My Comment:  God bless this man, for having the courage to take a stand!  We need more like him!

MARIETTA, Ga. (BP) — Parents of Boy Scouts should remove their children from the organization, Atlanta-area pastor Ernest Easley advised in his Sunday sermon.

Troop 204’s affiliation with Roswell Street Baptist Church also will end, Easley said.

“I never dreamed I’d have to stand up publicly and say to parents: Pull your kids out of the Boy Scouts,” Easley told Baptist Press May 28.

“If you would have asked me that five years ago, 10 years ago, I would have laughed,” Easley said. “And even as I was saying it Sunday morning, I thought, I cannot believe I’m having to address this and encourage parents to pull their children out of the Boy Scouts of America.

“Unbelievable.”

The tie between Roswell Street Baptist Church and Troop 204 dates back to 1945.

Now, however, children are at risk, said Easley, now in his 12th year as senior pastor of the Marietta, Ga., church. He also is chairman of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee. Easley, the church and Troop 204 were the focus of a Baptist Press article May 7 exploring the potential impact of a vote to permit openly homosexual boys in Scouting. On May 23, the BSA’s 1,400-member National Council voted to adopt the membership policy, 61-39 percent, as proposed by BSA national leaders.

“My greatest concern is the protection of boys,” Easley said. “This decision opens the floodgate for a potential increase in sexual abuse of children.”

And openly homosexual men will become Scout leaders, Easley predicted.

“Having made this decision, the Boy Scouts will face all kinds of pressure and litigation to accept openly gay leadership in troops across America. I can’t see now how the Boy Scouts legally can prevent homosexual leadership from invading the ranks of the Boy Scouts of America,” Easley said. The Scouts, he noted, have now abandoned the tradition that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld in 2000 in permitting the Scouts to decline membership to openly gay leaders and members.

Baptist Press 

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