Scott Walker Walks Back His Disgusting Suggestion That Gay Scout Leaders Are Pedophiles – By Lying?

Scott Walker got asked by a reporter about the Boy Scouts’ plan to allow gay adult Scout leaders, and he gave his honest answer – which turned out to be offensive and disgusting. Now, he’s trying to walk it back. Is he lying about what he meant?

That’s Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker in the photo above, speaking at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Convention. CPAC is the far right wing’s annual get-together that is so anti-gay they don’t even allow gay GOP groups, like Log Cabin Republicans, or the now defunct gay Tea Party group, GOProud, to have an official presence. A few years ago when they did, the outrage was huge, and led to boycotts.

Scott Walker fits in perfectly.

Last year, Gov. Walker spent months being coy about his position on marriage for same-sex couples.

In June of 2014 he claimed that despite same-sex marriage cases being tried in nearly half the states in the nation, his opinion on the issue gripping the nation “really doesn’t matter.”

After a few more months of being coy, Walker, just before the November elections, made his position clear.

In September Walker had sought the endorsement of one of Wisconsin’s most anti-gay organizations. In a September 5 letter to Wisconsin Family Action he quietly told them, the AP had reported, “he supports marriage between one man and one woman.”

His anti-gay record is clear, but like a high school bully he’s teased LGBT people from time to time about how he feels about them. A few months ago, when every GOP presidential candidate was being asked if they would attend a wedding of a same-sex couple, Walker offered up a quintessential Walker response.

“That’s certainly a personal issue,” Walker began, which, of course, if you’re running for president, it is not. He told reporters he, his wife, his wife Tonette and their children “already had a family member who’s had a reception. I haven’t been to a wedding,” the Wisconsin governor said, making sure to let the press know his “position on marriage is still that’s defined between a man and a woman,” and adding, “I support the Constitution of the state.”

“But for someone I love, we’ve been at a reception.”

He never, of course, answered the actual question.

When asked by a reporter this week about the Boy Scouts’ move to drop its ban on gay adult Scout leaders, Walker was only too happy to offer a disgusting, thinly-veiled anti-gay response, suggesting that gays are pedophiles.

“I was an Eagle Scout, my kids have been involved, Tonette (Walker) was a den mother,” Walker told IJReview.

“I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.”

Now, under fire for parroting the religious right’s homophobia a bit to closely, yesterday Walker tried to walk back his comments.

Oh, he didn’t mean to suggest that gay people are pedophiles, oh no.

The New York Times reports that “during a brief news conference in South Carolina on Wednesday, Mr. Walker said that he was not pushing to save the ban — ‘it’s up to the Boy Scouts’ — and that his earlier remarks were not about protecting children from gay people.”

“The protection was not a physical protection,” he said, but rather about “protecting them from being involved in the very thing you’re talking about right now, the political and media discussion about it, instead of just focusing on what Scouts is about, which is about camping and citizenship and things of that nature.”

It’s stunning he didn’t add, “And how dare you suggest that I think gay people are pedophiles!”

Let’s look at his earlier statement again.

“I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children and advanced Scout values.”

Here’s what Walker thus is insisting he meant:

“I have had a lifelong commitment to the Scouts and support the previous membership policy because it protected children from being involved in the political and media discussion about gay Scout leaders and advanced Scout values.”

Seriously?

Managing Editor and Washington Bureau Chief of Talking Points Memo, David Kurtz, writes, “Scott Walker’s attempted walkback of his comments about the Boy Scouts’ ban on gay leaders as having “protected children” is ridiculous on its face.”

Even that is too kind.

 

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license