The Boy Scouts and the Newspaper

I read our local paper, the Dominion-Post, every day. When my husband Joe and I first moved here in the summer of 2012, I applied to be on the Community Advisory Board for the paper. We attended monthly meetings where we were able to discuss the paper and give advice. I don't think our advice was ever taken. More importantly, each of us wrote a column for the editorial page every twelve weeks. I wrote five or six in my time on this board, and I valued that, because I leaned how to write something interesting and keep the length down.

I often write letters answering other letters, or sometimes about a particular event. Typically my letters are about same-gender marriage. I wrote about how happy Joe and I were when the Fourth Circuit ruled that West Virginia had to honor our marriage, and I have answered religious conservatives who love to write about how sex between men is an "Abomination." Like eating pork.

The editorials in the paper, typically written by Randy Vealey, the Opinion Page Editor, have favored same-gender marriage and gay rights. My issue today is with some of the other things that get published.

I once responded directly to Christine M. Flowers, who is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Her columns sometimes appear in the Dominion-Post. She is openly antipathetic to gay rights. She wrote back (which surprised me, as other columnists have not done that), and compared me to the Taliban and someone who did not believe in the First Amendment.

Her latest diatribe is about the Boy Scouts' decision to allow LGBT people to be adult leaders. She is against it. Her column appeared in The Dominion-Post on Friday, July 31.

"Up until now, gay and lesbian employees of the Scouts were welcome to participate in all activities and at all levels, just so long as they didn't talk about who they were sleeping with," she says. I don't believe this was true, and if it was, that meant that a gay or lesbian person could never mention that they were in a relationship. She points out that her mother, a former Cub Scout den leader, never talked about her sex life. I'm sure she didn't, but the kids knew she had a husband, didn't they?

Gay people who want to be Scout leaders don't go into that to broadcast about their sex life. That's an obvious lie meant to denigrate gay and lesbian people, especially those of us in relationships and those who work with kids.

I don't really care about Christine M. Flowers. As she pointed out to me in early 2014, she has the right to say whatever she wants, even if she demonizes a large class of citizens with blatant falsehoods.

What I need to know is who placed her in my hometown newspaper and why? This is not just a "difference of opinion" but slander. And the consequence could be that I stop reading the paper altogether, or that I continue to work to make sure this kind of crap doesn't get published. She can say whatever she wants, but she doesn't have a right to be published.