees the responsibility of spending extended amounts of time with young children in isolated areas would attract some creeps. It’s conceivable that some of those creep would slip through the cracks of what I can only hope is a lengthy (though evidently not lengthy enough) and vigorous (though evidently not vigorous enough) screening process.

No, the fact that sexual abuse occurred is not surprising. What is: the fact that no one bothered to do anything about it.  Sure, many of the offending Scout Leaders were discharged from the Boy Scouts, but very few of those cases were made public, even to the police. There is also evidence that the Boy Scouts of America didn’t implement a system that would successfully keep offenders out. In other words, Scout Leaders that were dismissed from their work because of clear cut evidence of sexual offenses found ways to re-enter the organization and interact with children again!

It’s particularly appalling that the Boy Scouts kept their records of sexual abuse secret because in doing so they appear to violate their own values, especially that of citizenship. If the Boy Scouts of America strive to cultivate a better America by teaching their members the values of courage and morality, why do they find it so difficult to embody those values in their operation? Is it not the organization’s civic duty to report sexual offenders and make sure they never have the chance to repeat their acts again?

Not only does the Boy Scout leadership’s apparent inability to properly deal with child abuse betray a warped sense of morality and justice, but it also reveals a blatant hypocrisy that needs to be addressed.  After all, isn’t this the organization that doesn’t permit homosexuals to assume leadership positions precisely because of the fear of homosexual men sharing tents with young boys? This is the organization whose stated policy on homosexual is the following:

We believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts.

Seems like homosexuality isn’t really the problem, is it, Boy Scouts of America? Perhaps if the Boy Scouts had publicly admonished the sexual offenders they chose to grant anonymity for so many years, they would have ended up discouraging would-be child abusers from committing their terrible deeds, or even applying to interact with young scouts in the first place.

Of course, the Boy Scouts could claim that perhaps these instances of abuse occurred because homosexuals slipped through their robust screening process, but that would just add to their growing plate of problems. They are already tainted with the hypocrisy of making red, white, and blue the official colors on their logo while their concealment of sexual abuse remains decidedly un-American. Best not to add bigotry to the list.

Nevertheless, I do believe that the Boy Scouts do great work with our country’s youth. On a personal level, I’ve never met an individual who participated in the Boy Scout program whose character, diligence, and courage I don’t admire and respect. The children and young men involved with scouting should be proud of the skills they are learning and of the preparedness with which they’ll tackle any problems they face later in life. (Maybe that’s why so many people, even those the organization excludes, want to join the Boy Scouts).

No, this article is directed at those members of Boy Scouts of America that should know better. They are the ones who, despite being handed petitions with over 333,000 signatures, refuse to alter a discriminatory policy that precludes an untold number of youth from reaping the benefits of scouting. They are the ones who decided it was easier to conceal information about the rampant sexual abuse occurring within the organization, to take gambles both with adolescence and with the purity of scouting and adventure, than to take the responsible course of action and turn offenders over to the law.

Philip Thomas, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis and member of the Eagle Scout Class of 2008, puts it this way: “The justifiable contentiousness of the organization unfortunately overshadows the positive influence the Boy Scouts have on the community-level.” I wholeheartedly agree.

To the Boy Scouts of America:

If you truly believe—as I do, and as your website claims—that “helping youth is a key to building a more conscientious, responsible, and productive society,” then do us all a favor—be more open with the public, and allow your members to be more open with you.