By NICK CHILES
The allegations against the Boy Scouts of America are so enormous, so mind-bending, so unthinkable, that it’s almost too much for one mind to grasp.
According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, the Boy Scouts of America, perhaps the nation’s most revered and respected community organization for boys, covered up hundreds of child molestation cases across the United States over the course of the last four decades. In many cases, the organization wouldn’t even tell parents their youngsters had been sexually abused—and they would allow the molester to go free, oftentimes leading to more abuse in the future with other boys.
In the 1970s and ’80s, according to the Times, “secrecy was embedded in the Scouts’ policies and procedures for handling child sexual abuse.”
The paper said that a cover sheet that accompanied many confidential files included a check box labeled “Internal (only scouts know)” as an option for how cases were resolved. A form letter sent to leaders being dismissed over abuse allegations stated: “We are making no accusations and will not release this information to anyone, so our action in no way will affect your standing in the community.”
That letter was included in the organization’s 1972 policy on how to remove unfit leaders, which, according to an attached memo, was kept confidential “because of misunderstandings which could develop if it were widely distributed.”
In fact, it was the actual policy of the Boy Scouts to keep these cases secret, so as not to sully the reputation of the esteemed group.
But the BSA would keep its own internal documentation—something it actually called the “perversion files,” a blacklist of alleged molesters that they group has used internally since 1919. But according to the Times report, often the blacklist didn’t work—former molesters would slip back into the organization and molest again.
It is these internal files that the Los Angeles Times got its hands on, allowing the paper to rip the covers off a case so disgusting and appalling, I can’t imagine how the organization will be able to survive the lawsuits, public ridicule and national horror that is sure to follow the organization around for decades to come. I’m predicting a sure Pulitzer Prize for the LA Times reporters involved, Kim Christensen and Jason Felch. Their story makes Jerry Sandusky at Penn State seem almost minor in comparison. Which one is more monstrous, one man who wreaks havoc on at least a dozen young lives while the powerful turn a blind eye, or a century old group which has allowed the abuse of maybe thousands or tens of thousands over the course of more than a third of this nation’s history?
Knowing what we now know, what parent in his or her right mind would march their son down to the local BSA and sign him up?
When the Boy Scouts took their recent stand against allowing gays in the organization, many cheered the group for its “old fashioned” morality—not allowing something as amorphous as human rights to get in the way of Boy Scout traditions. But other onlookers, and I include myself in this group, walked away a bit amazed that this massive organization, which has served a total of 110 million people in its history, could come off as so unprogressive. So stunted.
But now it becomes clear: This was a group that has long been rotten at its core, so broken and dysfunctional that it would be much more interested in protecting itself from what it probably imagined was marauding waves of future gay molesters than considering the debased hypocrisy and homophobic paranoia that likely infects every fiber of the organization.
The sex scandals that rocked the Catholic Church over the past 20 years or so were so profound that their repercussions are still being felt—after the church has spent years paying out millions and trying to figure out a way to come to grips with its own complicity in the monstrous things that were done to young boys over the years.
We now only have to wait for hundreds or thousands of Boy Scout molestation victims to start coming forward, with horrifying stories, lifelong suffering—and attorneys primed to make this venerable organization pay dearly. And not for a second will I feel sorry for BSA. As surely as I pass my fingers over the keyboard, the lawsuits will come. They will be epic, operatic, profound.
To the Boy Scouts of America, I have just two words: Be prepared.
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Denene Millner
Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.
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As the victorious rape victim, a Catholic, and a Den Mother for a local Miami den, should I not go to church or keep my son in scouting? There are bad people in everything that we do. We as parents have to be vigilant in talking to our children and teaching them how to protect themselves when we are not around. Now as for me, I am ALWAYS around. What happened to me will not happen to him on my watch. Scouting provides skills that these young men can take with them through their lives. It is terrible to know that there are men out there taking advantage of these boys and THEY deserve their punishment, not the ones doing their job righteously.
Yes, Chica, of course there are many fabulous people involved in the Boy Scouts—probably millions of them over the years. But what we are talking about here is a cover-up that amounts to probably the most horrific case of child abuse and molestation in the history of the Unite States. I can’t speak for you, but I would have a difficult time standing up proudly for an organization that has demonstrated how corrupt, rotten and dysfunctional it is at its core. By remaining a member, by signing my kid up, I would feel like I was condoning the institutional policies of this group. I would be inclined to go somewhere else, to another organization that was also doing good deeds without also showing a willful disregard for the well-being of thousands of innocent children. Your experience has been positive, but the organization has demonstrated that if something were to happen to your child, the BSA’s policy is that you might not ever find out about it. How could that be alright with you? To me, standing up for the Boy Scouts at this point is like being a member of a club that refuses to admit blacks, Jews or women and saying that it’s okay because the club also goes out and does good deeds. The good acts do not cover up the evil.
What such organization can you recommend that you KNOW FOR CERTAIN has no skeletons in it’s closet?
No one is saying that all parents should lock their children in a basement and wait for the worst. There is no certainty for any human being or any human-run organization. But when a leopard shows you its spots, believe it’s a leopard and act accordingly.