Caterpillar Drops Boy Scouts Support Over Gay Leader Ban

While the Southern Baptist Convention is busy condemning the Boy Scouts of America for allowing gay boys and youth to be members, another big money donor has cut off the money spigot since the BSA still discriminates against gays over age 18 and bars them from any sort of leadership position.  It goes without saying that anti-hate groups are continuing a propaganda war depicting gays as child molesters and pedophiles even though heterosexual males and closet cases (usually those psychologically damaged by religious indoctrination) are the main group that molest children of both genders.  ABC News looks at Caterpillar's decision to cease funding the BSA.  Here are highlights:

Caterpillar Inc. is no longer giving money to the Boy Scouts because the organization discriminates against homosexuals, a spokeswoman for the Illinois-based heavy equipment manufacturer confirmed Thursday.

The company's move wasn't directly tied to the recent Boy Scouts decision to continue to bar homosexual adults from roles within the organization while allowing openly gay children to be scouts. Instead, spokeswoman Rachel Potts said, the company decided to cut off funding while reviewing a request for $25,000 that came in last year from a local group in Illinois.

That decision was never announced publicly or communicated to the Boy Scouts of America, only to the local group, she said. But she added that the Boy Scouts' policy that continues to bar homosexual adults from working in the organization is "discriminatory."

Caterpillar has made donations in the past to the Boy Scouts of America, and the company's charitable arm, the Caterpillar Foundation, has donated money to local scouting groups in areas where it has factories and other facilities, Potts said. She declined to provide a dollar figure.

"We have inclusive policies here at Caterpillar Inc., and the foundation abides by those," she said. "We just don't feel that our two organizations align."

The decision by Caterpillar was first reported Wednesday by The Journal Star in Peoria, the central Illinois city where the company is based.  The local organization that was turned down, Potts said, is the Peoria-based W.D. Boyce Council. It includes scout groups across a large part of central Illinois.

The leader of a group of former Eagle Scouts that has pushed for a change in those policies said the pressure that the donation withdrawal could have on Boy Scouts was important. But Zach Wahls, executive director of Iowa City, Iowa-based Scouts for Equality, believes Caterpillar's decision reflects a broader shift in attitudes beyond scouting.

"This isn't a crazy, progressive company that's super liberal," said Wahls, who grew up in Iowa and Wisconsin, and whose parents are lesbians. "(Caterpillar is) very much a middle-American company and I think this indicates where middle America is moving on this issue."

Score another victory for the good guys.  The Christofascists will no doubt be fuming and foaming at the mouth.   They are slowly but steadily losing the culture wars.