University Park Father Gets Booted as Popcorn Sales Volunteer
Four years ago I wrote a column about University Park resident and single father of triplets, Jon Langbert. He’s a hard working, St. Mark’s grad, Harvard educated, super involved parent. So why is he no longer allowed to be the dad in charge of the Boy Scouts of America popcorn sales campaign for pack 70 at University Park Elementary? Because he’s gay.
Langbert said that in 2009 he took over the fundraiser and rallied troops to the tune of $13,000, a $9,000 increase from the previous year. He held training lessons for every den and even led “walk the block” sessions and did pretend, role-playing sales so the scouts could practice before hitting up neighbors.
In September he and his son were invited to recruit new scouts on KPAW, the U.P. Elementary morning televised announcements. But now he claims he’s been told that he can’t wear the uniform or act as an official volunteer. Why? Because some non-volunteer dads complained.
Langbert said, “I’ve been told to ride in the back of bus, that I’m a second class citizen. It’s a history story.” And he wonders why it’s being taught in HPISD buildings that his tax dollars support.
94 comments to "University Park Father Gets Booted as Popcorn Sales Volunteer"
Shame on the “non-volunteering” homophobic fathers for complaining. To ask you to step down because of your personal life style, that I doesn’t affect anyone & is no one‘s business anyway, is just appalling. I will never ever buy another bucket of useless popcorn from scouts ever again, and I will encourage my friends to support this as well.
Jon Lanbert is an amazing father. His kids are well behaved wonderful kids. As a single mom, raising two boys, I too was a scout leader & volunteer, and I did not agree with a lot of the backwards, antiquated thinking of this organization.
I celebrate you Jon, you rock as a parent, and a lot of parents out there, including dad’s should wish they could be as awesome as you. ;=)
I know that I will have to face the same discrimination as a gay father…I have two amazing 4 year olds and a partner of 23 years. I luckily have a supportive community & church where they look at us as any other normal family. I have to say that normal “straight” families are less normal than mine now days with divorce being such an easy out…many kids have a mommy and daddy but never see the two at the same time.
Further, the Boy Scouts only provide the guiding light to the way a unit operates…a set of policies procedures etc…to give the volunteers an idea as to how to operate. Groups called charter partners and parent committees LITERALLY own and operate each and every unit in the global BSA family.
I’m not saying that the BSA inst to blame…but rather…there not the only part to blame. Get your facts straight folks before you start laying blame.
BSA is not a religious organization. It _affiliates_ with faith organizations. See http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/operating_orgs.aspx and http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/ReligiousAwards.aspx.
BSA simply has a membership standard that requires a belief in God. It does not say how one expresses or practices this belief. This is radically inclusive and is compatible with religions that don’t have an Abrahamic view of God or DIY spiritualists. It only really excludes those who have made the atheism choice. Atheists are free to set up their own ACLU Scouts movement.
Now the homosexuality policy–look back at the chartering organizations page. Note how the faith-based chartered organizations dominate the list. Now further notice how you don’t find a denominationally neutral view of homosexuality until you’re at #8, United Church of Christ, Congregational Church (and even that one varies per congregation). That’s after you’ve passed up 91% of the faith-based chartered units, or about 2/3 of _all_ chartered units. And that’s not factoring in churches #9-#26 or non-faith chartered units that don’t have neutral views of homosexuality, including Pack 70. (It’s chartered by a community group.)
Now do you see the immense organizational risk to BSA with a sudden change in the homosexuality policy?
Do I like the homosexuality policy? Not really. Homosexuality looks much less the clear-cut choice society once thought it was. Also, evidence is lacking that homosexuality makes someone more likely to abuse children.
However, I also appreciate the organizational risks. In the USA’s Scouting movement, the ultimate power rests in chartering organizations. BSA cannot survive if it angers 2/3 of its chartering organizations.
So what’s my point? The BSA is between a rock and a hard place on the homosexuality policy. I don’t see how BSA can suddenly end this policy without drastic turmoil. And I don’t like it when I see BSA being beaten up for serving its chartering organizations, even if I don’t fully agree with the policy it must uphold.
For clarity: I strongly support the BSA’s faith policy.
“BSA is not a religious organization” – According to the Boy Scouts in their official letter to the Unitarian Universalist Church (revoking BSA’s approval for the Unitarian Religious Emblem): “Boy Scouts is not a ‘secular organization’ as stated in [the UU pamphlet] ‘Religion in Life;’ Boy Scouts is an ecumenical organization which requires belief in God and acknowledgement of duty to God by its members.”
Almost ALL child abuse is perpetrated by straight men. What you wrote has just been bugging me, because it seemingly out of nowhere brought up child abuse and linked it to homosexuality. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
I have to vociferously agree with zoe in how proud I am in reading many of the comments. I don’t know Mr. Langbert, but he certainly is getting glowing reviews and commendations on here.
I find it astonishing that his sexuality has anything to do with the ability to sell popcorn. Shame on these other “dads” who have an issue with him. They should be embarrassed of themselves, and need to “man up” and apologize to Mr. Langbert face-to-face.
Like all homophobes, the Boy Scouts are hypocrites of the first order. And because they have rolled over for the bullies who outed Mr. Langbert, they are teaching another generation of boys that bullying is acceptable and successful. Shame on them.
Look at reality folks…the BSA is a volunteer organization. They (just like any other volutneer organization) would never intentionally cast aside people that are willing to volunteer and follow their guide lines in terms of how to operate the program.
Again…not saying I agree with the policy. Just asking for a realistic perspective.
Beyond the moral dimension of the BSA’s policy there is a straightforward safety issue. Contrary to Sammy’s claim, a significant proportion of child abuse is committed by homosexual men. You don’t need to venture too far out of the Bubble to notice the One with Courage billboards: 1 out of 6 boys sexually abused. Who is sexually abusing boys if not homosexuals? It’s not often women — only 4% of the relevant population that enters the criminal justice system are women. Some gay organizations insist that child sexual abusers aren’t ‘homosexual’ or ‘heterosexual’ as such, but ‘ebophiles’ or something else, creating self-excluding categorizations to avoid otherwise straightforward conclusions. A favorite trick is to categorize homosexuals (MSM) that do not live a ‘gay lifestyle’ as ‘straight’, inviting a reader to equate this latter category with ‘heterosexual’. The Center for Disease Control estimates that 4% of the male population is homosexual (MSM); harder to pin down due to reporting issues (unsurprisingly) but the high bookend for abusers in the population over 13 is about 1.5%. There is some messiness in the math due to odds & ends (e.g., incidence of bisexuality, sibling abuse, etc.) but the numbers bring you to a pretty narrow range for ‘probability of child sex abuser given homosexual orientation’ of 9 to 13% or an incidence of at least 7x greater than the general population.
Knowledge of other personal characteristics (e.g., father of three perhaps, or perhaps even being ‘out’!) would change the odds, but it’s not reasonable to expect the BSA (or any other responsible organization) to expend the energy to further qualify any one individual for work with children. Especially since ‘volunteer’ is not obviously a good thing in this context.
For those of you who personally are acquainted with Mr. Langbert, it may be hard to accept that the BSA’s policy is sensible as such. If you’re not a math person, take a moment to google ‘boy scout leader admits’ — someone knew and liked all these men, too. This is one subject that’s too important for political correctness.
I’m still bristling about my kids’ elementary school giving out the email lists we were required to fill out for our official class rosters to the local upstart Christian mom prayer group. I suspect it wasn’t actually the school, but the workings of non-thinking, volunteer moms. We all received a verbose and overly assumptive invitation to join their group and pray for our new kindergardeners, in pursuit of a more “Christ-centered life.”
I have no problem with anyone worshipping anything they want to, but please don’t use the public schools to try and spread your word, whatever it is. The BSA should be all-inclusive or simply get out of our schools. Maybe they could meet at the YMCA for organizational purposes or whatever they are currently doing in the individual campuses. It’s centrally located to all of us and everyone knows what the “C” stands for!
Shame on the homophobic (INSECURE) dads who ratted him out!
My guess (my hope?) is that the kids of these spineless, ignorant dads are laughing at them, and wondering what the big deal is.
To the dads who raised this issue with BSA and got Mr. Langbert relieved of his post, you should be ashamed of yourselves. What kind of example have you set for your sons? They will no doubt grow up to be narrowminded nimrods like yourselves. When they grow up, you can visit them at the used car dealerships where they work and talk about the good old days when you devastated some poor guy’s kids just to make yourselves feel macho. Thank God my son has intelligent parents and won’t turn out like you.
I grew up in HP schools and love this school district. That being said, HPISD is incredibly wimply about standing up to the fringe evangelicals when they demand access. Area ministers roam the cafeteria at lunchtime at the middle school because the principal will not deny them admittance. Praying Parents info is on the volunteer tables on Meet the Teacher Night because the individual room moms don’t want to look radical by pulling it and the principals won’t stand up and say it’s not OK. HPISD should absolutely deny access to the BSA, but don’t hold your breath because it’s not going to happen unless Mr. Langbert sues (which I hope he does).
Someone mentioned that other schools are laughing at us over this. That cracks me up. Yeah, I’m sure those liberal folks at Providence or Parish or Coppell or Allen are really horrified that a gay father was not allowed to be a BSA leader. It might have distracted them for a moment from their efforts to ban Harry Potter and evolution from their classrooms.
If I find out who they are, I will find out those secrets, & share with you all! LOL
2. I am sure that Jon, being Harvard educated and gay, spent a lot of time with his decision to become a father, let alone a single father. No one can convince me that he didn’t worry about something like this happening as he was going thru that thought process. I am equally sure that his ability to make his fatherhood a reality came out of his decision that he could handle whatever might come up in regards to his homosexuality.
3. Jon, having gone thru HS and Harvard and being out, is well aware of the societal positives and negatives on homosexuality. To suggest that he is not aware of the more conservative positions or the religious attitudes towards homosexuality is again making him naive. I am sure he is not naive. I have many patients and friends who are gay. NONE of them require a discussion on the conservative positions or the religious attitudes towards homosexuality. Most of them need to know that most evangelicals value the Jesus-based concept of “relationship” as much as they understand what the bible says about sexual immorality. I value relationship over fear.
5. How could Jon, coming out of St. Mark’s, being Harvard educated and gay, be shocked by this incident? I’m sure he did due diligence in his decision to live in UP. Did he not understanding the mores of the slightly more conservative Park Cities area may be at conflict with his homosexuality? Did he not see that there are Churches within walking distance of every part of UP? Again, he isn’t that naive.
6. Jon, being Harvard educated, must surely understand the civil process by which communities and schools are governed. School boards set the standards for access to school facilities. Some of these standards are set the board, some by the state and some by the feds. His particular windmill that he wishes to tilt at is set by the feds. Per HPISD school district policy:
http://www.tasb.org/policy/pol/private/057911/pol.cfm?DisplayPage=GKD%28LEGAL%29.pdf&QueryText=BOY%20SCOUTS
Now I love @Bob’s Mom. Everytime I read her posts I learn more about her. As she and I have jousted over the HPPC issue I made the comment that when the feds begin to define what our rights are as individuals, as communities and as a state the less ability we have to change things. Here is another example of that. It would be nice that if Jon wanted to react to his affront by getting the BSA kicked out of UP elementary that he had a local avenue to do it. Getting with the trustees, establishing a petition, getting community input etc. Maybe he would be successful, maybe not. But the local avenue doesn’t exist in this situation. Big government means intrusive government.
6. Those people who are wringing their hands about what the effect will be on his children must be “it takes a village” people. The effect will be whatever Jon will allow it to be. He will teach his children to overlook the prejudices of others and move on (while quietly working behind the scenes in seeking justice for his cause). Or he will teach his children reverse intolerance by belittling the beliefs of others. It is up to Jon to make that decision. It is up to Jon, as the parent, to parent.
Somebody used the phrase “man-up” to describe what the fathers who objected to Jon being in a leadership position needed to do. The fact is this is all about Jon. It’s about his decisions on who he is, what he wants for his kids and how he will go about doing that. There is a high road and there is a low road. Right now he is sharing the low road with the rest of the intolerant.
And really Jon; whining to Merritt? Really? I can only hope that she heard this over the grapevine and you didn’t come to her with it.
So Jon should have chosen to live somewhere else so that the rest of us didn’t have to bother to learn some tolerance? So it’s all his fault because he should have known better than to think this highly educated community might have been able to just let him live his life (like the rest of us want to)? Way to blame the victim.
I assume that if an African American student were to be taunted by her classmates because she looks different, that would have been her parents’ fault because they should have known that we don’t want “her kind” here? Surely that’s not what you’re saying?
Maybe if we parents are a little more accepting of people like Jon (and the responses on this blog overwhelming suggest that we are more accepting than you think), our kids will be a little more tolerant and less afraid of differences than these parents apparently are.
By the way, what’s your hang up with Harvard and St. Mark’s? You’re sounding a little Glenn Beckian with the whole “anti-elite” thing.
Ultimately, you are correct that Jon will have to teach his kids to deal with stuff like this. They will probably be stronger people from having to learn to deal with bigotry at a young age. I just wish little kids didn’t have to learn how hateful people can be.
It is about how Jon handles this. Is he going to let a few Dads “win” the day or is he going to continue to volunteer, host meetings and increase popcorn sales even more? My position has always been if someone is trying to suppress your success you push back with more of what got you there. Whining about it to Merritt (and I don’t know that he did..Merritt has a great grapevine) isn’t going to help. Suing the BSA will probably get him no where and as you can see by the reference I made to HPISD policy there isn’t anything he can do to remove the scouts from UP elementary. This is a lose-lose for everyone. Those that support him will shake their finger at the BSA and HPISD. Those that support the BSA will shake their finger at him and wag their tongues all over town. You can out the fathers that did this on this blog or in the paper, but there will be back slapping by those that agree with them that will offset what every embarrassment they might have to undergo. And of course, HPISD gets another black eye with some of the town and kudos from others. Merritt will get another bag of “I heart Merritt” mail which will be offset by the “I hate Merritt” bag. Jon will still be in his pickle.
Jon has to be the one to decide how to handle it. He has to be the one to teach his kids to move forward without constantly looking sideways or backwards. He has to be the one to teach his children tolerance and teach them how to teach others to be tolerant. You know why? This incident is just about Cub Scouts. What happens when they get to MIDDLE SCHOOL!!!? Is he or his kids going to run to Merritt or the administration or the courts every time some lame-brained teenager makes a crack about gays? No this is part of what it is to be Jon. It is the hard job he took on when he decided to be a single father of 3 who happens to be gay. Maybe he needs to stop BEING gay and start BEING daddy. Stop defining himself by his sexuality and define it by his fatherhood. Stop letting other people define him by his sexuality and force them to look at him for his success….this is the problem in the Bubble more than anything else…we allow other people to define who we are. Even then he will still have to find the barriers in order to overcome the barriers that will ALWAYS be there as he tries to raise his kids. Those barriers are there for all of us in one form or fashion. And we try to overcome them. And we get help from our friends and neighbors (just as he is now) which makes this place great. But putting it out in public does shine the light on the kids even more. Going public is not always the best course of action. I think I am starting to tread in Miles Morrison waters. Miles?
By the way, I wonder if BSA masterminded the Salem witch hunts.
Thanks Miles.
Girl Scouts of the USA stated in an October 1991 letter:[49]
As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference. However, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has firm standards relating to the appropriate conduct of adult volunteers and staff. The Girl Scout organization does not condone or permit sexual displays of any sort by its members during Girl Scout activities, nor does it permit the advocacy or promotion of a personal lifestyle or sexual preference. These are private matters for girls and their families to address.
Having lived here for some time but not from here, none of this surprises me. Sadly. Just more of the same of the hypocritical moral stance of many so called “religious” people in this community.
So every time a person comes up against some bigotry, or a bully, or racism, or intolerance, etc., the onus is 100% on the recipient of the action and none on the perpetrator?
Of course Mr. Langbert will be responsible for his own actions, and how he deals with his children and their reactions, etc. But the community as a whole (and specifically the people who have a “problem” with him as a gay father) need to take some responsibility too.
Hopefully by the time his kids GET to middle school, there won’t be any more “lame-brained teenagers” making anti-gay comments, because their parents got some sense into them and raised them right.
And I really can’t even think of how to respond to your “Maybe he needs to stop BEING gay and start BEING daddy.” comment. I think you probably would want to just take that one back as being out of line. From all I’ve heard, he’s an excellent dad, and the gay part seems to be the big issue with other people, not him.
Boy Scouts: Their policies are consistent with protecting children and young adults from abuse. While abuse of girls & young women is an even larger problem as Zoe correctly points out, one otherwise winces while getting some insight into how common misconceptions are cultivated & maintained, especially the confusing of absolutes and proportions. Estimates in the social sciences are inherently fraught and there is the temptation to advocate through statistics. There is not serious question, however, that a significant proportion of boys & young men are sexually abused by adult men and that only a small proportion of adult men are non-heterosexual. Unless one is prepared to argue that heterosexual men (self-defeatingly) or women are the perps, one is backed-into the conclusion that a significant minority of non-heterosexual men are abusers and at rate much higher than the general population. No doubt there are studies ‘on the internet’ one can find to comfort any hothouse belief, but the facts speak for themselves. The BSA is under attack from a Progressive Pincer — name-callers that advocate for putting (others’) children at risk one the one hand, complemented by trial lawyers seeking to cash in on the back-end when the BSA is found to have failed to protect. The leadership has not been vigilant enough in the past and is right to be increasingly intolerant and phobic of things like this: http://topics.oregonlive.com/tag/timur%20dykes/index.html The vast majority of non-heterosexual men are NOT abusers but the vast majority of abusers ARE non-heterosexual men — both can be true at the same time. The BSA is right to put the considerations of the most vulnerable in society first let alone the need to staunch the legal, financial & reputational damage the organization is suffering.
The Bad Dads: I am not acquainted with Mr. Langbert and can’t ‘look at the person’. Even those that can, however, need to be humble about their ability to judge hearts accurately enough when the stakes are so high. And if you would trust your own child to be with Mr. Langbert, what about other men that might be coming and going? (Barney Frank’s apparently genuine bewilderment about the gay prostitution ring being run out his home by a ‘friend’ comes to mind.) I’ll bet that most readers would encourage the Bad Dads to carry life insurance to protect their kids against a very low probability but very bad-outcome-if-happens risk; why should anyone expect bumper-sticker philosophy to cause them to suspend judgment in this context? I expect that the Dads do ‘tolerate’ but what some commentators really want them to do is to ‘accept’ irrespective of the natural parental desire to protect their children from premature exposure to ‘alternative lifestyles’ or even their safety. Dads should be able to send their sons to Cub Scouts without having to think about it. It’s commonsensical enough that I suspect that Bad Moms are behind it all.
“Maybe he needs to stop BEING gay and start BEING daddy. Stop defining himself by his sexuality and define it by his fatherhood. Stop letting other people define him by his sexuality and force them to look at him for his success….this is the problem in the Bubble more than anything else…we allow other people to define who we are.”
Only captioning the first sentence takes the entire idea out of context. Can you really argue with that idea?
If you, Margot and Jon are going to sit around waiting for your pound of flesh you might be waiting a long time. I love how Margot put it “There is a time to right the old wrongs and that time is now, whether you and this community can handle it or not.”. It has that “I’m going to get you and your little dog too.” quality to it. You can’t put your life on hold waiting for someone’s comeuppance. You can’t wait for an apology from someone that hurt you. A good friend of mine once told me that when faced with circumstances that have hurt you you can poll 100 of the people you are acquainted with. 90 of them won’t care, 5 will feel sorry for you and one or two might even find a way to help you. But the other 5 will secretly be glad it’s happening to you. My friend grew up in the Bronx and is hyper-cynical but you get the drift. Most people that have hurt you don’t even realize they did. A fair percentage of people that realize they hurt wouldn’t care. Jon needs to act now and take a higher road than other people around. Does that preclude him from acting behind the scenes to amend a policy he feels is discriminatory? Of course not. By all means start with Pete Sessions. Sounds like a better plan than what I have heard so far.
I don’t think that Mr. Langbert IS defining himself by his sexuality – just as I’m sure you don’t define yourself by your sexuality. My guess is that it’s really no big deal to him, and he has quite obviously done a LOT of things that should cause others to ‘force them to look at him for his success’.
To me, the problem is that no matter WHAT Mr. Langbert does in his life: whether it’s winning “Father of the Year”, becoming a championship golfer, or being elected Senator from Texas (hopefully replacing Cornyn!), to many small-minded people, he will be “that gay”. I don’t think it’s his job or mission to show up these people, or constantly have to prove himself to them. And my guess is that his self-esteem or identity isn’t defined by them anyways.
It’s up to the people who are defining him that way to open their eyes and their hearts, and realize that it’s their problem, not his.
Sex offenders in 75205 – total of 8. 6 involved females, ages 12, 15, 16, 11, 12 and unknown); 1 involved male, age 12, 1 offense unknown. The two that technically live in our school district assaulted underage girls.
LONE STAR – please share – what are the statistics for sexually abused girls? Are they abused by MEN???? Who should we REALLY be afraid of?
Using Lone Star logic, we should not have male coaches, teachers AND NEIGHBORS because aren’t they most likely to offend the FEMALE children in OUR neighborhood???
Oh yeah – per Lone Star’s stats, we need to get an all female priesthood for the local catholic churches NOW because we KNOW that all male Catholic priests are pedophiles, just like all the other homosexuals???? Cause aren’t all Catholic priests homosexuals??
Message from JT: If you are not a WASP (evangelical preferred!!) and you move to the PC with a “liability,” whatever treatment you get you deserve (especially if you are Harvard educated.) Obviously proud of this intolerant neighborhood, under JT logic, if you move here and we don’t accept you and your kind of “liability,” it was your own naive fault for moving here in the first place. You knew what you were getting into, so tough noogies. Take the high road and move NOW, before we force you and your “liability” out. Oh yeah, and sorry if our kids (who we are so carefully teaching to be intolerant by our behavior) mistreat yours (after all YOU were the one who decided to have these kids with “liabilitites” in the first place.) Told ya to take the high road and get out – FAST.
OOPS – almost forgot – whiles we are generalizing and classifying, we all remember about the underage female who was manipulated/molested by her pediatrician. Turns out she wasn’t the only one – when they can to arrest him for sexual assault of a minor (he mid 30′s, she 16), he took the easy way out and committed suicide. Never did find out how many others there were. Message: Find a female pediatrician for your daughters cause we all know that male pediatricians are child molesters….
LONG LIVE LIABILITIES!! (Mine, not yours, of course!!) MAY THE BUBBLE NEVER BURST!!!
IJS…
PS. YOUR intolerance is showing.
Jon actually contacted whoever was the pack leader before he had his son join several years ago, to ensure that the leader knew that Jon was gay and to ask if the pack leader thought there were any problems with that. He was assured that it wasn’t an issue and so he joined. I’m not sure if you intended to sound offensive with the reference to “Jon coming out of the woods at Norbuck Park zipping up his pants”, but it came across that way. It’s okay for people to disagree on this blog, but a certain civility should prevail. I can assure you that as a single parent of 3rd grade triplets who owns/runs his own business and is involved in a committed relationship, Jon is not the kind of man who would do that. I’m also confused why you would equate his homsexuality with some sort of sexual encounter in the woods. Most people I know, gay or straight, use a bed for that stuff. IJS.
Whatever your opinion on what is right or wrong, you can’t seriously think that this is not a BSA or HPISD story. It can also be a story about how Jon handles it, but it most certainly involves the other two groups. That is really not a matter of opinion, but fact.
So it is YOUR view that this is all about how Jon handles this. Fair enough, I respect that you have the right to your opinion. And for the record, I can see both sides of this issue, the BSA clearly have a policy of not allowing gays to participate in BSA leadership. I don’t agree, but then again, I don’t have to. But then, they also shouldn’t be able be involved in public schools with this discriminatory position. And since it seems that he has not hid his homosexuality from anyone, they shouldn’t have let him volunteer in the first place. But they did, so THAT is also part of the story.
http://www.tasb.org/policy/pol/private/057911/pol.cfm?DisplayPage=GKD%28LEGAL%29.pdf&QueryText=BOY%20SCOUTS
As far as the BSA and their position, as many of you have said… the policies aren’t going to change nor do they have to. The only thing we can hope for is that the Scouts of today take what is good about the group (and there are a lot of good aspects) and leave behind what is wrong with it as they mature into the young men that will be the future leaders of the organization. I, for one, am an Eagle Scout and I look back on my days in Scouting positively… I also know that the intolerance they exhibit is not something that I want to be a part of today.
Here is the way out:
Nothing in this policy shall be construed to require the District to sponsor any group officially affiliated with the Boy Scouts of Ameri- ca, or any youth group listed as a patriotic society.
Boy Scouts of America Equal Access Act, 20 U.S.C. 7905
HPISD: Do the right thing and disassociate Troop 70 from UP Elem School.
Oh, I know the policy.
As to the BSA, I think it is a wonderful organization filled with great people. My son is a Cub Scout, and the people involved are fantastic. Doesn’t mean that I agree with the BSA’s stance on all things, however, just as I don’t agree with my Church’s stance on some things, but I’ve come to terms with them.
Your way out is no way out because Troop 70 is not sponsored by the school district but rather is sponsored by “concerned citizens of University Park” as detailed by their website. As such the school district is statutorily required to make its facilities available to them.
It continues to be my opinion that this is about how Jon is going to handle this and not about the BSA or about HPISD. As I have previously stated the Troop itself may have some ‘splaining to do to the community because of the clumsy way that this appears to have been handled, but Jon is both the lynch pin and the key to how this will play out.
A pedophile is an adult that is sexually attracted to children…has absolutely nothing to do with being straight or gay. I have volunteered for the Dallas ISD for more than 20 years, soliciting my gay and straight friends to serve in many capacities. It is a terrible waste of a vast resource, when gays are prevented from serving. Ignorance is not bliss.
At the end of this day I have my answer. This is about Jon, it is about his ego and it is about his feelings. This is not about his kids. To bad.
I don’t know JonLangbert from Adam, haven’t seen him on TV, and don’t know what kind of father he is, so I can’t comment on his parenting. He sounds like an involved dad, but maybe he is publicity seeking. That doesn’t mean that the other commenters are wrong to criticize the BSA’s policy. I’m the father of an Eagle Scout, and I think the Boy Scouts are a tremendous asset to our community and our country, but this policy is a bad one.
How exactly was this entirely a setup? For the last couple years, Jon Langbert was a volunteer for the Cub Scouts. He didn’t join to make a political statement — he joined because of his son. Jon didn’t openly proclaim his sexual orientation to other people in that organization — it wasn’t like he stood in front of the cub scouts & their parents and said, “Hey everyone, I’m gay…..Now what are you going to do about it?”
No. Jon was “outed” by an another adult in the Cub Scout pack who knew that Jon Langbert was gay, and therefore didn’t want him in the organization anymore.
As you mentioned, I’m pretty sure that Jon knew about the Boy Scouts’ policy of discrimination & exclusion towards gay men (and gay boys, for that matter). But Jon decided to have his son to take part of the Cub Scouts anyway, because HE WAS THINKING ABOUT HIS SON’S INTERESTS (the thing you accuse him of not doing).
I don’t see anything wrong with Jon Langbert getting any “face time” out of this……From what I can tell, he is an upstanding member of the community who is just another victim to BSA’s policy of discrimination. Will Jon Langbert change the Boy Scouts’ policy towards gays? Probably not. But it does shed light on discrimination within the Boy Scouts of America, within our local community.
As a side note, the Boy Scouts’ exclusion of gays is increasingly becoming out-of-touch with the times. Excluding gays from the Boy Scouts or even refusing to acknowledge that, yes, some people are gay or lesbian, is a disservice to today’s youth. It sends a message that people who are “different” — as in gay — are either to be made invisible, avoided, or even confronted & harrassed.
What is a Boy Scout supposed to do when he finds out that the man who lives next door, is openly gay? Should he run away in fear? Or recite Bible verses and tell the man he is not “morally straight”?
What is a Boy Scout supposed to do when he sees a gay, or slightly effeminate, classmate being harassed or tormented? Should he join in, and call him a “f****t” too, because that’s what all the other popular boys are doing? Wait, that wasn’t covered in the Boy Scout Handbook……
In our society, people who are gay or lesbian, are gradually becoming more open about who they are. Providing an illusion to boys that these people don’t exist, or that they are to be looked down upon, or even despised or hated, is a disservice to our youth.
@Jim Rain said what I believe the majority of people that have come to this site to comment are trying to say, “Sometimes it’s best to say — clearly, loudly, and publicly — “This is wrong, and it must change!” Bravo and Hallelujah!
I’m glad to know @Margot Keller, what an amazing mom, friend and neighbor you are!
I am thankful for individuals who are willing to put themselves out there, when the rest of us would rather be “quietly working behind the scenes.” These people have real courage and can more speedily and efficiently affect real change that makes life better for all of us.
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