Video: Christian TV host says Scouts lifting gay ban will allow ‘predators and paedophiles’
A Christian television host has questioned whether “predators and paedophiles” would be allowed to be Scout Masters if the Boy Scouts were to lift its ban on openly gay scouts, volunteers and staff.
Speaking on his own programme, 700 Club, on the Christian Broadcasting Network, Pat Robertson said that he hoped that the BSA would do “what it feels right”, rather than bowing to pressure from the “political correct crowd”.
The Boy Scouts of America announced last week that it could soon lift its national ban on allowing gay members, volunteers and staff. Its National Executive Board has been in discussions since Monday, and a decision is expected this week.
In the video, posted by Right Wing Watch, Robertson says: “This isn’t a public organisation the state needs to get involved in, but what’s happening is that they are making it look more like a congressional thing so that the Congress gets involved.
“They have no business fooling with the Boy Scouts, and the Boy Scouts should be free to do what they want to do, and the board should feel free to do what it wants to do. That’s just the way it is.
“I think that this organisation has done so much for so many young men, and the question is: are there predators, as boy scouts, paedophiles who would come in as scout masters, and if they are then of course parents wouldn’t want their sons being involved in the Boy Scouts, or their daughters in the Girl Scouts.
“That’s not a pleasant situation but it’s a private organisation… The board is not meeting to deliver today, they’re going to vote tomorrow on what to do, so our prayers are with them that they will do what they feel is right for them, not what the political correct crowd thinks is right for them.”
The issue of the BSA’s board voting on whether to lift its ban on gay scouts has proven to be divisive over past weeks.
Last week one US radio host said the scouts should “shut down” rather than allow gays in, and that these are signs of the “end times”, and another said that allowing gay scout masters would allow “gay activists” to “spread deviant sexuality”.
