Back in 2000, the Supreme Court ruled that the Boy Scouts could discriminate against an openly gay assistant scoutmaster in New Jersey named James Dale, and expel him from the Scouts. The Court based its decision on the grounds that the Scouts had the constitutional right to freedom of association that allows a private organization to exclude a person from membership when “the presence of that person affects in a significant way the group’s ability to advocate public or private viewpoints.”  Opposition to homosexuality is part of the Scouts’ “expressive message,” said the Court, and allowing homosexuals as adult leaders would interfere with that message

Fast forward to today and now we learn that this revered, holier than-thou organization has been hiding more than a thousand cases of alleged sex abuse by Scout leaders and volunteers spanning two decades from 1965 to 1985. (In 2010, attorneys in Oregon  won an $18.5 million judgment against the Scouts in a case where a Scoutmaster sexually abused a boy.)

This is just another example of how the most homophobic organizations – let’s throw the Catholic Church in the mix while we’re at it, shall we? – turn out to be the most fucked up when it comes to deep-sixing their own sins.