Beyond Disgusting

We had to know that decades of sexual abuse cover-ups in our churches were not the only cases of adults taking advantage of trusting youngsters. Then the disaster at Penn State University came to light; an all-powerful football program covered up the horrific actions of one of its leaders. Where young people gather, predators are sure to lurk, in churches, in sports programs, these youngsters are easy prey.

And now a series in the Los Angeles Times exposes decades of abuse and cover-ups in the Boy Scouts (BSA); cover-ups by the BSA and some in the media with leadership roles in the movement. It’s not surprising that the Scouts have made every effort to hide sexual assaults by Scout leaders on the boys in their program. Leaning on a Congressional Charter, the organization has a history of arrogant independence, haughtily refusing to be accountable to any outside entity.

Meanwhile they have been paying out millions to victims who brought lawsuits against the Scouts as a result of abuse. The Times has obtained some 1,600 pages of documents made public by these lawsuits. There is no way to know how many cases are still hidden away in the BSA files. They have spent millions in the courts fighting attempts to open this cesspool to public view.  

Over the years the BSA has published many rules and regulations, but like the elegant Code of Ethics proudly displayed by Enron prior to its fall, the BSA rules in most cases were not worth the paper they were printed on. They repeatedly ignored reports of abuse and allowed the abusers to continue to work with boys.

The Times story included these disturbing instances among many others: “In at least 50 cases, the Boy Scouts expelled suspected abusers, only to discover later that they had reentered the program and were accused of molesting again.”

“One scoutmaster was expelled in 1970 for sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Indiana. After being convicted of the crime, he went on to join two troops in Illinois between 1971 and 1988. He later admitted to molesting more than 100 boys, was convicted of the sexual assault of a Scout in 1989 and was sentenced to 100 years in prison, according to his file and court records.”

“In 1991, a Scout leader convicted of abusing a boy in Minnesota returned to his old troop — right after getting out of jail.”

These disturbing reports go on page after page. While the BSA appears to have toughened up its standards and rules, there is no reason to believe that they are any more willing to open themselves up to reputation damaging revelations than they have been in the past. 

We understand the thinking behind this behavior, the belief that all the good the BSA, the Church, the Sports program, etc., etc., does, justifies “protecting it.” How about protecting the victims for a change?

Who Got The “Death Penalty”?

Twenty-five years ago Southern Methodist University (SMU) was found to be paying student members of their football team from $50 to as much as $725 a month from a slush fund maintained for that purpose. The sports powerhouse was on NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) probation at the time for earlier violations. As a result, the NCAA slapped SMU with a cancellation of their upcoming season and all home games the next year, along with a handful of other penalties, an action dubbed the “Death Penalty.” 

So for adding cash payments to the other perks provided big time college football players, like scholarships, jobs they rarely if ever show up for, etc., etc., the NCAA shuts down the SMU football program long enough to derail it for twenty years. It is pretty hard to find any harm in what went on at SMU beyond the negatives that maintaining a semi-pro football team does to any institution theoretically focused on learning. In the SMU case a university that is an arm of a church. 

After due consideration the NCAA chose to ratchet down the level of punishment meted out to Penn State. After all Penn State didn’t break any NCAA rules; they just ignored report after report that they had a pedophile in a senior position in their football program. Starting with two janitors, who saw Jerry Sandusky rape a little boy in a Penn State shower room 14 years ago. One said he had seen some awful things while in the service in Korea, but nothing as horrific as that. But fear of Sandusky kept the janitor from going to the authorities, so he just told his boss. 

Sandusky was allowed to retire, but he kept his office in the sports complex and his access to the shower rooms. He kept right on taking boys to Penn State away games and keeping them in his hotel room. Ignoring one incident after another, the top officials at Penn State agreed among themselves to hush up the Sandusky “problem.” The football culture at Penn State is so powerful it erased all common sense and decency for nearly fifteen years. 

But they will play football at Penn State this fall; no NCAA “Death Penalty” for Happy Valley. The University will pay a massive $60 million dollar fine, and they will not be eligible for a bowl game for the next four seasons. The number of free riders will be cut by twenty; Penn State will only be allowed to have 65 football scholarship players on their roster instead of the 85 currently allowed. There are additional slap-on-the-wrist penalties but nothing that will cause too much pain. 

An immediate chorus of whines emanated from Penn State supporters. The most frequent, “It’s worse than the Death Penalty.” Nonsense! Who knows how many little boys this monster violated? Little boys carrying the lifelong “Death Penalty” Sandusky left on their very being. If Penn State’s penalty matched that of the victims of its football culture, there would never be another Penn State football game, not this fall, not ever.