With the recent appearance of several letters regarding homosexuals in the Boy Scouts, I feel compelled to address a few points. One letter stated that excluding gays is different from excluding on the basis of race, since race is inherited and homosexuality is not. This suggests a deeper kind of racism, the kind that says black people will never be as good as whites but can grudgingly be accepted (pitied) because they can't change their sorry lot, so we may as well accept them into formerly all-white roles. How condescending. If skin color were a choice, apparently it would still be OK to have slavery and segregation. The fallacy of the argument is obvious.

Discrimination is discrimination.

In another letter we find that gay scouts are OK so long as they agree to not talk about it. This is basically another case of grudging acceptance, implying that a gay scout is bad and can only be accepted if he pretends to be other than what he is and fakes his life, not for his own good so much as to avoid offending others. Gay troop leaders are condemned outright with the idea that the boys might be in danger (presumably from homosexual rape but more likely from being subjected to the noxious sounds of *NSYNC). By the same argument, every family is in danger because Dad wants to rape his daughters and Mom wants to have intercourse with her sons. It is obvious that predatory sexual behavior is wrong, but such behavior isn't linked with homosexuality. As a cynical side comment, I should point out that most pedophiles are heterosexual.

Much like Nietzsche, I recommend that we stand against the stupidity and evil of millenia and make ourselves decent. Let's become better people.