I oppose the Boy Scouts of America lifting its ban on gays.

Yes. That's right. You heard me say it. I opposed the Boy Scouts lifting the ban. "What's going through this fag's head?" you must be wondering.

Well, I have a pretty good historical precedent for this. Many of you reading this article are too young to remember the '80s. But we had a very similar case going on in the 80s. Some of you may have heard of Catholics and Mormons? Through the '70s and early '80s, they would immediately excommunicate you for being gay. Boom. That's it. You're out. Actually, it wasn't that simple. They dragged you through their sloppy version of a judicial courtroom setting just to humiliate you. Then they threw you overboard and dropped your duffel bag on your head. Bye-bye.

They soon learned that they had created what I term "the Australia Effect." You may recall that Australia was a prison colony that turned into a country. People kicked out eventually formed their own associations. Gay churches and support groups popped up. People started to communicate and build communities. People started to learn that they did not have to be subject to the psychological torture the church was doling out. "Uh-oh," they thought. We just lost control. The effort was euphemistically masked as a charitable one: "Oh, we can't let our sheep get lost."

They quit excommunicating as a matter of routine. It still happened to the very visible clergy who got caught in the airport bathroom with the baggage handler. But that's another episode of Jerry we'll watch later. For the most part, especially youth, they took the "we love you" approach and kept the gay people—especially youth, again—inside the church.

You may have heard the phrase "love the sinner, not the sin." This was one of their key catch phrases—the objective being that while they appear to no longer reject and discriminate against you, they could continue their psychological torture, ex-gay ministries, basic head-baking, etc. Historic precedence suggests the Boy Scouts will eventually learn this as well. When they do, they won't kick out the gays. They will just try to convert them into little right-wing, fundie-Christian heteros with all the head-ba-king that goes with it.

Oh, by the way, if you've been wondering where gay Republicans come from...

So do our community a favor—especially the youth of our community. Do what you can to keep gay youth out of the influence of the Boy Scouts. Don't let them take our youth in. They will use them to break our community down. There are plenty of other opportunities for gay youth to learn, grow and build relationships. We don't need to subject them to the torture of yesteryear.

David P. Mansfield

Chicago