Re
After vote allowing gay kids to become Boy Scouts, some families call it quits
Is there an non-gay member allowing alternative to the Boy Scouts? My kid is an Eagle Scout, and scouting is pretty big deal for some families, especially many politically conservative families.
As a side note I wonder if the Eagle Scouts that resigned and turned in their pins to protest the ban on gays want their designations back now?
I think there is a new organization forming, BSB, or Boy Scout Bigots.
Should have Googled more. Here are the alternatives.
Alternatives to the Boy Scouts of America Amid Furor Over Gay Ban
My favorite! “The Calvinist Cadet Corps”
Maybe they can create their own private organization that does the same thing scouts does except excludes gays? Oh wait…
I’m doubly disappointed in The Boy Scouts. Firstly for clinging to an outdated narrow-minded & biggoted principle, and secondly for compromising that principle not because it was the right thing to do, but just because they were getting bad press. That act alone sends a message to their boys that tells them to keep unpopular beliefs to themselves and cave in to pressure, which is exactly the opposite of what a real man does. Look, if you hate fags, just proudly say you hate fags and live with the result of your beliefs. If you say you hate fags, and someone can present a convincing argument why that’s no good, then change your mind and be man enough to say you were wrong before and now you don’t hate fags anymore.
This whole debacle could have been avoided if the people who had a problem with The Boy Scouts would have created their own Scout-like organization and let the old order just wither like it deserved to.
Sounds kinda gay to me.
Their motto: “Men who are sharing the joy and wisdom of Christlike living with boys”, which is kind of creepy to me. What exactly is “Christlike living with boys?”
And the picture of a boy operating a hand drill has a couple of serious safety faux pas that leave me cringing.
One thing that I haven’t seen mentioned is the fact that earning the distinction of Eagle Scout is considered a very valuable thing to be able to put on your college applications. So, in that sense, no, there really isn’t anything that has the cachet of the Boy Scouts. Everybody talks about archery and camping and all that warm and fuzzy stuff, but a lot of parents treat Scouts as an investment.
Some parents treat everything as an investment. It’s still gross. Anyway, as atheists are still excluded, it would be interesting to see if they have any alternatives to BSA.
cher3 pretty much hit the nail on the head with the cachet of Eagle Scout. I bet most of us had never heard of most of the organization in the link. Even if you have - quick, what’s the highest rank of of the Royal Ambasssdors? Or the Camp Fire? I don’t know without looking it up, and being a member of the BSA, I’ve heard a lot about these organizations over the past few days. Heck, they may not even have ranks, and putting “Eagle Scout” our your resume still catches the eye of a number of employers.
When the total gay ban was in place, some organizations sprang up to try and absorb members from BSA. They never really took off. Now that the gay ban is partially lifted, some organizations will try to absorb members from the BSA, and they probably won’t take off any more than they already do anyway.
The three biggest sponsors of scout units (the Mormon church, the Methodist church, and the Catholic church) have all said they are OK with the ruling, so I imagine the number of people actually leaving will be somewhat small. Not to mention the number of people that say they will leave is probably orders of magnitude larger than people that will actually leave.
Are the Hitlerjugend still around, because that might be a good fit?
Look, I get what you’re saying. Discrimination is bad. I agree, which is why I would like the BSA to lift the ban on gay adult leaders as well. The reason they didn’t is they were worried about losing 50% of their membership instead of 5%. They’re easing into it. Cultural change is the hardest change of all.
I still want to live in the USA even though 37 states still prohibit gay marriage. But instead of moving to France, I’d rather stay where I am and work towards equality.
As far as your last paragraph, people did. The last four organizations in the OP’s link are all scout-like organizations with no gay ban. Three of them are smaller than the district I live in (BSA is divided into 286 councils, which are subdivided into some number of districts, usually 5-15, which then have some number of packs, troops, etc). If you don’t have as many national numbers as a single district, it’s not like you’re taking off. Camp Fire might actually challenge BSA (and GSA) for membership, if they ever expand out of being a west coast organization.
The BSA at least took a survey of its members, and then took it to a vote.
Our Troop is about to lose its charter location (a local Lutheran church), and a few adults are talking about quitting. The biggest impact will be finding a new location. Losing some adults - I can deal with that. Losing some kids - that stinks for those kids. Losing a place to store our camping gear? THAT will be a royal pain. If it happens, I will use this as a chance to change how we camp going forward (much more lightweight and backpacking style, instead of the car camping we have embraced a bit too much).
Campfire, Royal Rangers, Baden Powell Scouts - they are not the same to me. The BSA has built a great operation - now we just need to get past this hiccup. It will be interesting to see if they allow local units to deny gay Scouts (you can register, but nobody will take you kid).
What a mess, and it is wasting a lot of my time that I could be spending on the boys.
The membership resolution specifically says you cannot deny a scout for sexual orientation alone, so in theory a troop cannot do this (any more than a troop cannot deny a black scout membership). I have a feeling, though, that in practice if an openly gay 16 year old wants to transfer to a particularly conservative troop, they will recommend looking elsewhere or make it uncomfortable enough that he looks elsewhere himself. Which is the epitomy of unscoutlike behavior, unfortunately.
One of our Assistant Scoutmasters left over this issue this past week. My (unofficial) response as the Committee Chairman for our troop? Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
I just wish the BSA had manned up and extended the repeal to gay adults as well. It’s dumb to say to a 17y 364d year old gay youth you’re OK, then the next day tell him to get out.
Because, of course, there’s no point to education except a maximized income.
Baby steps. I agree it’s a dumb policy, but it’s the one we could get now. Hopefully the combination of bigots like your ex-ASM leaving and indifferent leaders seeing good scouts being asked to leave will change minds and the adult ban can be lifted soon.
It took about a decade to fully lift the ban on segregated troops, and the decision to allow female leaders wasn’t without controversy either. I feel like this will come in time, even if it’s not as fast as I would like.
Is that a direct response to the BSA letting gay kids in?
Well, they wander in the desert a lot… no, wait, that was Moses.
Good news, though, you only need to catch one fish.
Watch me cry you a river. Girl Scouts lost access to schools over the Boy Scouts discrimination policy - we can’t book school rooms because its “easier” - they can’t allow Boy Scouts to book because they were (and still are) discriminatory - but lumped us in with them.
But because Girl Scouts are a front for the pro-abortion forces of Planned Parenthood and has an agenda of turning girls into Lesbian Warriors for the militant arm of NOW, often church doors are closed as well to troops.
Girls meet in my basement. The Service Unit stuff is in my basement. Its less than ideal, but it is what it is.
Troops can require that you be a member of their congregation though - I can see that being done in some situations.