So Funny, They're Tragic

The recent, tragic passing of Tom Davis reminds us of the current drought of comedy duos. Teams like Abbott and Costello, Dean and Lewis and Allen and Burns once dominated American entertainment. 

 Happily, nature abhors a vacuum. The latest writings of Bob Mazzuca and Wayne Perry, respectively the Chief Scout Executive and the national president of the the Boy Scouts of America, hint that we may have found our decades's comic geniuses. 

It is tempting offer a line by line analysis of their recent risible communication with the New York Times. Instead, I'll break down just the first few lines, allowing you the pleasure of discovering the other jokes for yourself. Like burried joy buzzers, they wait hidden to tickle and delight. 

Proving that comedy need not be lengthy, the essay is a mere six paragraphs. Oh, but what fun awaits! 

One needs a bit of background to get the joke. Two years ago, the United States Supreme Court issued a decision granting the Boy Scouts the Constitutional right to ban gays from leadership roles. That our land's highest court declared the Constitution justified discrimination is, in itself, a bit of a knee-slapper. 

Showing the resolve that has made this country great, the Boy Scouts didn't take "yes" for an answer. Which brings us to the farcical stylings of Mazzuca and Perry. 

"This week," their statement to the New York Times begins, "the Boy Scouts of America announced that after a two-year evaluation, it is maintaining its membership policy to allow the organization to most efficiently accomplish its mission of preparing young people for life." We must break that sentence into segments to appreciate its many gags.  

Those of you who grew up in in the eighties may immediately recall the running trope on Saturday Night Live, in which every week a somber newscaster would announce "Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead." What made it funny was the ludicrousness of continually updating a condition for which change was impossible. Likewise, we all know the Boy Scout's passion for discriminating is as implacable as death. 

In fact, the whole idea of releasing a press statement to say that nothing has changed as the result of an evaluation no one knew was occurring is bizarre enough to qualify as performance art.  

The second part of the sentence continues the buffoonery. We are told the organization's mission is to prepare "young people for life," a mission generally ceded to the act of birth or, perhaps, education. As only boys are allowed to join the Boy Scouts during youth (adult women are permitted, I believe, to serve as den mothers) we have an assertion clearly meant to be satirical. The other possibility, that girls are not "people," would be monstrous and thus must be untrue.

How will the Boys Scouts "prepare them for life," anyway? As a father myself, I believe it is my job to expose my children to a wide range of experiences and cultures. Along the way, I hope they learn all forms of prejudice are wrong. Keeping them isolated from and hateful toward others who are not - or, for that matter, who one day may be - like them is a laughably bad approach. While I don't doubt that the Boy Scouts emphasis on such life skills as the correct tying of knots and the proper way to pitch a tent (cheap joke!) is probably useful, I'm not sure it's quite essential in 2012. 

Sentence two: "As a private organization, the Boy Scouts of America may deny membership to anyone whose behavior creates a distraction to its mission." Again, the "mission." This is what comedians refer to as a "call-back" to a previous joke. Then, the boastful assertion that they may merrily kick to the curb anyone whose "behavior creates a distraction…". 

Hmmm….this is an organization that brought their dream of discrimination all the way to the Supreme Court. Still not satisfied, they convened a two-year evaluation to decide if they should agree with themselves. They then sent out press releases trumpeting this startling maintenance of the status quo. 

Seems to me they, their relentless quest to ban the participation of LGBT Americans, created quite the distraction from their mission-centric goals of creating of future bigots. Think of all those untied knots, the tents left unpitched, while various Boy Scout talking heads the appeared on TV shows to reiterate their high-minded stance against Those Not Like Them. 

New paragraph: "Let’s be clear," it begins. I must confess, I laughed so hard I peed myself a little on that one. Perhaps it's generational, but the phrase immediately brought to mind President Richard Nixon, whose "let me make this perfectly clear," became a catch-phrase, often offered to Watergate investigators before Nixon would launch into a particularly egregious lie. It's become a cliché: when someone prefaces a statement with some variant of "let's be clear," you know you are about to be told a whopper.

"Let's be clear. The Boy Scouts of America does not proactively inquire about anyone’s sexual orientation. Nor does it have an agenda when it comes to gay or lesbian issues.  Businesses, government, religious leaders and families will continue to grapple with those complex issues. Scouting will not."

Whopper delivered, with extra cheese to boot. At this point, how can they not be joking? For people with "no agenda," they seem awfully determined to exclude LGBT Americans. They sued for the pleasure of doing so and, even after winning, continued to argue, reinforce and publicly restate their resolve. All of which makes high comedy of their claim that "when it comes to gay or lesbian issues…Scouting will not (grapple with these issues)."  Of course they won't grapple - they made their minds up decades ago. Even their contention that "businesses, government, religious leaders and families must continually struggle over," whether or not to include LGBT people is absurd. Not only has that "struggle" been settled by most, but the suggestion of a "struggle" suggests a combative view of society in which some must lose and other must win mere inclusion to occur. This sounds like a hateful and deeply unhappy worldview; one which I hope doesn't inform how they "prepare young people for life." 

I'm also struck by their pledge not to "proactively inquire" about orientation. Take out the "proactive," and you have free reign to interrogate and punish based on the flimsiest of accusations. Is there a merit bad for witch-hunting? 

I've only reached the second paragraph, but I'm exhausted. What began as amusing is beginning to sicken. I'll leave any further analysis of the Boy Scout's statement to you, except for this one from a few lines on: "Our role is to equip young people with life skills so one day, they can make their own decision about these issues." 

Ignore, for a moment, trying to figure out if their "mission" and their "role" are, in fact, congruent and/or redundant. This is a six paragraph statement written for the most influential publication in the world. It is unfair to expect that Mazzuca and Perry might have given it some thought.

Less unfair is the suggestion that banning discussions of certain topics, and barring the willing and unpaid participation of people Different From You, helps "young people…make their own decisions…" In fact, some might say only a moron would think keeping children ignorant empowers them. 

While I originally read Mazzuca and Perry's statement as a series of in-jokes, I now see it in a differently. Given their complete failure to accomplish any of their self described missions - whether to prepare "young people for life" or to avoid "grappling" with these "complex issues," I now realize this isn't a joke - its either a confession or a letter of resignation. To which I say - "Go with God, my friends." 

OriginalStatement from Boy Scouts: 
http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/07/19/why-do-the-boy-scouts-exclude-gays/sexuality-is-not-a-part-of-scouts