prejudice

The Absurdly Warped Priorities of the Incompetent Boy Scouts of America

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

“Follow me into those bushes, boys! You won’t need your pants.”

The Boy Scouts of America, who recently re-affirmed its policy of refusing to accept homosexuals into its ranks because to do so would supposedly undermine the organization’s moral values, have been unconscionably lax in protecting its young participants from child molesters in its ranks.

From the Los Angeles Times:

“A Los Angeles Times review of more than 1,200 files dating from 1970 to 1991 found more than 125 cases across the country in which men allegedly continued to molest Scouts after the organization was first presented with detailed allegations of abusive behavior. Predators slipped back into the program by falsifying personal information or skirting the registration process. Others were able to jump from troop to troop around the country thanks to clerical errors, computer glitches or the Scouts’ failure to check the blacklist.In some cases, officials failed to document reports of abuse in the first place, letting offenders stay in the organization until new allegations surfaced. In others, officials documented abuse but merely suspended the accused leader or allowed him to continue working with boys while on “probation.” In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover later that they had reentered the program and were accused of molesting again.” Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The Boy Scouts of America

/ Jack Marshall / 148 Comments

I owe a lot to the Boy Scouts: namely my father. An only child whose father abandoned his family, forced to move from school to school as his mother sought work during the Depression, my dad was quite literally raised by the Louisville area Boy Scout troop that provided his only lasting friends and only stability. They taught my father well, too: if any man lived his life being faithful to the Scout oath…

On my honor, I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight…

…it was Jack Marshall, Sr. Had it not been for World War II, I have no doubt that Dad would have made scouting his life.

Thus it is painful for me to see the Boy Scout organization reject its core values and relegate itself to irrelevance and cultural estrangement by refusing to alter its archaic policy excluding gays from participation. After the Scouts received a narrow (and correct) affirmation by the U.S. Supreme Court that it had the right, as a private organization, to refuse to accept gay scoutmasters into the organization, they commissioned a panel to decide whether it was time to enter the 21st Century, and banish the faith-based bigotry that made the Boy Scouts hostile to gay Americans. The Scouts just announced that the two year inquiry resulted in an affirmation of the Scouts’ traditional position, unchanged after 118 years: gays aren’t welcome. Continue reading →

To the Pro-Obama Race-Baiters: “Have You No Sense of Decency at All?”

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Ah, if only Joseph Welch and his well-aimed indignation were here today!

We knew, way back when President Obama was running for his first term, that the temptation to paint any opposition to his leadership or his policies as proof of racism would be irresistible  for the less ethical among his supporters in the Democratic Party and among the media. This came to pass, but we should prepare for much worse.  Now that the President has a thoroughly wretched record and is, to an extent I personally haven’t seen since the paranoid days of Richard Nixon, attempting to avoid accountability by blaming everyone in sight—a thoroughly unleaderly display—the race-baiters have served notice that they will be out in force this time as well, more shameless than ever. Continue reading →

Chicago Flash Mobs, Political Correctness, and the Arrogant Press

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

What kind of people made up the mob? You don't want to know.

Chicago has been beset by several incidents of “flash mobs” that were of not the terpsichorean variety, but rather cell phone-organized marauders who struck suddenly, beating bystanders and robbing them. The Chicago media has adopted an odd policy in reporting the incidents: it has not reported the fact that the mobs were made up of African-American youths.

There is no excuse for this. It is manipulative, dishonest, and incompetent journalism, political correctness expanding into news censorship. It constitutes dishonest reporting, and a lack of respect for the public.  It is the ultimate in arrogance and abuse of their professional duties by people who have neither the credentials nor the right to decide what facts we are fit to know.

A Chicago Tribune writer named Mary Schmick attempted to justify her paper’s conduct, and was spectacularly unconvincing, writing in part… Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Eugene Delgaudio, Homophobe

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Eugene Deguadio, a Loudoun County, Va. lawmaker, told his 100,00 followers in the conservative nonprofit Public Advocate of the United States that the airport feel-up pat-downs (of which Ethics Alarms readers know I am so fond) are really meant to complete a Transportation Security-assisted “homosexual agenda.” “That means the next TSA official that gives you an enhanced pat-down could be a practicing homosexual secretly getting pleasure from your submission,” he wrote to the group, which he leads in his spare time. Continue reading →

More Unethical Anti-Dog Slander by The Daily Beast

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

It is odd that a news website called “The Daily Beast” is engaging in an ongoing effort to misinform and frighten the public regarding dogs. Someone—publisher Tina Brown perhaps?—in The Daily Beast’s lair must have been badly frightened by a puppy at some point in his or her life, leading to an irrational fear of dogs and mind-blowing ignorance regarding them. Earlier this year, the site published two unhinged calls for the eradication of  anything resembling a pit bull by a writer whose pet was attacked by one. At the moment, The Daily Beast features a gallery with the ominous title “39 Most Dangerous Dog Breeds” that had to be assembled by some one who has seldom seen a real dog, much less owned one. On the home page, the feature is placed under the heading, “Beware of the Dog.”

The criteria for the ranking is completely mysterious—several of the breeds listed, for example, have exactly one attack attached to them. The gallery itself is riddled with errors and is actually quite funny, if one knows anything about dogs at all. In addition to being careless and incompetent, the feature is dishonest, and seems to be calculated to make people irrationally frightened of dogs, when in fact the relationship between human and canines is one of life’s great and fortunate pleasures. Continue reading →

The Pentagon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” Survey

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Politico obtained a copy of the survey the Pentagon has sent out to randomly selected military spouses to help the military, Sec. Gates writes in his introduction, “assess the impact of a change in the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law and policy on family readiness and recruiting and retention.” It is thirteen pages long, and after some basic questions, presents queries like these: Continue reading →

The Problem of Fairness, and David Ortiz: A Case Study

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

Fairness is a core ethical value. It is also one of the most difficult to embody. We all know what fairness is in the abstract: treatment of others characterized by impartiality and honesty, and an avoidance of self-interest, prejudice, or favoritism. In complex situations involving many interested parties, however, seeking fairness becomes a dilemma wrapped in a conflict surrounded by contradictions. One of these complex situations now faces the Boston Red Sox, as the baseball team deals with the travails of its designated hitter David Ortiz. Sports has a fascinating habit of crystallizing ethical problems, and the Ortiz case demonstrates how hard it is to be “fair.” Continue reading →

Charles Leerhsen’s Unethical Pit Bull Vendetta Continues

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

You have to hand it to Charles Leerhsen. He is determined to get revenge for the mauling of his beloved Wheaten Terrier, Frankie, if he has to wipe out an entire dog breed and thousands of other people’s beloved pets to do it. To this end, the Daily Beast has, for some reason, decided to give him a second column to make the illogical, historically flawed, intellectually bigoted argument that pit bulls should be wiped off the face of the earth.

This time, he has abandoned any pretense of fair argument, and simply ridicules and insults his critics. Using the logic of his articles, this would be sufficient evidence to argue for sending writers to extinction. Astoundingly, he accuses critics of relying on “anecdotal evidence,” when his entire crusade was inspired by a single incident. His rebuttal of non-anecdotal evidence, such as studies showing that the supposed excessive viciousness of pit bulls over all other breeds is a myth? “Fabricated by pit bull lobbying groups, according to at least one commenter.” Well, I guess that settles it then! Continue reading →

Pit Bulls and Bigotry

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Writer Charles Leerhsen has experienced a conversion. After witnessing his best friend being viciously attacked and nearly killed on a city street without provocation, he has embraced bigotry with both hands. Now he writes screeds condemning not the attacker, but all individuals of the attacker’s race. In a passionate and angry essay for The Daily Beast, he denigrates not only those individuals but also anyone who defends them, such as “certain PC urban professionals who long to tell the world that they are super-sensitive and understanding souls.”

It’s an ugly essay, emotional, doctrinaire, and illogical, employing the well-worn racist technique of generalizing from the individual to the group and back again. Why would any respectable media outlet print such bile?

Perhaps it is because Leerhsen’s best friend was Frankie, a Wheaton terrier, and Frankie’s attacker was a pit bull. Continue reading →