Daily News Editorial on Gay Scouting is So Out of Touch, It’s Gone With the Wind

Christine Flowers, a writer over at the Daily News, must have watched one too many movies from the late ’30s (and had one too many boxes of wine) before writing the downright absurd “Scouts and Gay Leaders: From Slip Knots to Slippery Slopes,” a piece that ran on Philly.com this morning about the Boy Scouts’ revised policy that allows openly gay leaders. In part, you have to feel bad (really, really bad) for people like Ms. Flowers who have this type of archaic belief system because, news flash: It’s vanished.

I’ll let her words, and tone, do the speaking:

“Gay and lesbian adults have been demanding what they call ‘equal rights’ for decades, and their juggernaut has picked up amazing speed in the past few years. First, sodomy is decriminalized. Then, ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ joins the ash heap of history. Then federal benefits are given to same-sex couples. And last month, Anthony Kennedy created a fundamental right to gay marriage and enshrined it in the pantheon of constitutional entitlements (like that other man- made freebie, abortion).”

The irony in these words is that this type of homophobic rhetoric has become so old, so yesterday, that those who agree with her opinions are the real “ash heap of history.” Just like a forlorn Scarlett O’Hara, these ideals are gone with the wind.

The rest of the editorial is littered with a whole host of gay bashing disguised as writing. The overall argument is that “the vast majority of young boys don’t want to know what their mentors do in their private lives. The mentors, however, want them to know.” This is along the same tired, boring lines of the ill-conceived argument that if you allow gay people to marry, next people will want to marry dogs. But Ms. Flowers adds a bit of fear-mongering here: “the mentors…want them to know.” So, what, they can mysteriously woo the scouts into a sexual encounter? Please…

But, wait! There’s more: “Any Boy Scout can tell you that there are a lot of different types of knots. Square knots. Slip knots. Rope knots. Figure Eight knots. They each have a different purpose, significance and importance, and they’re not interchangeable. Kind of like men and women.” Seriously? Is this the best you can come up with? What 1990s church billboard did that come from?

Like I said, it’s sad: People with these perceptions are slowing realizing that their world views are dead, and they’re willing to say and do whatever they can to preserve their fading glory. Where should they go? What should they do?

To use the words of Rhett Butler, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”