Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Boy Scouts Celebrate 100th Anniversary With Unveiling of Decades Worth of Sex Abuse Cover-Ups

It's the best thing to happen to the Catholic Church in a long time: The Boy Scouts, another institution parents trust with the rearing of their children, is about to see some of its "perversion files" put on display for all the world to see.

Accused of covering up sex abuse allegations for decades, the Boy Scouts faces a lawsuit in Oregon based on abuse charges stemming from the 1980s. Former assistant scoutmaster Timur Dykes, who was convicted three times in the 1980s of sexual abuse of young boys, allegedly molested the plaintiff while he was a scout, leading to "mental health problems, bad grades in school, drug use, anxiety, difficulty maintaining relationships and lost several jobs over the years because of the abuse."

The lawyer for a man who was molested in the 1980s by a Scout leader has obtained about 1,000 Boy Scouts sex files and is expected to release some of them at a trial that began Wednesday. The lawyer says the files show how the Boy Scouts have covered up abuse for decades. The trial is significant because the files could offer a rare window into how the Boy Scouts have responded to sex abuse by Scout leaders. The only other time the documents are believed to have been presented at a trial was in the 1980s in Virginia.

At the start of the Oregon trial, attorney Kelly Clark recited the Boy Scout oath and the promise to obey Scout law to be "trustworthy." Then he presented six boxes of documents that he said will show "how the Boy Scouts of America broke that oath." He held up file folder after file folder he said contained reports of abuse from around the country, telling the jury the efforts to keep them secret may have actually set back efforts to prevent child abuse nationally. "The Boy Scouts of America ignored clear warning signs that Boy Scouts were being abused," Clark said.

And why haven't we seen these files before? Because, says Boy Scouts attorney Charles Smith, they contain "confidential information." Well, yeah.

Oh, what is it about organizations that terrorize the gays only to cover up pedophilia.

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