In an op-ed published at the Family Research Council’s website this Tuesday, FRC president Tony Perkins delved into what he sees as the culprit for the recent “collapse” of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) — a collapse that was one of the “saddest, most predictable ‘I-told-you-so’ moments of our generation,” according to him.
Perkins is referring to the recent Associated Press report that says the BSA announced its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection amid a wave of sexual abuse lawsuits.
The Boy Scouts of America urged victims to come forward Tuesday as the historic, 110-year-old organization filed for bankruptcy protection in the first step toward creating a huge compensation fund for potentially thousands of men who were molested as youngsters decades ago by scoutmasters or other leaders.
All this could have been avoided, writes Perkins, if the BSA hadn’t surrendered after a “century of conviction.”
“The Scouts spent years in court just for the freedom to stick to their moral code,” Perkins writes. “They won — but to the organization’s dismay — the battle didn’t end. Waves of LGBT activists kept coming. The pressure built and built until finally, in 2013, under the leadership of Rex Tillerson, headquarters gave into the lie that compromise would be their salvation. Seven years later, the irony is: there’s nothing left to save.”
Perkins goes on to call the BSA’s encounter with LGBTQ rights a “radical experiment,” which resulted in the BSA’s leadership being rendered “anemic” after opening its arms to “kids and leaders who identify as gay or transgender.”
Perkins, who is a right-wing conservative Christian, is one of the leading figures in the U.S. who lobby against LGBTQ rights. His organization has been labeled a “hate group” by the Southern Policy Law Center.
He goes on to claim that the BSA’s downfall is an example of what happens when traditional groups raise a “white flag on core values” and allow “moral compromise.”
Read the full piece over at FRC.org.
Featured image via screen grab/CNN
