Takei Reacts to Boy Scouts Announcement
2 min read
Last week, the Boy Scouts of America upheld its ban on gay members in the organization and this week, actor George Takei, a former Eagle Scout, replied to that announcement.
In a new column, Takei expressed his disgust with the ruling and vowed to fight the ban.
“The words that comprise the motto of the Boy Scouts of America are words I revered as a teenager,” said Takei. “I was a member of Troop 379 and treasure my memories of being part of that institution. But an ugly blemish remains on the BSA which I and others are determined to see removed.
“These policies by the BSA reinforce that gay people are unfit to be part of this national organization because of who they are. They perpetuate the irresponsible and unsupportable stereotype that gay people prey upon children. And they must be met with staunch resistance until they fall.”
Takei acknowledged that the Boy Scouts of America are a private organization and “as such should be able to keep whomever they want out,” but said that “This is of course the same justification used to prevent minorities from eating in restaurants during the Jim Crow years. And where an organization as revered and national in scope as the Scouts maintains and defends such a policy, it sends the wrong message to our youth, many of whom already are struggling with their own sexual identity–an identity which has nothing whatsoever to do with their ‘morality,’ but everything to do with their self-esteem and happiness. I believe should be revisited–I and others have the same ‘legal’ right to protest the policy, till our last breaths if necessary, as blatantly discriminatory and against everything that equality in America stands for.”
The actor vowed to continue to fight the ban. “I, along with Jennifer, Eric and the folks at GLAAD (The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) will not stop fighting until the ban is overturned, if not in court, then in the court of public opinion. Progress is not measured in days or months or even years, but in the slow and inevitable turn towards equality for all people irrespective of inherent differences which frankly in this day and age, SHOULD. NOT. MATTER.”
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Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts openly discriminate against both gays and athiests. Please stop supporting these organizations. Stop buying their cookies, stop contributing to their bottles drives etc. When they stop the discrimination we can support them again.
What I’d like to know is why the gay rights people can’t just walk away from this one? There are already gay friendly boy scout groups out there and BSA has lost a lot of money over this. Are the gays so hard up to conquer everyone they can’t just agree to disagree for once and walk away? Seems like they rather force their views on others instead.
As a strong supporter of BSA and a highly religious person, I ask for the gays to let this one go. Stop the hate on those who don’t agree with you just this one time. Walk away, it is ok, really.
Just like blacks should just walk away from those lunch counters that were deemed not for them?
Geesh… That comments like yours still issue from people’s mouths in the 21st century make me feel that humanity may truly be in its final act.
Did you not get the central message of equality from Star Trek?
The BSA is an anacronism from Victorian times. Their leaders are control-type personalities where ‘men are men’ and ‘girls are girls’. Kind of reminds of a bunch of rednecks. No thanks – I have never wanted anything to do with them.
“Hate on those who don’t agree?” Agree with what? That gay people cannot be good Boy Scouts? If you’ve followed the case, this has already been disproven.
How is being who they are “hate?” How is wanting to be in an organization “hate” of that organization? It is not hatred, it is a point: the Boy Scouts’ view on gays is inconsistent with their other principles.
I dont think its just “the gays” who disagree with this policy. Are you really suggesting appartheid for people based on who they sleep with? Just imagine if you were thirsty and you were turned away from a source of water because you liked Star Trek? would you say “fair enough I’ll go thirsty then” or would you expect the same rights as everyone else? I find it unbelieveable that someone could come to a Star Trek site and say this? When both Takei and Quinto came out did it make an iota of diffeence to their past performances? or the stories they were involved in? Of course not! So why is this different to any other job? And before you bring in that in the scouts “the gays” would work with children then you need to think carefully about whether you have simply mistaken the words “peadophile” and “gay”.
I think it would be more accurate to call them an Edwardian anachronism but point taken (especially with the Boer War as a significant background to the foundation of Scouting). To be fair, some troops are vastly different than others. My wife was a Boy, not a Girl Scout (this, however, was with the Boy Scouts of Canada).
That is the best approach.
I’m not going to hate on you, because I don’t hate you. I disagree with you.
The BSA’s current stated position is, no one should be openly gay in BSA. This infers an equivalent policy to “Don’t ask, don’t tell”. While DADT seemed like good idea on the surface of it, there are good reasons why it failed as a policy.
However, in BSA, the “don’t ask” is not part of the policy; the question is being asked. This forces people who support scouting and want to contribute, and kids who want to be scouts, to lie: to conceal a significant part of who they are.
this goes against two key tenets of scouting.
1) Honesty.
2) Self esteem, which if I’m not mistaken is one of the reasons BSA was founded in the first place.
The position the BSA is taking reinforces a stance that many groups have taken before: that gay people are bad or are not good enough, have no place in society, and should hide who they are. I submit that this is a harmful message to send to adults, let alone children. I also submit that this message is still harmful whether there are still gay people left in the BSA, or not.
I do agree that private organizations should have the right to say who they will and will not admit. I also agree that people have the right to be upset about it, even to protest it. If enough people are outraged, the organization may want to reconsider their policies– but they should not be required to. The BSA should be free to evaluate for themselves whether they want to adapt to changes in modern society, or fade into irrelevance and obscurity. As much good as the BSA has done, (being another former Scout,) I sincerely hope they choose to adapt.
One final point. I have never agreed with the philosophy of “just walk away”. I find that it is often a phrase used to persuade people that they cannot or should not fight, when in fact they can and they should. I’m sincerely hoping that that is not what you intended.
They won’t be happy until they’ve infected every organization with their diseased perversions. The fact that it would give gays easy access to young boys and young men makes the BSA the ultimate prize.
Takei needs to let this one go!
He spoke at a Star Trek Convention here in Nashville last month alongside many other established Star Trek actors. All of them were highly entertaining and told funny stories…..but Takei came to give a serious political speech about gay marriage. That was his right, and I had a right not to listen, but I went to have a good time, not for political speeches.
And if he wants gay marriage legalized so he and his bf can “have dignity,” then why does he go on Howard Stern and eagerly tell stories about having sex with several anonymous men when he was younger, with no sense of shame whatsoever?
It doesn’t sound like dignity is what he really wants!
Nor they, I suspect, you.
It’s fascinating and illuminating in certain respects if you choose to pay attention. Out of one side of his mouth he talks about how he just wants the same rights as any straight person has (a fallacious argument–he has the same rights to marry a woman as any straight does–but a convincing one to some people), but out of the other side of his mouth he talks about all the anonymous sex he has. Which is it, George? Do you want to have sex with hundreds of anonymous men or do you want to settle down with one?
The answer is, for Takai and for all gay men, both. The CDC actually had to redefine their strata with respect to the distribution of the total number of lifetime sexual partners that gay men have engaged with–and it makes sense why when you consider that the median is in the hundreds.
But gays aren’t happy to simply indulge their perversions privately. They have to rub it in the faces of you and me and all normal people by uprooting every institution and tradition that might stand in their paths.
In the 60s, he couldn’t realistically have had a proper long-term relationship (like the one he’s been in for many years now) because of the social structure perpetrated by bigots like yourselves. His career would have been at risk, for one thing. Anonymity was at times necessary. When he tries to provide perspective on this period while being interviewed about it decades later, you tune in and then claim he is trying to “rub it in the faces of you and me.” Ridiculous.
“Which is it, George? Do you want to have sex with hundreds of anonymous men or do you want to settle down with one?”
Obviously it is the second, which is what he has done since it became feasible.
Shitskin apparently prefers to ignore the facts in favor of base titillation.
Another bigot who deliberately equates homosexual with paedophile, and can’t possibly conceive of homosexuals as being anything other than sex-crazed fiends.
The Girls Scouts is inclusive, the Boy Scouts isn’t. You’ve got it all wrong.
The Mormon church comprises a high number of troops. The Mormon church is also set up to move their kids to their own version of scouts should the BSA ever do something they don’t approve of. The LDS chokehold on the Boy Scouts of America has been going on for roughly 30 years now.
All of that money from the Mormon troops would be lost if BSA goes against LDS ideals. Thus, the BSA executives will always kowtow to Mormon religious practice. Tadaa!