Hmmm....check this out, Re: Douglas S. Smith, Former Boy Scout

National Director of Programs.

Corporate Legal Times
September, 2004

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR; Pg. 10
Boy Scout Pride

Dear Editor:

Bruce Collins is mistaken when he calls Boy Scouts a "fundamentally different" organization from the one he joined 40 years ago. <"An Eagle Scout Takes Issue With Group's Politics" July, p. 7>. Boy Scouts is the same organization with the same values and goals. What is fundamentally different, however, is our times.

Some intolerant elements in our society want to force scouting to abandon its values and to become fundamentally different. They want scouting to forego its constitutional rights, affirmed in 2000 by the Supreme Court in BSA v. Dale, and adopt fundamentally different values from the ones that helped shape the character of Mr. Collins and 106 million other young men over the past 94 years.

It bothers Mr. Collins that scouting is defending itself, even though he acknowledged that it has been "dragged into" the "culture war." He says the tone of our legal-issues web site, bsalegal.org, is defensive. The site does seek to defend our values and to inform the public about the three-decade-long legal assault on scouting. That we need a legal-issues web site is testament to the fact that our constitutional rights are under attack.

Clearly, Mr. Collins longs for a time when the Boy Scout organization could give its undivided attention to the "good stuff" of Scouting: "camping and life skills ..." So do we. Mr. Collins would do well to communicate his displeasure to those directing their discriminatory assault against his beloved Boy Scouts -- the ACLU.

Douglas S. Smith Jr.
National Director of Program
Boy Scouts of America

http://www.bsalegal.org/brucecol-181.htm
http://www.scoutingforall.org/articles/2004101612.shtml

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA AND MONMOUTH COUNCIL, ET AL. v. JAMES DALE
No. 99-699
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
120 S. Ct. 2446
June 28, 2000, Decided

REHNQUIST, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which O'CONNOR, SCALIA, KENNEDY, and THOMAS, JJ., joined. STEVENS, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOUTER, GINSBURG, and BREYER, JJ., joined. SOUTER, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which GINSBURG and BREYER, JJ., joined.

Petitioners are the Boy Scouts of America and the Monmouth Council, a division of the Boy Scouts of America (collectively, Boy Scouts). The Boy Scouts is a private, not-for-profit organization engaged in instilling its system of values in young people. The Boy Scouts asserts that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the values it seeks to instill. Respondent is James Dale, a former Eagle Scout whose adult membership in the Boy Scouts was revoked when the Boy Scouts learned that he is an avowed homosexual and gay rights activist. The New Jersey Supreme Court held that New Jersey's public accommodations law requires that the Boy Scouts admit Dale. This case presents the question whether applying New Jersey's public accommodations law in this way violates the Boy Scouts' First Amendment right of expressive association. We hold that it does.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/boyscouts.html

Ex-Boy Scouts Executive Charged With Distributing Child Porn
March 29 (Bloomberg) -- A former executive with the Boy Scouts of America has been charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Dallas with receiving and distributing child pornography.

Douglas S. Smith Jr., who was national director of programs for the Irving, Texas-based organization, faces one felony count of receiving and distributing images of children engaged in sexually explicit acts, according to the government's complaint.

Smith, 61, was put on administrative leave following the start of the U.S. attorney's investigation in February, Boy Scouts spokesman Gregg Shields said. He retired later that month.

Smith is accused of transmitting the images in the U.S. and overseas via the Internet, according to the government's complaint.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=amhDDPwA0Mf0&refer=us

So, is this guy a republican?

Just asking.

I'm sure he's not the only pervert working for the Boy Scouts, but whatever else you think about them they don't have support and tolerance for such things ingrained in the organization. He hid it from his neighbors, he hid it from his family, and he hid it from his co-workers. So what does that prove about the Boy Scouts?

The Boy Scouts actually are actually quite good (better than most organizations) in trying to weed out those guilty of this sort of thing. That they are not perfect is not significant... I doubt anyone can be perfect at that sort of thing.
I can assure you they are very serious about this. They WILL get rid of someone they suspect of anything even similar.

... is often the one with the most to hide.

my dad briefed me on keeping the scout master out of my sleeping bag. It also turned out that my scout master godfather made a couple of passes at me when I was 13-14 years old.

Kinky proclivities were considered rampant when I was a kid. Scout master was a code word for gay in my neighborhood.

.
things.

I'm sure you weren't trying to equate the two.

Most men who molest little boys are married men who are heterosexual. Just FYI.

was neither married nor heterosexual.

but the point is that being a homosexual man doesn't mean ergo, that you are interested in molesting children.

My remarks were intended to tell of my experience of the BSA in the late 50s and the reputation that scoutmasters had in my milieu. Some were straight, some weren't. Some had a thing for us young boys, some didn't.

Sorry you had that experience. I believe that it was an anomaly, and an especially odd one at that. I can't imagine a more hostile environment to even benign sexual deviance than the Boy Scouts. This does not mean that some people with such proclivities won't be hidden in the mix; since no screening is perfect.
I can tell you in my area a scoutmaster underwent a two week investigation conducted solely because someone overheard a cell phone conversation in which he expressed his approval of Unix.

The possibility that he thought eunuchs are a good idea seemed sufficiently strange to require investigation.

If "gay" and "pedophile" are 2 distinctly different things...(which I agree with, btw)...

Then....please remember that

"heterosexual married men" and "pedophile" are 2 distinctly different things too.

do with homosexual men, which was the point.

Grownups are attracted to other grownups (whether hetero or homo)--if the grownup is attracted to children, that's a pedophile.


The Boy Scouts have implied that getting rid of gays within their organization will elminate pedophiles, which is just being stupid and ignoring that most men who are pedophiles are married men.

Not.

You made a blanket statement, which was also a bit flippant
-- with the "Just FYI" part.

"Most men who molest little boys are married men who are heterosexual. Just FYI."


The above is your quote...which I was responding to. I don't think you would appreciate any statement that began with "Most gay men...." fill in the blank. Just making a point.

the site has now been scrubbed.

David Allen
www.thoughtcrimes.org