| No
Tolerance For Boy Scouts
By Hans Zeiger
 For
those who wish I would quit writing about the Boy Scouts: sorry.
I'm doing it again.
First,
I'm too young and stupid to know much about most issues, and any
attempts to showcase my opinions on foreign policy, the environment,
Social Security, economic policy, taxes, John Kerry's Purple Hearts,
and other such complicated matters would be well beyond my credibility.
Maybe once I've learned a bit more, I can write on those things.
For now, I focus on what I know.
And
second, that thing I know is that the Boy Scouts - a symbol of what
is good and decent about American culture - are under vicious assault
by forces of political correctness. There may be more pressing,
relevant, and interesting topics out there, but I'll leave those
to other writers. As for me, I have an honor to defend.
And
that's why I'm writing about the Boy Scouts of Norwalk, Connecticut
who are being told by some Norwalk officials that they may not be
able to reserve part of Shady Beach Park for a three-hour campfire
and membership recruitment event on October 24. After city parks
committee members Kenneth Baker and Peter Wien complained that the
Boy Scouts discriminate against homosexuals and atheists, Mayor
Alex Knopp asked city attorneys for an opinion about the legal precedence
for denying access to local Scouts.
Even
without the word of the attorneys, Norwalk Common Council President
Bruce Kimmel has pledged enmity against the Boy Scouts of America.
Kimmel calls the Boy Scouts commitment to traditional morality,
"repugnant and discriminatory," and adds, "I would
vote against [the Scouts' park reservation] as a matter of principle,
period."
Norwalk,
dating back to 1640, stands for the old colonial tradition, the
forgotten roots of which still sustain us today. The haunted houses
built after the British and Hessians burned the town in the Battle
of the Rocks, the ancient cemeteries and cobbled paths of the place
are legends of generations who built the nation.
It
was with an eye to that mighty heritage, of which Norwalk is a part,
that the Boy Scouts of America was founded 94 years ago. So in this
potential rejection of the Scouts by the Norwalk Common Council,
what seems a small park use permit in a small town could actually
be quite a large declaration of war on the principles shared between
the historic foundations of ordered liberty and the Boy Scout Oath
and Law.
For
Norwalk to deny the Boy Scouts' permit application to use Shady
Beach Park would be more than a routine intolerance. It would be
an outright assault on the moral underpinnings of the American character.
It would be to aggressively favor over the ideals of moral straightness
and duty to God the radical agenda of activists who seek nothing
less than the entire conversion of this nation to what Alan Keyes
has rightly called "selfish hedonism."
Nothing
in the U.S. Constitution would stop the City of Norwalk from doing
whatsoever it pleases with regard to any group that applies for
a park use permit. The question becomes one of principle. We should
not ask that Norwalk take an explicitly favorable attitude toward
the Scouts, nor should we request city opposition to homosexual
or atheist groups who may also wish to utilize Shady Beach Park.
All
we ask is basic fairness.The parks committee should approve a permit
for the Boy Scouts to use Shady Beach Park on October 24. To do
otherwise represents the worst type of intolerance.
EDITOR'S
NOTE: The permit was recently granted for the Boy Scouts to use
Shady Beach Park. Thank you to all who emailed your support of Mr.
Zeigler and the Scouts.
Hans
Zeiger is president of the Scout Honor Coalition, a Seattle Sentinel
columnist, and a student at Hillsdale College. www.hanszeiger.com
Email
the Editor
|
