Excerpts from Silber’s Friday speech to UNI

The following are excerpts from Chancellor John Silber’s speech to University Professors students Friday and some of his responses to their questions.

…The toleration of homosexuals is now so widely accepted in practice as to be non-controversial to the point of not being a part of any widely held political orthodoxy. But there are homosexuals who are not satisfied with being tolerated, but who insist on recognition, approval and endorsement of homosexuality as an equally acceptable alternative lifestyle.

Relatively few even demand the establishment of clubs or other venues in which to discuss their views of sexuality with others, particularly with young students not yet sexually active who are not even interested yet in learning about their way of life. Some even insist on the right to flaunt their homosexuality in public displays, including simulated homosexual acts. Many homosexuals are militantly intolerant of all who fail to accede to their demands.

The Boy Scouts of America have been denounced, for example, as heretical by this orthodoxy’s inquisition. They stand condemned for discriminating against homosexuals. The Boy Scouts of America do not deny their discrimination. Rather, they defend it on the grounds that their primary obligation is not to affirm an alternative lifestyle they do not believe is best, but to protect the boys in the scouting movement from sexual abuse. Thus, they heed the wisdom of the Lord’s prayer in saying, “lead us not to temptation.”

Although a homosexual scout master might never be guilty of an improper assault on a scout, the heterosexual scout master offers added security for the Boy Scout movement in that he is not sexually attracted to young males, as homosexual males sometimes are. The inquisitional force of this orthodoxy includes the United Way and churches and schools that have attempted to punish the Boy Scouts for their heresy by denying them funds or sponsorship and venues in which to hold their meetings.

The scouts are not taught to be intolerant of homosexuals outside the scouting movement and are never taught to abuse them. Rather, those who oppose the participation of homosexuals in scouting are usually tolerant and even respectful of homosexuals outside of scouting. The opposition to homosexuals in scouting has not been based on any ideological determination that homosexuality is a matter of choice and hence a moral sin or a moral vice.

The following are Silber’s answers to questions from the audience after his speech.

…If you don’t tolerate the right of organizations to have their own identity, then what you’ve got is just homogeneity, and is that the only thing you can tolerate? Is homogeneity — where everything goes and no individual or institution can be singled out with a particular purpose?

Like the Masonic Lodge, for example, had a prohibition against people with deformities. I don’t see any basis for that, but I remember the solemnity with which I was informed that I couldn’t be a member of the DeMolay when I was growing up because I have one arm, and I didn’t give a damn. I never wanted to be a part of the Masonic Lodge, never wanted to be a member of the DeMolay, but it was the going thing for some kids, and I was told as if this was a crushing defeat for me that I couldn’t be a member because I had one arm. What the hell — I don’t care. I still don’t see any reason why these people can’t organize the way they want to. The DeMolay never came around harassing me because I have one arm. They weren’t trying to beat me up or anything. Just — these are the rules of our membership…

…I just think that tolerance has to involve some sort of institutional tolerance where the organization or institution is clearly positive in its program — it’s doing good things in its program — why would you want to destroy it? If you take one example of one of these troops in the Hitler youth. What they were teaching there is just like what they were teaching in madrassas-they were teaching hatred of Jews, they were teaching hatred of people in democracies — these organizations that were offering a program of destruction that was loaded with hate, and I think there’s a good reason for being intolerant of such an organization as that. That’s not a part of the Boy Scout agenda, is it?…

…[They don’t need to identify and ponder their sexuality when they’re] only 12 or 13 years of age. This is something they don’t need. When they can develop and they find that they have some concern there, they have plenty of teachers and counselors to deal with. What’s true in a large public school — there may be a need in a large public school, particularly in a large public high school. There is not a need in a school the size of the Academy. And the Academy existed for seven years without this until a couple of teachers decided they had to have it. It was not instituted by a popular demand of students or a popular demand of homosexuals who felt some kind of need of protection.

It was organized in order to focus the attention of young people on issues of sex. Now that is a form of homosexual militancy, or you can say evangelism, and you just don’t need that kind of evangelism. There’s not any evidence in that school or at Boston University for that matter of prejudice against homosexuals. Nobody is asking anybody to come out of a closet or to stay in a closet. We don’t give a damn. Homosexual? Fine. Heterosexual? Fine. That’s your business. Why should somebody be demanding that they be allowed to come out of the closet. Stay in the closet if you want to. Come out of the closet if you want to. But let’s cut out the demand that you come out of the closet.

The assumption to begin with that most people are born homosexual or not homosexual is just not something that has any scientific validity at all. It’s probably the case that some people have this as a genetic condition, but a very large percentage of people who become homosexual are homosexual because that is the way in which they were first seduced into sex. Not because of anything else. And there’s just no reason for us to encourage that. It’s not something we’re trying to turn away from or ignore or be insensitive to…

…It’s such a small school with so many teachers that there’s no problem about this alienation, there’s no problem about disorientation. They got along fine for seven years without this thing. All the sudden they had to have it. They were getting along really well without it.