It was a great morning for a run, and my group was in fine spirits. The organizer had let us know that she had brought a continental breakfast that was suitable for the gluten phobic, keto fanatics, vegans, and even for a carnivorous carb muncher like me. After running and helping the leader unload her cooler and the other items for the post run meal, I sat down on a picnic table bench with my back to the table and observed the festivities. Moments later, a woman I had never met, and who had not run with us, dropped her purse on the table next to me and introduced herself, “Hi, my name’s Barb.” “Hi, my name is Ned. Since you are not running on this fine morning, I assume you are the smart one in this crowd.”
She laughed, but before she could say anything else the organizer walked over and greeted her like an old friend. After brief pleasantries, the organizer, Julie, noticed Barb had brought a book with her and it was sitting on the table behind me. It was a copy of “’I’ve Got Something to Tell You”, the “memoir” of the legal life partner of the hapless and hopelessly incompetent Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. Barb gushed about it and Julie dutifully swore to get her own copy and read it immediately.
Looking up what the book was about after leaving the picnic, I decided I would never under any circumstances buy the book. Is there anything that makes a man’s story less compelling than trying to portray himself as a victim because he is: 1) gay, which is practically a badge of honor these days; 2)legally ”married” to an ineffective, disingenuous, pandering fake like Pete Buttigieg, who nonetheless makes $221,000 per year and lives on the largess of left wing loons who will sell their souls for the chance to give money to gay politicians; 3) has a net worth of $12 million, but “struggled with a student loan debt of 6 figures” between him and spouse; 4) now makes a living talking about himself 24/7, and raising two kids acquired by unknown but legal means by himself and Buttigieg?
The last straw in terms of his credibility and my barely existent curiosity about his views was finding out that he legally took Buttigieg’s name as his own. No matter who you are there is NO excuse for aspiring to be named after Pete Buttigieg. It was plain that the book was about homosexuality from the title, but finding out it was about those specific gay men destroyed any desire to read it.
Realizing that the women were kindred spirits I started to tune out their conversation, but then Barb mentioned that she was a Boy Scout leader. Being an Eagle Scout from back in the days when the Boy Scouts meant “Boys” when they said “Boys”, I tuned back in without joining their conversation. Barb indicated that she was reading the book because she was responsible for teaching the boys in her troop about “Diversity Equity and Inclusion.” As she said that, she caught herself and said apologetically, “Actually, we have girls too, but most of the troop members are boys.” It was quite a relief that she said that, as the possibility that her Boy Scout troop might not have girls in it was terribly offensive… NOT! She went on to say that to become Eagle Scouts, her charges had to earn a mandatory merit badge called “Citizenship in Society” and they had to understand the importance of embracing DEI principles to earn that badge!
Suddenly, the day seemed a little less cheerful. This additional evidence of the breadth and depth of the liberal assault on traditional values, time honored institutions, and the relationships between friends and family members was sobering. The Boy Scouts of America (BSA)were founded as an American Judeo-Christian organization devoted to installing traditional values in American boys to prepare them for a life of service to their country and their fellow citizens. That started changing in the 1970s when the money hungry executives running the BSA decide that to increase their income, they needed to attract as many boys as possible into their ranks.
They saw America becoming more urban and decided that an organization that sought to build manly attitudes in boys by teaching them outdoor skills like camping, hiking, shooting, horseback riding, fishing, and canoeing would have little attraction to inner city kids. Plus, the Judeo-Christian emphasis was off-putting to Muslims, Hindus, atheists, etc. The sell outs, er, I mean the enlightened fools who ran the BSA saw only dollar signs and figured that such pandering would endear them to the left wing who hated their guts. Could they have been any more abjectly stupid?
In any event that, that decision started the long and dismal decline of the BSA. The Eagle Scout award became a quasi- political indoctrination program that lionized the Federal government, the United Nations, and the media, and started emphasizing book work and socializing in indoor venues rather than camping, hiking and other outdoor skills and recreation. Predictably, suburban boys started opting out of the BSA in favor of Little League baseball, football, and basketball. Teen boys have little desire to spend their free time studying tiresome political bromides to earn a “Citizenship in the World” merit badge. My personal approach was to go all out to earn my Eagle Scout rank before the new requirements invalidated my merit badges in camping, cooking, lifesaving, canoeing, etc. Once I earned the Eagle rank I left my troop, never to return.
Years later, when my son considered joining the BSA, I investigated it and found out the organization was on the road to total ruin. From an organization dedicated to raising boys to be patriotic men who embraced Judeo-Christian morals and ethics, the BSA had morphed into a social club that had a reputation for attracting bookish, non-athletic, introverted, and decidedly wimpy boys. The fact that a lot of troops were being led by women likely did not help. Neither did the fact that the BSA was actively pushing to increase its membership by recruiting non-Christian and atheist boys and leaders. By that time, the big debate was whether to allow gay Scoutmasters. That ended my interest in allowing my sons to participate in camping trips with the BSA.
Thirty years later, I found myself listening to a woman describe the desolate wasteland that the BSA had become, and she thought it was a great organization for teaching tolerance and acceptance. She would probably love it if gay boys and girls went camping with her in her troop. What a change from when it was assumed that sexual relationships were for adulthood, NOT teenagers on BSA camping trips. Deriders who accused as homophobes parents and adults who loudly opposed gay male Scoutmasters in the BSA, were sadly proven catastrophically (or perhaps gleefully) wrong when the BSA was bankrupted by lawsuits from former Boy Scouts who claimed they were sexually abused by Scoutmasters.
Only folks like Barb and Julie are surprised by that, and they see no connection between that development and the decision to allow gay men to take teen-aged boys to the woods for a few days of living together. Now, Barb is responsible for teaching the next generation of Boy Scouts how to handle that environment with tolerance and understanding. What could possibly go wrong?
As Barb related the wise life lessons she was imparting to her Boy/Girl scouts, Julie was chiming in enthusiastically, “That is so great! We need people like you teaching kids to be more accepting. We do not want them to be like these MAGA people and their rejection of anyone who is not like them!” (Sorry Julie, but that is really a dumb commentary. You bash “MAGA people” while saying you want people to be more accepting? I suppose I should have worn my “Trump 2020” hat to the run. Ha!)
Barb: “I know right?!?! My daughter came to me a year ago and told me she had to leave the Catholic church because they are so exclusionary and hurtful.” (Maybe the daughter just wants to sleep in on Sundays.)
Julie: “I know! I had to leave too, but I found a church that has a wonderful gay minister. He and his husband are just fantastic, so welcoming and accepting of everyone.” (Just curious, what denomination is this? One thing is certain, it is NOT a Christian church.)
By now, the conversation had gotten too silly for me to tolerate it any longer, so I slipped away without engaging in the discussion. However, I cannot not slip away from the conviction that America remains on a devastating trajectory set by a lack of moral standards, a depraved focus on sexuality and lionizing promiscuous behavior, the enabling of predators, an assault on the innocence of childhood for the benefit of corrupt and criminal doctors and “health care” facilities, and a misplaced faith in big government.
Are conservatives intolerant of those things? You bet we are! Unfortunately, the forces pushing that agenda are intolerant of us to a degree that most conservatives fail to comprehend. They are working 24/7/365 to dismantle EVERYTHING that conservatives have built in the country: our families, our churches, our marriages, and our freedoms. The only choice conservatives have is to get into the fight or watch everything they believe in get swept away. The flood is three feet high and rising…
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