PZ Myers has his "Paul @ Wizbang" to abuse. Juan Cole has Jonah "Doughy Pantload" Goldberg. TBogg has, well, pretty much the entire membership of the NRO's Corner to knock around. Me, I set my sights a bit lower. I just take the time on occasion to bitch slap "Weasel Boy" around the room since, God knows, there are few right-wing wankers who deserve it more.
Turns out, by some strange coincidence, WB's latest piece of execrable swill involves a familiar subject -- whether the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) are, in fact, a "religious organization". I have no idea whether his piece of wretched crap was inspired by my own recent beatdown of him on that topic but, what the hell, I'll expose WB once again for the festering sack of duplicity that he is.
Over here, WB goes to great length using "logic" (and I use that word in its loosest, most forgiving possible definition) to prove that the BSA is not religious.
Me? I like to go straight to the source and just ask them. As in producing legal briefs in which the BSA openly admits that, in fact, a religious organization is precisely what they are. As proof, I direct you to this transcript of the Jan 16, 2004 episode of Fox News' own "O'Falafel Factor", in which Bill O'Falafel himself actually does some research and figures this out all on his lonesome:
O'REILLY: All right. Now we researched this for the past 24 hours, and here's how it goes down.
On October 21, 2003, Greg Shields, a national spokesman for the Boy Scouts of America, said this to Fox News: "The Boy Scouts are not a religious organization. We cannot be described as a religious organization or a religion."
However, in several legal briefs, including one in a 1992 case in Kansas and another in 1998, lawyers for the Boy Scouts put in writing that the Scouts are a religious organization. Here's the quote in '98:
"Although Boy Scouts of America is not a religious sect, it is religious, and, while the local council is not a house of worship like a church or a synagogue, it is a religious organization." [Emphasis oh so joyfully added.]
How much clearer can this get? And yet, in spite of the obvious evidence, we have the following bizarre spectable:
Q: Is the BSA a religious organization?
BSA: Why, yes. Yes, we most certainly are.
Weasel Boy: See? I told you they weren't a religious organization.
Seriously, how fucking stupid or dishonest do you have to be to write like Weasel Boy? No, no, please, don't answer that. I'm not really that interested.
BONUS SNARK: While I'm here, I might as well smack Bill O'Falafel around a little. The background to the transcript to which I linked to above is that, on Jan 14, 2004, O'Falafel criticized guest San Diego councilman Michael Zucchet for saying that the BSA was a religious organization. O'Falafel disagreed and stated:
"All right, if I come back tomorrow Mr. Zucchet and the Boy Scouts say 'We never said we're a religious organization,' you're going to have to come back and apologize to me. And I'll do the same to you, all right? Is that a deal?"
to which Zucchet agreed.
Now go back and read that transcript again, to see how desperately O'Falafel tries to get out of apologizing, even after he's so obviously wrong. Hard to believe, but O'Falafel is as classless as Weasel Boy is dishonest.
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