Parish 'to part ways' with Boy Scouts after vote to allow gays

BREMERTON, Wash. -- The pastor of a Roman Catholic church in Bremerton has announced that his parish will no longer have any involvement with the Boy Scouts of America in light of the organization’s recent vote to allow gay youths to join.

The Rev. Derek Lappe, 41, pastor of the Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church, made the announcement on the church’s website (click here) with the headline of “Fr. Lappe’s Response to New Boy Scouts.”

“I do not feel that it is possible for us to live out, and to teach, the authentic truth about human sexuality within the confines of the Boy Scout’s new policy and so I would like to give an explanation as to why it will be necessary for our parish to part ways with the New Boy Scouts,” he wrote.

Lappe goes on to say that there is “nothing scientific or logical” to arguments that there is a genetic origin to homosexuality and that people are born homosexual.

“The New Boy Scouts are basically offering a program of ratifying a label of ‘gay,’ which the young man has placed on himself, and which so many elements of society also are happy go place on him,” he writes, adding that people need to "actually get to the issues that could lead to hope and healing for the boy, rather than imprisoning him in that self-identification for the sake of political correctness."

Later in his address, Lappe writes, “I am very aware that my objection to the change in the New Boy Scouts is increasingly considered bigoted and backward. I know that there are many good people within the Catholic Church who will disagree with me. I am aware that in many people’s minds ‘homosexual’ identity is the new civil-rights issue and that there has been huge swing in public opinion on this issue over the past few years.

“But I won’t put public opinion ahead of the good of the boys and young men in my parish, and I won’t pretend that polls can trump the truths about sexuality and humanity that are revealed to us, first of all by natural law, and confirmed in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Catholic Church.”