On Friday, the following was published at American Thinker: 
May 24, 2013
The First Word in BSA Now Stands for Betrayal
Rick Scarborough and Robert KnightYesterday was a dark day for America. Delegates to a national Boy Scouts of America (BSA) meeting in Texas apparently voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to validate homosexuality among boys. We are outraged.
This is a betrayal of the highest magnitude. It’s a betrayal of the boys in the Scouts’ care. It’s a betrayal of trusting parents. It’s a betrayal of a 103-year-old institution that has molded millions of boys into men. It’s a betrayal of truth and honor.
Finally, it’s a betrayal of God, in Whose name the organization furthered the priceless worth of being morally straight.
I sent a copy of this posting to my personal e-mail list with the following heading (revised):
Even without any of the religiosity expressed herein, it’s still the end of the America I grew up in. Damn shame. Be sure to pay attention when Obama once again issues a proclamation designating June as “LGBT month.” (For those unfamiliar with the expression that’s “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender” month.) It took the gay activists thirteen years, but they managed to essentially overturn the 2000 SCOTUS decision saying the Boy Scouts weren’t obligated to have openly gay Scout Masters. Gays obviously want for themselves what they refuse to grant others: Freedom of association and freedom from persecution. Hypocrisy, anyone?
The legal and political hammering imposed by progressive warriors is designed to wear down anyone foolish enough to oppose. From whence do they derive their stamina? Or has Western Civilization just worn itself out? Perhaps it’s the financial support provided by tax-exempt foundations.
I received this response from an old friend who emigrated to America a long time ago:
The election last November wore me down! This is not the America I chose to emigrate to by my own free will.
I am thinking of what I will discover when I revisit my birthplace next month. One thought that crosses my mind is: Would I have made the same decision to come to America that I made almost 50 years ago? The answer, with what I know now, is clearly no. I certainly would not go to Greece, nor anywhere in Europe (Germany?). Probably Australia or maybe Texas. Though I’m not sure about that either – where is it likely to be in 20 years?!
Oh well, c’est la vie…
We live by the decisions we make on the spur of the moment with knowledge that is temporal, in a context that is constantly changing, and whose trajectory no one can judge 50 years in advance.
Then again, Solzhenitsyn seems to have had a fairly good notion of what was on the way.
I should also mention that this same fellow was quite taken aback when I told him that I considered those friends who had died relatively young to be fortunate in at least one sense: They did not have to witness the downfall and destruction of the United States.
Roger Kimball once wrote regarding what French essayist Julien Benda had to say in 1927:
The “treason” in question was the betrayal by the “clerks” of their vocation as intellectuals. From the time of the pre-Socratics, intellectuals, considered in their role as intellectuals, had been a breed apart. In Benda’s terms, they were understood to be “all those whose activity essentially is not the pursuit of practical aims, all those who seek their joy in the practice of an art or a science or a metaphysical speculation, in short in the possession of non-material advantages.” Thanks to such men, Benda wrote, “humanity did evil for two thousand years, but honored good. This contradiction was an honor to the human species, and formed the rift whereby civilization slipped into the world.”
That rift now appears nearly shut.
Update: Pressure on BSA intense and unrelenting:
American Spectator
Did the Boy Scouts Cave to Pressure?
by Robert Kirchhoefer May 24, 2013, 12:00 AMThe Boy Scouts of America voted to lift the ban on openly gay Scouts on Thursday afternoon. Their rule forbidding gay scoutmasters and adult leaders is still in place.
The decision is not at all surprising. The Scouts faced extreme pressure from groups like GLAAD and Scouts for Equality to lift the ban.
Scouts for Equality proved a formidable fighting force in the battle against the ban. The group, founded by 21-year-old Zach Wahls, the son of two lesbian mothers, has 15,000 members, including 20 full-time employees dedicated to the cause. Scouts for Equality zeroed in on 200 councils and even hired Global Strategy Group, a communications firm, to drill in its message.
GLAAD aided Scouts for Equality in its cause by helping to gather thousands of signatures via Change.com. It also focused on churches and faith communities, which represent the largest group of donors to the BSA, some of whom the organization risks losing.
In addition, cases like that of Ryan Andresen helped to publicize the cause. Andresen, an openly gay teen from Moraga, Calif., applied to become an Eagle Scout but was rejected solely because of his sexual orientation. Andresen’s case became national news and he even appeared on the Ellen DeGeneres show.
The Family Research Council (FRC) led the defense of the ban. Senior Vice President Rob Schwarzwalder headed the Boy Scout task force dedicated to upholding the policy.
“People who join Scouts know what the rules are. They also know there are many alternative organizations for their boys in which prohibitions against homosexuality do not exist,” Schwarzwalder said in a statement on the Family Research Council website. “Just don’t ask the 2.7 million boys in the BSA… to compromise their moral convictions and permanently alter the very nature of Scouting.”
In retrospect, it seemed fairly inevitable that the BSA would vote to end the ban. The dedication of gay activists to the cause was enormous. With statements like “they might as well take America out of their name,” by GLAAD spokesman Rich Ferraro, it was easy to see how so many people were won over to the cause.
It’s a shame to think that this decision by the BSA might be due to the immense pressure that mounted before the vote. I hope that the 61 percent of the 1,400 members of the BSA that voted honestly believed they were doing what was best for the organization and the boys, and didn’t merely feel that they had to cave to gay rights activists.
Either way, this is far from over. With the ban on gay Scouts gone, expect gay Scoutmasters to be next on the agenda for LGBT activists.