The Family Research Council (FRC), one of the nation’s premier pro-family organizations, announced yesterday that it would cease using United Parcel Service (UPS) as its primary package distributor in the wake of UPS’s decision to cease funding the Boy Scouts of America because of the Scouts’ longstanding policy of not accepting openly homosexual Scout leaders or members.
The problem began in early November when UPS decided to stop contributing to the Boy Scouts after the Scouts reaffirmed their position against allowing homosexuals to become scouts or serve as scout masters. UPS made their decision following pressure from the liberal website, change.org, which gathered 83,000 signatures asking the shipper to stop funding the Scouts.
However, as FRC president Tony Perkins pointed out in a Nov. 27 letter, more than one million volunteers who provided Boy Scouts leadership last year signed on to the re-affirmed position.
” . . . (T)he 1,074,775 volunteers who provided leadership to the Boy Scouts last year—agreeing to abide by the Scouts’ moral code—is more than twelve times as many as those who signed the petition,” Perkins wrote to the organization.
“In addition, the 2.7 million boys who were members of the Boy Scouts is more than 32 times as many as those who signed the petition This much larger number of young people and adult volunteers are the ones for whom you have shown profound disrespect—and whose valuable activities will suffer from the loss of funding.”
Perkins spoke with UPS executives about their recent decision to cut funding, but said they showed no willingness to back down from “bullying non-profits into abandoning their values.”
Because of this, the FRC will no longer do business with UPS.
“The mission of the Boy Scouts is ‘to instill values in young people’ and ‘prepare them to make ethical choices,’ and the Scout’s oath includes a pledge ‘to do my duty to God’ and keep himself ‘morally straight.’ It is entirely reasonable and not at all unusual for those passages to be interpreted as requiring abstinence from homosexual conduct. UPS should not try to impose the competing values of the sexual revolution upon the Boy Scouts.
“The Scouts’ policy is also a matter of security. After hundreds of cases of child sex abuse plagued the organization, the Boy Scouts tried to create a membership criterion that reduces the risk to Scouts, and that protects the rights of their parents to be the first to discuss topics like sexual orientation with their children.
“The Scouts, unlike UPS, are about instilling character and leadership into America’s boys. UPS, in the name of ‘tolerance,’ can’t tolerate such efforts.
“UPS has the right to fund the organizations it chooses. It’s unfortunate that they’ve chosen to ship America’s next generation of leaders to the curb. FRC also has the right to do business with companies that are not hostile to traditional values; therefore, we informed UPS that we will take our business (which is equivalent to the amount they are directing away from the Boy Scouts) elsewhere.”
© All Rights Reserved, Living His Life Abundantly®/Women of Grace® ttp://www.womenofgrace.com
