Top Scout Pleads Guilty In Kid Porn Case

A former official of the Boy Scouts of America is facing up to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to charges of possession and distribution of child pornography.

Douglas Sovereign Smith Jr., 61, was accused of receiving images over the Internet of children engaging in sex acts. [...]

Smith was a national program director and had been with the Boy Scouts for 39 years. One of his duties was leading a task force protecting youth from sexual abuse. [...]

Smith has been an ardent supporter of the BSA’s ban on gays serving as scout leaders.

Last fall Smith wrote a letter to a legal magazine criticizing opponents of the gay ban. (source)

I hesitate to say anything about this, because there are many in society who can’t seem to differentiate between being a gay man and being a pedophile. It’s true. Many people still think this. Take, for example, my new next door neighbor. It was six months before I went over to introduce myself to him. I kept telling Kent that we should do our part to welcome his family to the neighborhood, since our other neighbors had. I could see his children playing with other kids in the neighborhood.

So, I took a nice bottle of Merlot over to him. I did this because I received by mistake a wine catalog with their address on it in my mailbox. It seems that we have a mail carrier who can’t seem to get the addresses right at times. So I knew that they enjoyed wine.

I entered their yard. He was out working in the yard and his kids were there. There were three of them ranging from 3-7 years old, I would say. I walked up to him to give him the wine, and he pulled his kids in behind him. I thought it was a bit strange at the time. But what really gave me the creeps was how he looked at me, as though he had complete contempt for me. He took the bottle of wine and said “thanks” in a cold, distant way.

I started backup up away from him because something inside me told me not to take my eyes off him. I got back home and Kent asked how it went. I said, “Very strange”. I was unsettled by the whole thing.

Does he think I’m a sexual predator? I don’t know. I just found it really weird that he would pull his kids in behind him and look at me in that fashion.

On the Boy Scouts, I think it is terrible that one of their administrators was protecting the policy of banning gay men from the organization, while he was molesting boys. He is a child molester. I don’t know if he is gay or not. Yet some won’t see the difference and will say, “See! This is why we keep gays out of the Boy Scouts.” I know that argument is coming.