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In the wake of the Catholic Church scandal, the Big Sisters Big Brothers program exposes public schools to increased liability risks by allowing homosexuals to volunteer, a public interest law firm is warning administrators and parents across the nation.

In a letter distributed nationwide, the Arizona-based Alliance Defense Fund said the mentoring program's policy change – permitting volunteers who practice homosexual behavior – is a "recipe for disaster," especially without written parental consent.

"As the recent scandals in the Catholic Church demonstrate," the letter to school officials states, "when an adult uses a position of authority and influence to take advantage of a young person, immeasurable harm can be inflicted both to individuals and to institutions. Indeed, schools open themselves to substantial legal liability if physical or emotional abuse occurs as a result of a school-based mentoring program."

The 99-year old Big Sisters Big Brothers, which previously had no official position on homosexual behavior, now requires its branches to accept mentors who practice it.

The organization's headquarters in Philadelphia did not respond to repeated requests by WorldNetDaily for comment.

The Alliance Defense Fund's letter cautions officials "nothing less that complete, written, informed consent by parents is sufficient in light of a school's responsibility for the safety of children."

According to its website, BBBSA says it aims to mentor 400,000 children by 2004 and 1 million by 2010.

The organization has insisted it thoroughly screens volunteers, but the Alliance Defense Fund contends matching boys with homosexual males is the problem.

"Ironically, BBBSA policy prohibits placing children with opposite-sex mentors because of possible inappropriate sexual behavior," said Benjamin W. Bull, chief council for the Alliance Defense Fund. "Yet, same-sex mentoring with homosexuals is not only permitted, it is even permitted without parental notification."

Opponents of BBBSA's new policy point to cases such as Tim Brown, a "Big Brother" and a 34-year-old homosexual pedophile, who sexually molested his 10-year-old "Little Brother" in 1999 after becoming a volunteer mentor in the Salt Lake City, Utah, Chapter. The organization reportedly was aware of Brown's prior criminal record but gave him full, unsupervised access to the boy.

At least a dozen executive directors of local BBBSA affiliates defied the new directive from national headquarters, according to a report by World magazine when it was implemented last year.

One Midwestern director, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisal from headquarters, said he sent letters to the parents of 65 children on the affiliate's waiting list, World reported. Only "four or five" said they wouldn't mind their children being matched with a homosexual, same-sex mentor. Another local director said "nearly 100 percent of the people who called us about this policy said, 'We don't want this.'"

In 1979, Big Brothers of Minneapolis won a state Supreme Court ruling over a homosexual male volunteer who claimed it was discriminatory for the organization to disclose his sexual preference to parents. Big Brothers argued parents have a right to raise their children as they wish, and the organization has free speech rights.

Meanwhile, a BBBSA branch east of Chicago announced recently it has temporarily suspended programs because it cannot renew its liability insurance.

The Fox Valley branch's problems might be due, in part, to an increased reluctance to insure youth-oriented organizations after the sex abuse scandal within the Catholic Church, said Beth Morgan, director of the Southeast region for BBBSA, according to the Daily Herald newspaper of suburban Chicago.

Mike Lewis, BBBSA's vice president of finance and operations, agreed.

"The Catholic Church situation caused insurance companies to back away from certain areas," he told the paper. "A lot of non-profit insurers started looking really closely at policies; they started canceling a lot, renewing others with enormous rate increases."

The Alliance Defense Fund's Bull said his group has been contacted by at least one school district that has stopped placing children with same-sex mentors until "this problem can be sorted out." Attorney's for the district are drafting a consent agreement for parents, he noted.

"We've received lots of letters of support," Bull said, but "Big Brothers Big Sisters has taken the ostrich approach – they are putting their heads in the sand and they are simply not addressing this problem."


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