Letters: The Boy Scout case has oppressors and the oppressed

CHRISTINE Flowers' thoughtful op-ed (

"Philadelphia's Odd Case against the Boy Scouts"

) reveals a disturbing attempt by city government to acknowledge a group of "gay activists" and their theory of oppression.

One of the real dilemmas of a socially stratified society like ours lies in the fact that a person can be a member of an oppressor and an oppressed group simultaneously. (See the Clarence Thomas-Anita Hill debacle.)

Women who also call themselves "white" are oppressed as women, but also serve as oppressors as part of the artificial "majority" that is "white."

So some of these same white women form yet another "minority" by calling themselves "lesbians" (or white men calling themselves "gay") for the purpose of declaring themselves oppressed is disingenuous.

Besides, what difference does a person's skin color, gender or any other "orientation" make once you're with the person to whom you claim to be oriented? (And is anyone really "oriented" to be with anyone else?)

"Gay activists" undermine the real notion of citizens' rights when they attempt to reinvent themselves as a distinct population group.

Flowers hit the nail on the head when she insists about the city officials and others engaged in this heartless move to evict children and their mentors from a city-owned property that "They need to get a better answer. Or maybe a conscience" for discontinuing support for the Boy Scouts, a wonderful, life-enhancing group to which my five brothers and I belonged many decades ago.

G. Djata Bumpus

Philadelphia