Ah, the days of my youth when life was simple. Uncontrollable wanton desires and lascivious thoughts were just an amorphous threat lingering on the distant horizon. Yes, I knew that I was gay, but I was a child, so my gayness was not yet fully formed. That kernel of gay simply made me more sensitive than the other boys, making me prefer E-Z Bake Ovens to Coleman Stoves. I spent my youth in the Boy Scouts with all of the other asexual boys tying ropes, working on wood, skinny dipping and generally performing a multitude of other wholesome non-sexual activities in the great outdoors. If there was any talk of sex, it was only among the troop leaders who as adults could not control themselves.
We often worried that a troop of lost Girl Scouts might wander aimlessly into our camp and like a pack of hungry wolves our Boy Scout troop leaders would attack, unable to stem their desires, incapable of discerning the difference between a girl and a woman. This is why I think the Boy Scouts lifting of the ban on gay youth, while maintaining the ban on gay adults makes perfect sense. But, I'd like to offer a bit more of a compromise.
The Girl Scouts have decided to make it a blanket policy that all are welcome, regardless of orientation to join. This includes lesbian troop leaders! As we all know, when a young lesbian or a gay boy turns 18, they are incapable of controlling themselves. What we need to do is allow lesbians to become Boy Scout troop leaders and gay men to become Girl Scout troop leaders, thereby reducing the risk of accidental pedophilia. After all, the Catholic Church does not allow gay men to become priests and that policy seems to be working just fine. What's good for the goose is good for the gander, I've always said.
Lesbian troop leaders might teach the Boy Scouts a thing or two about being tough, driving a Subaru, taking care of cats and sing a rousing rendition of an Indigo Girls song by the campfire. And they would have no sexual interest whatsoever in any of the boys. By the same token a gay male Girl Scout troop leader could teach the girls how to be flirty, how to use sarcasm as a defense mechanism, illustrate body conscious fashion choices and teach them the importance of Madonna's re-invention and musical influences on the modern world. Would the gay male leaders be interested sexually in any of the girls? Ewww.
It's a win-win!
"Lies! Lies!" I hear you say! "These are all stereotypes. Gay men and women cannot be so easily classified." But, if that's the case then how can we say that straight men are the only reasonable choice as Boy Scout troop leaders? If we cannot easily classify one group of people, this would mean that straight men could be pedophiles and poor examples of troop leaders. We would have to judge a person's fitness to be a Boy Scout troop leader based on their individual strengths, character and honor. And from what I have heard, the Boy Scouts are all about sweeping generalizations, not individual recognition.
No, I say compromise like this is good. Actually recognizing an individual's strengths and character is just too difficult. Keep up the good work, Boy Scouts!
Editor's note: This post is satirical.
William Dameron's personal blog is The Authentic Life