A New Edition of The Long Lost Friend

This review, which looks at the history of The Long Lost Friend, both as a grimoire and as a precursor to today’s self-help books will blow your mind!!! Okay, maybe not yours, but it thrilled me!

My Working Theory

I used to believe that organizations like the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church were anti-gay in part because they believed that old canard that gay men are child molesters. I used to think that it was a misguided effort to protect children that had terrible effects on innocent people.

But things like this make me suspect that the truth is something else. I think a different stereotype is operating–the belief that men who have healthy sexual feelings for other adult men might be quicker to recognize when other adult men are up to shady sexual things. I could be wrong, but it just seems to me that it can’t be a coincidence that these organizations that are being wracked with these huge molestation scandals also are so fervently anti-gay. (See Rene Portland, just as an interesting twist on it.) I mean, yes, there’s an element of scape-goating in play, clearly, but it seems to me there’s something else, too.

Anyway, the Boy Scout story is just shameful.