Written: 5/27/2012
We’ve seen it before, namely, with Penn State, and we’ve seen it before with the Boy Scouts. A man was convicted of molesting and abusing at least 15 youth during his time with the Boy Scouts of America and the Scouts Canada. Now, the caveat is that I have no idea how Scouts Canada works, the only interaction I’ve ever had with them was when we had a Canadian troop come to our camp once (which was a lot of fun, I still have my fake passport which let me cross the bridge).
But here’s the sentence that absolutely infuriates me:
“You do not want to broadcast to the entire population that these things happen,” A. Buford Hill Jr., a former Orange County Scouting executive, said of officials’ decision not to contact authorities. “You take care of it quietly and make sure it never happens again.”
No. NO. No, you fucking call the police. This is not hard. You call the police. This man is a monster and the proper authorities, those trained in how to deal with situations like this, need to be involved.
No question should be easier to answer. We’ve seen this go wrong with Penn State, and chronically with the Catholic Church around the world.
Maybe it’s some sort of weird perversion to hide anything to do with sex, to repress anything. Maybe they want to still be able to hide behind the false claim that gay men are the molesters (which study after study have shown that they aren’t), instead of having to admit that straight men are pedophiles. I don’t know.
But this isn’t the answer.
All my best,
The King of Spades
