But in recent decades, local Boy Scout councils around the nation have ordered clear-cutting or other high-impact logging on tens of thousands of acres of forestland they own, often in a quest for a different kind of green: cash.
A Hearst Newspapers investigation has found dozens of cases in which the scouts ordered the logging of prime woodlands or sold them to big timber interests and developers, turning quick money instead of seeking ways to save the trees.
My internal cynic smartass’s immediate thought a mere two paragraphs into this well-worth-the-read article in today’s San Francisco Chronicle / sfgate.com was: “well, it’s nice to see that at least they don’t discriminate regarding which trees to hack down.”
It didn’t even enter my mind that BSofA representatives would deflect responsibility for an apparent pattern of poor environmental stewardship choices by blaming teh gay. I nearly fell off my chair a couple more mere paragraphs into today’s article:
At times, the scout councils have logged or sold wild properties that had been bequeathed specifically for use as scout camps.
In some cases, councils have sought revenues from logging or land sales to make up for funding lost because of the organization’s controversial bans on gays and atheists.
“The Boy Scouts had to suffer the consequences for sticking by their moral values,” said Eugene Grant, president of the Portland, Ore., Cascade Pacific Council’s board of directors. “There’s no question” that the Scouts’ anti-gay, anti-atheist stance has cost the organization money, he said. As a result, he said, “every council has looked at ways to generate funds … and logging is one of them.”
Catch that? The poor victim has to resort to irresponsible land management at odds with best practices and with its own stated conservation-minded values because of teh gay.
Unbelievable. No whiff of recognition that the organization alone and itself chose the path toward just rewards as a result of its discriminatory policies, and that it is alone responsible for loss of support. And on top of that, it’s apparently because of teh gay that it chooses to barter away its stated conservation principles in exchange for cold, hard cash.
Discrimination is fine, and values are fungible. That’s some nice behavior modeling, fellas.
