Cub Scouts Catch Heat for Kicking Out Transgender

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SECAUCUS, NJ (ChurchMilitant.com) - The Cub Scouts are under fire for kicking out a so-called transgender child.

The eight-year-old has been identifying as the opposite sex for over a year. After parents complained, Maldonado was then removed, according to an official from the Northern New Jersey Council of Boy Scouts.

After being kicked out, Maldonado said, "It made me mad. I had a sad face, but I wasn't crying. I'm way more angry than sad. My identity is a boy. If I was them, I would let every person in the world go in. It's right to do."

Effie Delimarkos, national spokeswoman for Boy Scouts of America, commented, "No youth may be removed from any of our programs on the basis of his or her sexual orientation. Gender identity isn't related to sexual orientation.''

She also said "the classification on the participant's birth certificate" would be utilized to "confirm legal status." In the state of New Jersey, proof of sex-change surgery is required in order for one's legal gender status to be changed.

In other states, however, there is no requirement for proof of sex-change surgery or medical treatments.

The Boy Scouts of America has come under fire for the decision. Justin Wilson, executive director of Scouts for Equality, pushed back against the decision.

"It's pretty clear the Boy Scouts as a national organization have a decision to make," he said. "Are they going to exclude a transgender boy for the first time or welcome transgender boys?"

Kristie Maldonado, the child's mother, remarked, "Not one of the kids said, 'You don't belong here.'"

Others are also expressing support for the Cub Scouts. Jay W. Richards, a prominent philosopher, tweeted, "Because 'he' is a girl: 8-year-old transgender boy barred from Cub Scouts #fakenews."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, "Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his or her sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life."

Pope Benedict XVI in 2012 said, "People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given by their bodily identity, which serves as a defining element of the human being. They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.

Pope Francis has also come out strongly against transgenderism. In his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, he wrote,

The acceptance of our bodies as God's gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation.

During a meeting with Polish bishops at World Youth Day this year, the Holy Father excoriated gender ideology."Today, schools are teaching children — children! — that everyone can choose their own sex," he said. "And why is this being taught? Because their textbooks are chosen by the people and institutions that give money. This is ideological colonization, promoted by very influential nations. This is terrible."

Pope Francis also commented on a conversation he had with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. "Speaking with Pope Benedict, who is well, and has a clear mind, he was telling me: Holiness, this is the epoch of sin against God the Creator. He's intelligent! God created man and woman, God created the world this way, and we are doing the opposite."

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