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R.I.P. Boy Scouts of America

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Photo Credit: cometstarmoonBy Matt Barber. “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” (Mark 8:36)

It’s a sad day for both Scouting and for freedom. Indeed, it’s a sad day for America. The century-old Boy Scouts of America (BSA) – created in 1910 to “prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes” – has betrayed its own constituency, mission, oath and law.

On Thursday, approximately 1,400 adult BSA delegates from around the country gathered in Texas and decided, in a disgracefully lopsided vote, to welcome into its ranks, “open and avowed” homosexuality (boy-on-boy sexual attraction and behavior), thereby disavowing the “morally straight” Scout Oath its members are sworn to uphold.

They voted unwisely.

History will reflect that on this day the BSA turned from morally straight to immorally bent – that this once great organization – founded on “honor,” “reverence” and biblical morality – was crushed beneath the worldly weight of pagan idolatry.

Whereas, for over a century, millions of boys have raised their right hands, swearing “on my honor” to “do my duty to God and my country” – on this day, hundreds of adult delegates likewise raised their right hands, shook their fists at God and flipped their middle fingers at both the boys they serve and the parents who trusted them. Read more from this story HERE.

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Fox News’ Chris Wallace Backs ‘Gay’ Boy Scouts

By Jeff Poor. On Mike Gallagher’s Friday radio show, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace had a heated debate with Gallagher over the Boy Scouts lifting its ban on openly gay boys.

Wallace called himself “conflicted” on the issue and laid out his argument for gays in the Boy Scouts, likening it to changing attitudes about interracial marriage.

“I think the world is changing,” Wallace said. “I think — you know, and our attitudes toward gays are changing. Read more from this story HERE.

Boy Scouts Approve Plan to Accept Openly Gay Scouts

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Photo Credit: APThe Boy Scouts of America threw open its ranks Thursday to gay Scouts but not gay Scout leaders — a fiercely contested compromise that some warned could fracture the organization and lead to mass defections of members and donors.

Of the roughly 1,400 voting members of the BSA’s National Council who cast ballots, 61 percent supported the proposal drafted by the governing Executive Committee. The policy change takes effect Jan. 1.

“This has been a challenging chapter in our history,” the BSA chief executive, Wayne Brock, said after the vote. “While people have differing opinions on this policy, kids are better off when they’re in Scouting.”

However, the outcome will not end the bitter debate over the Scouts’ membership policy.

Liberal Scout leaders — while supporting the proposal to accept gay youth — have made clear they want the ban on gay adults lifted as well.

Read more from this story HERE.

‘Gay’ Sex Assaults in Military Skyrocket Since 2004

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Photo Credit: mikebairdA recent military report on sexual assault in the military shocked many in Washington and around the nation, but a leading expert on military personnel revealed the prevalence of men assaulting other men is one of the major headlines in this study.

The extended analysis of the report first appeared in Monday’s edition of the the Washington Times.

The Defense Department survey of sexual assault in the military during fiscal 2012 estimated 26,000 assaults took place in the armed forces. Nearly 3,000 of them were formally reported. Just more than 6 percent of women reported being victims of assault and 1.2 percent of men said the same. Given the much larger number of men in the military, those numbers suggest 14,000 of the assaults in the Pentagon study happened to men.

Among the assaults formally reported, 88 percent of reports came from women and 12 percent from men. The numbers are getting dramatically worse.

“The number of reports of sexual assaults among military personnel have actually increased by 129 percent since 2004,” said Center for Military Readiness President Elaine Donnelly, who pointed out the number of formal reports of sexual assault jumped from 1,275 to 2,949 in just eight years.

Read more from this story HERE.

Peace Corps Opens Door for Same-Sex Couples Seeking Assignments

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Photo Credit: Peace CorpsGay or lesbian domestic partners who want to serve together in the Peace Corps may start applying for assignments this summer.

“Service in the Peace Corps is a life-defining leadership experience for Americans who want to make a difference around the world,” Carrie Hessler-Radelet, deputy director of the Peace Corps, said Tuesday.

She announced that gay couples can begin their Peace Corps application process as of Monday June 3.

“I am proud that the agency is taking this important step forward to allow same-sex domestic partners to serve overseas together,” she said.

Married couples have been serving together in the Peace Corps since its inception in 1961.

Read more from this story HERE.

Historian Kills Himself in Paris’ Notre Dame to Make Statement Against Homosexual Marriage and Islam

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Photo Credit: CNNA right-wing historian and author killed himself inside the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Tuesday in front of horrified tourists, police said.

About 1,500 people at the cathedral were evacuated, CNN affiliate BFM reported. The site is one of the world’s most prominent churches and a huge tourist attraction in the French capital.

BFM identified the man as Dominique Venner, 78.

Le Monde newspaper quoted a rector at the cathedral, who said the man placed a letter on the altar and then shot himself.

On his blog, Venner has lashed out against same-sex marriage and what he called a future Islamist takeover of France.

Read more from this story HERE.

Evangelical Weakness in Gay Boy Scouts Debate Could Hurt GOP

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Photo Credit: tedeytanSigns of waning evangelical power in the nation’s culture wars and in Republican policy — and some unexpected challenges for GOP candidates — loom as the 103-year-old Boy Scouts of America gears up for a definitive vote this week on whether to welcome openly gay youths into the organization’s ranks.

If the BSA delegates gathering just outside Dallas vote to admit gays, it will reinforce the growing notion that evangelical Protestants and their conservative Catholic allies no longer can muster their troops as they once did, in such battles as state referendums over same-sex marriage and the 1996 enactment of the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

“There’s no lobby more vicious than the homosexual lobby, and the 65 to 80 million-member evangelical constituency provides no troops for the fight against that lobby,” said David Lane, president of Pastors & Pews and a leading religious right political organizer. “Evangelicals are playing checkers in a chess game.”

A prominent Mormon and board member of a national conservative political organization said privately said that his church, bruised from public relations battles with gay-rights activist groups, has been left holding the financial bag after other denominations failed to come through with promised aid in the fight for Proposition 8, California’s voter initiative against same-sex marriage. The Mormon church has moved on to other battles in the cultural wars rather than take on the gay-rights activists.

After floating a plan to end the 3.9 million-member group’s ban on gays, BSA leaders have crafted a compromise that would allow openly gay Scouts to participate but maintain the ban on adult gay Scout leaders. Even that move sparked adamant opposition from some Christian leaders, especially those who ally with the Republican Party.

Read more from this story HERE.

Education Dept. Eliminates ‘Father,’ ‘Mother’ From Student Aid Forms

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Photo Credit: APThe U.S. Department of Education announced Thursday that beginning with the 2014-2015 federal student aid form, the Department will — for the first time — collect income “from a dependent student’s legal parents regardless of the parents’ marital status or gender, if those parents live together.”

The new FAFSA form will use terms like “Parent 1” and “Parent 2” instead of gender-specific terms like “mother” and “father.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Rick Perry to Rally Churches on ‘Stand with Scouts Sunday’

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Photo Credit: WNDAs the Boys Scouts prepare to decide whether or not they will allow open homosexuals in their membership, churches nationwide that support the current policy will host a simulcast featuring Republican Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

Perkins’ FRC is sponsoring “Stand with Scouts Sunday” this Sunday evening, which aims to show Christians what they can do “to help preserve Scouting.”

The event, which begins at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, can be viewed via the Web as well as at hosting churches.

Perry is an Eagle Scout and author of the 2008 book “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For.”

In a February speech to a group of Scouts in Texas, Perry, a Republican presidential candidate last year, urged the organization to not change its policy and to follow its “historic position of keeping the Scouts strongly supportive of the values that make scouting this very important and impactful organization.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Jason Collin’s LA High School Has No Tolerance for Religious Views on Homosexuality

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Photo Credit: joshuak8After the first NBA player to “come out of the closet” with respect to his sexuality made the media rounds this week, his old high school near Hollywood weighed in on the controversy.

According to the LA Times, Collin’s former school has zero tolerance for traditional religious views on homosexuality:

One of the school’s most active on-campus groups is its gay-straight alliance, roughly 50 students strong, according to Hudnut. Teachers, administrators and parents regularly speak about gay rights. Religion isn’t discussed much. If anyone were to come to campus expressing the view that homosexuals are sinners, they’d be met by outrage, said the school’s longtime basketball coach, Greg Hilliard.

“We have a lot less tolerance for people who make reactionary statements like Mr. Broussard,” Hilliard said, referring to ESPN television commentator Chris Broussard, who said Monday that, because of his religious beliefs, he did not condone homosexuality.

“If a guy like that came to this campus, that is where I would have to talk to my guys about the importance of tolerance.… They’d have some hard questions for a guy like that,” Hilliard said.

Greg Laurie to Homosexual Activists: ‘I Won’t Back Down’

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Photo Credit: Harvest MinistriesA California megachurch pastor involved in the National Day of Prayer who has recently come under fire for his views on homosexuality has declared that he will not be intimidated.

At a prayer event held Wednesday morning at the Washington, D.C., office of the Family Research Council, Pastor Greg Laurie told those gathered, “I won’t back down.”

“They do not want me to pray. They describe me as ‘homophobic’ and so forth. How can you deal with such a situation? We’re in a time in our country now where I’m attacked because I believe what the Bible teaches,” said Laurie, ahead of Thursday’s National Day of Prayer.

“If people want to make it all about that I’m not going to back down. In the immortal words of the great theologian Tom Petty, ‘I won’t back down,’ I won’t. I’m not going to apologize.”

Laurie paralleled the efforts of gay rights activists to that of the palace officials who sought to stop Daniel (in the Old Testament) from praying and passed a law that resulted in him being thrown into the Lion’s Den.

Read more from this story HERE.