father and son
Boys Scouts Protected Child Molesters So I’m Making My Son Quit
From Reuters.com:
The Boy Scouts of America could face a wave of bad publicity as decades of records of confirmed or alleged child molesters within the U.S. organization are expected to be released in coming weeks.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported the organization failed to report allegations of sex abuse of scouts by adult leaders and volunteers to police in hundreds of cases from 1970 to 1991. In some cases, the Boy Scouts helped the accused “cover their tracks,” the paper said.
From Slate.com:
The Los Angeles Times reviewed 1,600 of the Boy Scouts’ confidential “perversion files†dated from 1970 to 1991 and found more than 500 cases in which officials learned about abuse directly. In around 80 percent of those cases, there is no record of the Scouts reporting the claims of abuse to authorities and in more than 100 cases there seems to be clear evidence of efforts to hide the abuse. Worst of all, there are clear signs that some of the abusers went on to hurt other children.
The Boy Scouts claim that they are no taking extra precautions to protect children within their organization and released a statement on Sunday:
“The BSA (has) continuously enhanced its multi-tiered policies and procedures, which now include background checks, comprehensive training programs and safety policies,” the statement said.
To me this is a case of too little, too late. I don’t care if a kid is never abused again within the Boy Scouts (although that would be a great thing, of course), for me it’s also the knowledge that this organization turned a blind eye towards the sexual abuse of its members. Like we’ve also seen with the Penn State scandal and the Catholic church. My own son may never be hurt by a leader in the Boy Scouts, but that doesn’t negate all the kids who came before him who have been hurt. And I can’t support an organization who ever participated in such a repulsive coverup, no matter what good work they do in communities.
My son will probably be disappointed in my decision to pull him out of Boy Scouts, but I can’t allow him to be involved in a group that ever allowed children to be hurt in this way. We’ll just have to find another way for him to participate in camping activities and earning merit badges.
(Photo: Jason L. Price/Shutterstock)