The Boy Scouts organization is dying. The attacks upon it over the past thirty years are murder by any other name.

I have been associated with Scouting for nearly sixty years in one way or another. I will hold its hand for a while longer as it passes from us, but probably not until the very end. I have my reasons.

About a year ago, I warned that the BSA’s acceptance of transgender members would lead to the acceptance of female youth members. It all happened, far more quickly than any of us imagined.

Many of us may think this is a recent development—and so it seems. But the battle has been taking place for nearly the sixty years I’ve been involved.

Who is involved in this battle? Who is the enemy? What is the battle about? It’s so easy in today’s world to see a thirty-second “news story” and to think “Oh, the Boy Scouts are in trouble again.” It’s far more than that. What is at stake is no less that the core beliefs and values of our children. The enemy? It would be easy for me to say it’s “the liberals.” That wouldn’t be quite fair. I know many liberals who are good human beings and want the best for our children. So I will say it this way: the enemy are people who hate people like me, and perhaps people like you. They hate freedom. They hate individual and critical thinking. They hate the things I value. You may find that they hate you as well.

Mike Rowe put it so well several weeks ago when he said “Girls are not the enemy. The enemy is bad ideology, and the inability to effectively confront it.”

The reason this battle is so hard for us to recognize is because it’s not a full frontal assault. It has occurred over decades rather than a particular day or year. It’s an insidious attack, using treacherous weapons. The enemy uses ideas and catch-phrases that, in and of themselves, are difficult to fight. Let me give you an example. The enemy says, in essence, “Little girls should have a fun and exciting program too!” Well of course they should. Who can argue with that? I don’t know of a single person in the Scouting program who disagrees with it. And so we are inundated—overwhelmed, if you will—with ideas that “sound right.” And yet all we have tried to do over past decades is to protect a program that teaches boys how to be men.  I suspect “they” don’t like our finished product.  I think they hate the men we produce, as much as they hate me.

So why did I say the Boy Scouts are dying? Because this enemy doesn’t want to change Boy Scouting; they want to kill it.

The enemy, whoever “they” are, want this organization dead and gone. If you think that is far-fetched, and that I’ve gone mad, just keep your eye on the Girl Scouts organization; that is the bellwether. If they are forced to change, so be it, but I don’t think men and boys belong there.  But if that organization is somehow conveniently “overlooked” in this rush to irrationality, then perhaps this will more clearly appear to you as a premeditated, intentional and wanton wish to kill us.

The enemy have gone about this premeditated murder over a long time. They have determined our core beliefs and attacked them with lawsuits and propaganda, decades in their determination, attacking seemingly “little things” with ideas that, on their face, seem to make sense. It’s a long, slow passing. It is death by a thousand cuts.

They have attacked the Boy Scouts for the things that make up our core existence: an oath to do our best, to do our duty to God and our country.

Now that they’ve won the gender battle, what do you suppose they’ll attack next? I think they will attack our fundamental belief in God Himself.

I suspect that battle will come, as before, in sheep’s’ clothing. At some point, if history is any indication, the sheep will begin to howl.

If they win the battle over God, I’ll be forced to remove myself from any association with the organization. That’s why I can’t hold its hand as it dies. I will have tried, but it will be a failed exorcism. That organization will no longer be something I recognize.

I can’t fight this battle alone. What I must do is recognize any talents I have, and try. To me, that means telling the truth about what is really happening.

My hope is that you will recognize it and perhaps think of something you can do.