By Katie Halper • @kthalps • 11 years ago

Obama opposes Boy Scouts gay ban, homophobes support it

In a pre-Superbowl interview President Obama came out against the Boy Scouts of America’s ban on “gays.” CBS’s Scott Pelley said, “next week the board of the Boy Scouts of America is going to vote on whether to end their national ban on gays in scouting. Should scouting be open to the gays?” And Obama’s response was unequivocal: “Yes.” When asked, “why so,” Obama explained,

“My attitude is that gays and lesbians should have access and opportunity the same way everybody else does, in every institution and walk of life. And The Scouts are a great institution that are promoting young people and exposing them to opportunities and leadership that will serve people for the rest of their lives. And I think nobody should be barred from that.”

http://youtu.be/fgkf47t9v3E

But not everyone is as committed to, like, equality, fairness, opportunity and access. Guess who hearts the ban against gay membership! I’ll give you a hint. They’re both named Rick. 

Intellectual heavyweight Governor Rick Perry offered an extremely thoughtful analysis on why the Scouts should stay gay-free:

“Hopefully the board will follow their historic position of keeping the Scouts strongly supportive of the values that make Scouting this very important and impactful organization. I think most people see absolutely no reason to change the position and neither do I… To have popular culture impact 100 years of their standards is inappropriate.”

In other words, change is inappropriate. That should be the GOP’s official motto. Another Rick, Rick Santorum, is also against dropping the ban, as he subtly suggested in a WND column entitled “Stop the War on Scouts.” So, the “War on Women” is a figment of our Feminazi imagination, but the War on Scouts is real? I think Santorum’s confusing that with a fight against intolerance, bigotry and homophobia.

nyc

Born and raised on the mean streets of New York City’s Upper West Side, Katie Halper is a comic, writer, blogger, satirist and filmmaker based in New York. Katie graduated from The Dalton School (where she teaches history) and Wesleyan University (where she learned that labels are for jars.) A director of Living Liberally and co-founder/performer in Laughing Liberally, Katie has performed at Town Hall, Symphony Space, The Culture Project, D.C. Comedy Festival, all five Netroots Nations, and The Nation Magazine Cruise, where she made Howard Dean laugh! and has appeared with Lizz Winstead, Markos Moulitsas, The Yes Men, Cynthia Nixon and Jim Hightower. Her writing and videos have appeared in The New York Times, Comedy Central, The Nation Magazine, Gawker, Nerve, Jezebel, the Huffington Post, Alternet and Katie has been featured in/on NY Magazine, LA Times, In These Times, Gawker,Jezebel, MSNBC, Air America, GritTV, the Alan Colmes Show, Sirius radio (which hung up on her once) and the National Review, which called Katie “cute and some what brainy.” Katie co-produced Tim Robbins’s film Embedded, (Venice Film Festival, Sundance Channel); Estela Bravo’s Free to Fly (Havana Film Festival, LA Latino Film Festival); was outreach director for The Take, Naomi Klein/Avi Lewis documentary about Argentine workers (Toronto & Venice Film Festivals, Film Forum); co-directed New Yorkers Remember the Spanish Civil War, a video for Museum of the City of NY exhibit, and wrote/directed viral satiric videos including Jews/ Women/ Gays for McCain.

Katie is a writer, comedian, filmmaker, and New Yorker.

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