Prejudice and discrimination - a malignant wrong!

I just finished reading some "news" via the Yahoo website where I have my email account. The "news" of interest were two articles of particular interest to me:

(1) The first was of a lesbian woman who was a leader in a Boy Scout unit. When she volunteered for the position the parents knew of her sexual orientation. She was not secretive about it at all and she had the support of the parents. However, the Boy Scouts of America have a policy that says any member (youth or adult) must subscribe to the oath that says a scout will be "morally straight." This issue has been raised in numerous court cases over the years. In 2001 (2000?) the Supreme Court of the US affirmed that the Boy Scouts of America, as a private association, had the right to set standards for membership. I remember this was a major issue in San Francisco some years back. Now it is a case involving a lesbian woman leading a group of young boys. The circumstances do not involve hiding her lifestyle (unlike some over the years who did and were discovered through some untoward circumstance).

(2) The second "news" item involves a court case of a priest in the Catholic Church accused of raping young boys. Reference is made in the article about a now deceased priest who was shuttled around Pennsylvania from parish to parish with the knowledge and direction of two bishops (one now a Cardinal). The issue here, aside from the court decision about guilt, is that psychiatrists made it known to the church that the now deceased priest was a "ticking time bomb..." Notwithstanding that knowledge the bishops each went out of their way to first be concerned about the "scandal", then about the church, and finally about the named priest (in that order). Despite official church policy by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops there was no concern about the victims.

What I find particularly striking in these two news accounts being reported the same day via my Yahoo account is the difference between them. The only thing I see connecting the two stories is the element of sex. The difference is the lesbian's lifestyle which inflicts no harm on the community or on any other person and which was apparently quite personal while the issue for the church is the predatory behavior and official sanction/cover up by the church for behavior that definitely harmed youth and their families.

So, I ask myself what is to be learned about these instructive cases. Here are some ideas:
(1) private and consensual sex between adults should be acknowledged and respected for what it is
(2) repressing sex as is required of men in a clergy function is, itself, abnormal
(3) protecting sexual predators "for the sake of the insitution" is morally depraved

I have followed the saga of the Catholic Church and the numerous cases of predatory priests. The stories are horrific. The stories are not limited to the US. They involve Canada, the UK, Ireland (as I remember at the moment).

It is distressing that the talents of people are not allowed to fluorish simply because of their "lifestyle." To deny the woman the opportunity for a lesbian to teach/lead a small group of young boys in typical scouting activities just makes no sense. It isn't like she was preaching a pro-gay agenda or in any way trying to "corrupt" young minds or to persuade those young minds. Unlike a teacher who might use his/her role as teacher to play out an agenda some might find objectionable, this female Boy Scout leader apparently was doing nothing of the sort...

Yet, the predatory priests were sanctioned time and time again. They received counseling and were returned right back into an environment that lead to more abusive situations. The church is paying many, many millions of dollars as the result - I remember at least one diocese went into bankruptcy because of the judgments against the church...

I thought I would share these two striking "news" reports and stark differentces of prejudice and discrimination and the malignant wrong that results with some screwed up notions in the world!