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Big Brothers Big Sisters policy called ‘reckless & irresponsible’


NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–It is “beyond imagination … reckless and irresponsible,” Richard Land said of the new national policy of Big Brothers Big Sisters mandating the acceptance of homosexuals and lesbians as mentors to children and youth.

Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, made the comments in the wake of Southern Baptist pastor Terry Fox’s public stance Aug. 18 in Wichita, Kan., against the Big Brothers Big Sisters policy, which was instituted July 1.

Land commended Fox’s “courageous and prophetic leadership … in sounding the alarm to his community on this issue.”

The new BBBS policy “shows the extent to which the culture’s moral compass has been demagnetized and its common sense quotient terribly lowered by the constant onslaught from radical homosexual activists,” Land said.

“When you are signing up active homosexuals to be ‘Big Brothers’ — mentors to adolescent boys — you are setting up a situation that is beyond any measure of common sense,” Land said in comments to Baptist Press Aug. 19.

Land said he believes Big Brothers Big Sisters of America adopted the new policy because its leaders were “getting pressure from their Northeastern affiliates who were being pushed by radical homosexual activists who demanded the group put in place absolute and rigid non-discriminatory policies regarding sexual preference in their volunteer guidelines.”

Land predicted that the “dangerously dumb policy” will lead “to an increase in sexual activity between adult homosexual male and adult lesbian females and adolescent boys and girls.”

“At a very basic level of common sense, we do not allow heterosexual males unsupervised and extended contact with adolescent females,” Land noted. “Would you let a heterosexual male accompany your 15-year-old daughter on a sleep-over? Why not? Because heterosexual males are attracted to females. To allow such an arrangement is contrary to common sense.

“Similarly, homosexual males are by definition attracted to males. You wouldn’t send your 15-year-old son on a sleepover with a homosexual male.

“Now I’m not saying all homosexual males desire to have sexual relations with adolescent boys any more than I am saying all heterosexual males desire to engage in sexual activity with adolescent girls,” Land qualified.

“But just as society rightfully frowns upon unsupervised heterosexual adolescent male-female relationships, we should not foster situations where adolescent boys are placed in a situation where they could be the object of the misplaced affection of homosexual adult males.”

In terms of mentoring, Land challenged, “How can a homosexual teach a boy without a dad the skills he needs to be an effective husband and father? How can a lesbian woman teach a young girl the skills she needs to be a wife and mother?”

Land also voiced concern that parents with children in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program may not know whether their sons or daughters are being matched with homosexual men or lesbian women.

“This organization,” Land said, “has gone from a parental ally that could be trusted to one that is possibly putting a child in contact with a homosexual or lesbian mentor without the parent’s knowledge or consent.”

Churches can stand in the gap, he said, by reaching out in ministry to single-parent families in which children lack appropriate role models.

“I would also strongly encourage Southern Baptists and all people of faith to contact the Big Brothers Big Sisters organization to express their concerns about this … wrong-headed decision that promises tragic results in the future,” Land said.

The American Family Association, he noted, is facilitating comments of concern to the organization and its corporate sponsors through its www.afa.net website.
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