As a 14 year-old, and a freshly-minted Eagle Scout, I had a terrible crush on my 11 year-old cousin Mary, and she on me.  Although not a first cousin, Mary was close enough to the family that she spent a week or two down the New Jersey shore with us that summer in our ramshackle one-bedroom bungalow.  My parents got the bedroom, and the dozen or so visitors and kids slept together in the all-purpose general room. So intense was my desire just to reach out and touch her that it kept me awake at night.  That is the way 14 year-old boys are.  As it happens, a variety of restraints, some internal, many external, kept me from doing so, but I can still remember the frustrated passion of it all. I suspect that 14 year-old boys who are attracted to other boys feel that passion just as intensely.  If the leadership of the Boy Scouts of America has its way, though, these boys will be able to indulge their passions in ways I could not even have dreamed of.  They...(Read Full Post)