So there’s this guy. He is a Boy Scout leader (well, technically, Sea Scouts, but that’s just BSA in a boat) named Eugene Evans, who made headlines about ten years ago when he sued (unsuccessfully) to stop the city of Berkeley, California, from canceling the city’s agreement to provide berthing for Sea Scout vessels. (Similar to the current Philadelphia case, the Scouts created the facilities in question in cooperation with the government, in an earlier era.)

Evans has now been arrested on 19 counts of felony sexual assault, for allegedly sexually abusing four of the young men in his charge, ranging in age from 13 to 17. These charges are very serious and if they are proved, Evans will be going away for a long time. Good.

If you ask most people why the Boy Scouts of America bars gays from positions of leadership, you are likely to get variants on one or both of the following responses:

  • homosexual behavior is morally improper, and Scout leaders must be moral role models for their charges
  • leaders often have unhindered contact with the boys in their troop in conditions of physical isolation, and it would be inappropriate to have leaders who could be sexually attracted to boys under those circumstances

Now, the first reason is one on which people of good will may disagree. Not everyone agrees that homosexual behavior is morally wrong; I’ve seen a variety of numbers bandied about, but picking the first reasonable survey I could find online, about 25% of Americans say that homosexual behavior is morally acceptable. It probably depends on how you define “morally acceptable” - my personal experience is that it’s more 50-50. Regardless, there’s a major division here, not a social consensus, and even as a Christian who believes homosexual behavior IS morally wrong (though not uniquely or particularly so), I can readily accept a good faith argument from someone who doesn’t.

The second reason is one where you would think there would be less contention. There are sexual predators in the world; one of the most straightforward ways of protecting young people from such predation is to be a little bit picky about who gets to take them out into the woods or onto the ocean; Scout leaders are in a position of guardianship and protection over their charges; you don’t set a fox to guard the henhouse. It’s common sense.

But gay rights proponents are, in my experience, unremittingly hostile to this line of argument. “Not all gay men are attracted to teenage boys, and even among those who are, they aren’t all predators!” And of course, this is true - just as it is true that not all men are attracted to teenage girls, and even among those who are, there are many who would never indulge that attraction. Yet, the Girl Scouts of America do not permit men to be troop leaders or take girls on camping trips - again, because it’s common sense.

All foxes will rob a henhouse; foxes are just animals. Not all gay or straight men would make or accept sexual advances from a teenage boy or girl; people have control over our actions. So isn’t it horribly unfair to bar gays from Scout leadership roles, and to keep men out of the GSA? Yes, it is unfair, but it is also the best we can do. It would be nice if there were some way that we could predictably identify sexual predators, to be able to point to a guy and say “this one will molest anyone he can get alone in his tent”. But unfortunately, we can’t do that. Which means we are forced to either give up on the idea of protecting our children from sexual predation when they go off to scouting activities, or forced to draw broader boundaries around who can and can’t be a leader. Note that the GSA doesn’t screen male leadership candidates to keep out the perverts and let in the nice guys who want to help girls; they just say “no boys allowed”.

Which brings us circuitously back to Mr. Evans. You might think that his case would seem relevant to the argument over the BSA policy. After all, here is a living example of the problem that the BSA’s policy is intended to prevent: a man who is sexually attracted to males took advantage of his power relationship with these boys. But no - because, you see, Mr. Evans isn’t gay. No! He’s a pedophile.

The first commenter at Alas and the second commenter at Feministe both immediately did make the logically obvious jump: Mr. Evans is a closeted gay man, whose (presumptive) self-torment led him to abuse these boys and also to be an advocate for the BSA’s restrictionist policies. (It is a common theme on lefty sites that men who advocate for anti-gay measures are closeted gays themselves; although I hate the theme, there does seem to be some evidence for its validity. A lot of anti-gay-rights campaigners do seem to end up in those toilet stalls.)

Fortunately, the mental hygiene patrol was quick on the case, reminding us all that no, no, no - only when someone who engages in homosexual behavior does so in a socially acceptable fashion are they “gay”. Anyone who does something BAD can’t be gay - they must be a pedophile. Because as we all know, adults who want to tap some 17-year-old are sexually attracted to CHILDREN. 17-year-olds look like toddlers, you know.

Except that - wait - they don’t. A 17-year-old boy is physically an adult. A male who wants to have sex with someone who looks like an adult man is (to at least some degree) homosexual - not pedophiliac.

Now, in Evans’ case, there were some younger boys as well, down to 13. Possibly they were young-looking (some 13-year olds are wispy kids who haven’t hit puberty yet, and some are 6′2″ and shave) and he does have some pedophiliac interests in addition to his homosexuality; I don’t know. But the homosexuality part of it is pretty clear.

But in the world of the dedicated gay rights proponent, acknowledging that truth is impossible because it undermines the belief that the only motivation for the BSA’s policy is bigotry and hatred.

If Eugene Evans did the things that he is accused of, then he is a closeted gay or bisexual man, possibly with an attraction to younger men - and his case is one more data point that indicates that at least one of the premises underlying the BSA’s policies is not counter to material fact.

(Update: Mandolin of Alas is under the impression that this post is attempting to “make a case that pedophilia and homosexuality are linked”. Er, no. I don’t know whether she is reading poorly or just lying. It’s often hard to tell.)

(Updated again: The second commenter at Feministe was actually attempting to sarcastically mock this position, not take it. My misreading.)