A political investment

On to other bits of news that have accumulated during the week. Exams have been given and graded and grades computed for whole courses, though not posted yet. I've already got my to-do list for the summer (which includes fun stuff like planning some travel).



The Tribune Co. is putting its newspapers up for sale. That includes the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times. It appears the Koch brothers are potential buyers. Yeah, these are the guys who have donated big time to GOP causes and to campaigns against Obama. They are at the top of the corporate takeover of America. So are the brothers interested in these newspapers as a financial investment -- or a political one? This could be a scary development.



The Boy Scouts are now pushing a compromise position -- allow gay youth but continue to ban gay adult leaders. Ari Ezra Waldman explains why this bad idea has gotten this far. The line all along has been that gay adult leaders will only prey on impressionable young boys. But the reason for allowing gay youth is that scouting is to help boys develop, including a sense of right and wrong -- which means the Scouts will continue to push the idea that being gay is wrong with the intent of convincing impressionable boys to no longer be gay (or develop a deep sense of shame). Or, as the Mormon church (biggest sponsor of scout troops) puts it, we don't care if you're gay -- as long as you are celibate until you marry a woman.



Just ask John Paulk how successful the Scouts are likely to be in convincing boys not to be gay. He became an ex-gay activist in the 1990s, married an ex-lesbian, and became a shining star in Focus on the Family and the chairman of Exodus International. He ended up on the front page of Newsweek trumpeting the success of ex-gay programs. But in 2000 he was photographed leaving a gay bar and everything fell apart.

Now he confirms he is gay and has apologized (and a genuine one at that) for all the harm he has inflicted on gay youth while the head of Exodus and a leader in FotF.