Rick Perry’s small-government screed “Fed Up!” has been a major source of trouble for the presidential candidate, but his previous book, “On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For,” is also noteworthy for its detailed defense of anti-gay discrimination.
The Boy Scouts have been a culture war battleground for years over their refusal to allow openly gay Scout leaders. The Huffington Post notes that Perry strongly took their side in the 2008 tome, railing against “homosexual activists” and comparing gays to alcoholics.
“The issue as it applies to Scouting is not so much the gay scoutmaster who keeps his consentual [sic] sexual activity confined to the bedroom, but the agenda of radical gay rights groups that want to throw their sexual activity into the face of society, despite the decision by millions of families not to teach the gay lifestyle as an acceptable alternative,” Perry wrote.
He suggested, however, that parents of Boy Scouts would probably find closeted gay leaders acceptable.
“You will find few parents of Scouts concerned about the homosexual Scoutmaster whose sexuality is not disclosed as long as sexuality in no way enters into the scout-scoutmaster relationship,” Perry wrote.
According to Perry, homosexuality “may be” genetic, but he suggested that it’s still fair to judge gays for their lifestyle just as it is to judge addicts for substance abuse.
“Even if [homosexuality] were [a genetic predisposition], this does not mean we are ultimately not responsible for the active choices we make,” he wrote. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink. And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she still makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”
