Sometimes it seems that everywhere I turn, the story line pivots on hormones.
Recently the Boys Scouts denied Ryan Anderson, a gay 17-year-old, the rank of Eagle Scout because "he does not meet scouting's membership standard on sexual orientation."
Back in 1991, the Girl Scouts grappled with the issue of homosexuality and adopted a starkly different policy than that of their male counterparts. "As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference." They've never found it necessary to revisit that policy.
And then there's the Catholic Church:
A few months ago, on orders from Pope Benedict, the all-male Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (popularly known as the Holy Inquisition) appointed a male archbishop from Seattle to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. The LCWR is an association composed of 80 percent of America's Catholic sisters. What was the nuns' heresy? Focusing too much on promoting social justice and too little on opposing contraception and same-sex marriage. The head of the church's doctrinal office informed the nuns they should regard their receivership as "an invitation to obedience."
And Wall Street:
It does not use scripture to justify excluding and diminishing women, but its organizational ranks eerily echo those of the Vatican. Women comprise only 2.5 percent of U.S. CEOs of finance and insurance companies. Wall Street also treats its heretical women with contempt.
In congressional testimony in 1997, Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, warned that unregulated trading in derivatives could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy." She called for greater transparency. Alan Greenspan treated her with "condescension," the New York Times later revealed. Larry Summers "chastise[d] her." When she persisted, Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and the head of the SEC, Arthur Levitt, Jr., called on Congress "to prevent Ms. Born from acting." The next year, she left the commission.