Last year, the radical homosexual agenda scored a major conquest over children in the Big Brothers Big Sisters youth-service organization. Now, homosexuals are allowed to volunteer with the group as one-on-one youth mentors. In fact, the organization does not even require written parental consent for school children to be placed with openly homosexual mentors. 

According to a major public interest law firm, the Big Brothers Big Sisters of America policy is "a recipe for disaster." In a recent letter to school administrators around the nation, Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) writes, "Schools open themselves up to substantial legal liability if physical or emotional abuse occurs as a result of school-based mentoring."

As the ADF's Chief Counsel, Benjamin Bull, points out in the letter, Big Brothers prohibits the placement of children with mentors of the opposite sex for fear of sexual abuse. "Amazingly," writes Bull in a separate letter to parents, "BBBSA does not apply the same precautionary standards when it comes to matching children with same-sex mentors who publicly prefer homosexual acts." 

If parents have learned anything from the recent Catholic Church sex abuse scandals, they now know that it is necessary to keep a close watch on the adults who influence their children. As priest after priest, victim after victim has proven, the costs of neglecting to monitor a child's associations and activities are astronomical in terms of trust, innocence, dollars, and reputations.

And Big Brothers Big Sisters of America has itself acknowledged that various allegations of sexual abuse are filed annually against BBBSA mentors. According to ADF, a number of legal decisions involving BBBSA sex abusers have been reported. 

Responsible parents and educators have two options for dealing with Big Brothers Big Sisters. First, they can demand, in the words of ADF, "full, written, informed consent as a parent." If that doesn't work, parents should refuse to allow their child to participate in a program that is being taken over by a radical anti-family agenda. 

Like many other youth organizations such as the Girl Scouts and Boy Scout organizations in other countries, Big Brothers' policy change was a result of pressures from the radical homosexual movement to become more "tolerant" and "inclusive". Today, BBBSA is facing a constant barrage of pressure from concerned parents and educators to reverse its policy or at least to require parental consent for the placement of a child with a homosexual mentor.

After the policy change last year, one local BBBSA chapter claimed to have received 20,000 protesting emails in one day. Another local chapter executive director said, "Nearly 100 percent of the people who called us about this policy said, 'We don't want this." According to World Magazine, at least twelve local BBBSA executive directors have refused to implement the new policy permitting homosexual mentors without parental consent. 

Calls and letters and emails to the BBBSA cannot stop. Parents, grandparents, teachers, school administrators and anyone can go to the BBBSA feedback form   It is time to let the leaders of the BBBSA know that welcoming homosexual mentors without parental consent is unbecoming of Big Brothers Big Sisters' tradition of service to the community. 

I have never been involved in Big Brothers Big Sisters, but I have grown up as a participant in other youth organizations. Today, as an assistant Scoutmaster in a Boy Scout troop and as an activist for the Boy Scouts in this culture war, my fear is that the big liability of Big Brothers Big Sisters, if unchecked, will spread to other organizations like the Boy Scouts.

Of course, like the Boy Scouts, Big Brothers Big Sisters is a private organization that has the right to set its own policies. But Americans have the right, and a responsibility, not to participate in an organization that openly embraces the culture of immorality and gives the finger to parental control. 

The future of American civic virtue and the family itself is at stake in this fight for parental rights and moral decency. Big Brothers Big Sisters is involved in thousands of schools across America, and it could become the vehicle for the destruction of thousands of young lives if the radical homosexual agenda stands unquestioned when all is said and done. 

A new kind of vigilance needs to be adopted by the American family. We need to defend the family with all the strength we have until we're back on the offensive. 

Hans Zeiger is a Seattle Times columnist and conservative activist. As an 18-year old Eagle Scout, he is president of the Scout Honor Coalition and a student at Hillsdale College in Michigan. He can be contacted at hazeiger@hillsdale.edu 

© 2003 Hans Zeigeer