To clarify–Scouts don’t care what religion you are, as long as you are not atheist. The want you to have some level of spirituality and encoded moral order in your approach to the world, that’s all. I disagree with this policy, but nobody’s ever asked me.
But the gay ones will always know they’re believed by the organization to be unwholesome perverts, unfit to lead the next generation. They’ve set a double standard of bigotry that will not be lost on the kids.
I had to look this one up. As a chemist, my first thought was of something else 
Oh, good grief.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with Polycarp a number of years back. Same basic discussion, only it was the Episcopal Church rather than the Boy Scouts. I was making the point that if one day being gay is a sin, and the next day you have a gay bishop, the people in the pews get whiplash from the change. Sure, it makes logical sense that once you accept that gay isn’t sinful, that gays can be priests and bishops as well as members in good standing of the church. But to have it happen all at once makes people’s heads spin; they need time to get used to the idea that gay is OK before they can deal with gays, who were sinners yesterday, as their spiritual leaders.
It’s not as extreme, obviously, with the BSA, but the same idea holds: the people associated with Scouting deserve an interval to adjust to gays being acceptable as Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts before having to adjust to them as den mothers and Scoutmasters.
We humans aren’t just a bunch of logical switches, where if we accept one truth, we instantaneously accept all of its implications. You’re thinking of Vulcans.
This was the change they could accept now, and good on them for being willing to make that change now, even if they weren’t ready to take the last step. In a few years, everybody who stays with Scouting will become used to openly gay kids as Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, and they’ll realize these kids are just like anyone else other than their orientation. And then it will look silly to not let those kids become leaders as adults, and the last wall will fall.
In posts #73 and 74 of this thread I told the story of a man named Joe Thompson. Joe had some trouble with the BSA when he first wanted to join, in the second decade of the 20th century, but although they rejected him at first, he didn’t reject the BSA
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=680552&page=2&highlight=Thompson
Joe’s story fits in with what RTFirefly was saying about change not being comfortable all at once.
Just rip the band-aid off. The sooner it happens, the sooner everyone can move on. I have little patience for the “it’s really hard for bigots to give up their bigotry, so let’s just let them be bigots for a while longer. They’ll be so much more comfortable if they can just hang on to their bigotry for another decade or so.”
I don’t really care too much about making sure bigots stay comfortable.
Additionally, the folks Bicker and Rant when gays children aren’t permitted, then bicker and rant when the Adults aren’t permitted as if the status quo were written in stone.
Two months ago, the official stance was completely ‘no’, now it’s ‘mostly yes’…just how long do you think it’ll be before it’s ‘completely yes’?
It’s also impossible to tell how these votes go, as the ‘Vocal opposition’, by the nature of a debate, sounds just as loudly as the ‘Vocal support’, even if they happen to be a fraction of the voting population.
Fair enough. But I greatly prefer the Vulcan way to the human process of waffling toward a 180 degree change in thinking. If you’ve decided you’re wrong, then it makes sense to say, “OK, I was wrong” and start being right. I understand (and reluctantly agree with) what you’re saying, and understand that The Scouts isn’t just one dude thinkng about his own life. I still think when the decision was made to pull the trigger on inclusion it should have been done “band-aid removal style.”
Funny, no one ever said anything to me about this when I was in the Scouts, and I was totally agnostic by then. One does not need religion to be a moral person.
How did you handle the Scout Oath, the part about “duty to God”?
I agree. I don’t see any good reason to keep gay people from being scout leaders. Because it’s hard for people to get their heads around it does not seem like a good one.
I agree that the change is inevitable, and that eventually that gay people will be allowed to be scout troop leaders. But if people quietly and patiently wait, it might take a lot longer than if they “Bicker and Rant” like you say they are doing. I don’t see any reason to make them wait longer than necessary.
Same way I did, I expect: they’re just words you get through on your way to the rest of the meeting.
How long ago were you in Scouts?
Back when I was in (late 60s, early 70s) there wasn’t much mention of it either. But there was a low-grade assumption of religion in society also. Nobody asked if you believed in God, because of course you did. And it wasn’t a Judeo-Christian thing - I remember looking at all of the various specific religion merit badges: lots of flavors of Christian, but Islam, Buddhist, Hindu, etc were all there also.
Thats what kept Scouting out of trouble all these years. They didn’t ask about religion. Scouting encompasses people from countries all over the world. Thats not easy to do. Big jamborees include scouts from all over the world that meet and make friends. They made it work by just focusing on kids character and moral values. It didn’t matter what nationality or religion you were.
The BSA should have taken the same approach towards sexual orientation. No one ever asked me if I liked girls when I joined scouting. Thats none of their business. They should have just accepted kids without questions.
A church should be allowed to choose to sponsor, or to not sponsor, any group they like, for any reasons they want. And, frankly, any church who would choose not to sponsor a Boy Scout troop is a church that I would rather not have sponsoring a troop anyway.
And when I was in Scouts, there were a number of boys who made no secret of their agnosticism or atheism, and it never caused any problems. At least two of them even, at one point or another, served as chaplain for their troops. No, don’t ask me, I’m not sure how that happened either.
Pretty much exactly the same. Women can vote, at least. The funniest thing is the SBC has a man in charge of the Women’s Missionary Union. Go figure.
In Australia people say to my God.
I must say that reading the above posts makes me glad that religion is just not part of Scouting in Australia. We do have ceremonies and Scouts’ Owns and celebrate St George’s day etc but really even me as an Atheist was welcome and understood and appreciated the spirit.
Sure. But some of the churches disagree, and how does asking kids, especially older ones, to lie about their orientation jibe with the Scout Law?
Same thing with religion. When I went to camp over the summer, we were expected to go to services on Saturday or Sunday. I wasn’t an atheist then, but anyone who was would be lying if they participated fully.
BTW, there was a UN Boy Scout troop 60 years ago, and “A Scout is Reverent” was yanked right out and replaced by “A Scout believes in the UN Charter.”
The briefly religious portions I remember, were often meal prayers that were easily ignored by us non-religious types. It was treated as completely optional. I had a friend that (I now know) was gay, and nobody cared at all.
The Boy Scouts have been Boy Scouts for decades. Exclusion, politics, sexuality, and aggressive religion were never a part in their organization. Now there’s a “scandal” because they won’t openly accept gay scouts. I think they would have, and maybe have been accepting gay scouts, just not as a political platform. They accept boys, and those that guide them, period. Don’t read any NAMBLA shit into that.
Now the Baptist churches are going to abandon the Scouts “en masse”?
“Sorry Jimmy, but we can’t sponsor your troop this year. The trip to the mountains is cancelled.”
“But why Pastor Jeff? We sold corn and Indian arrowheads for a year to pay for it.”
“You see Jimmy, there might be a kid two, maybe eight towns over, that might like boys when he grows up. The Boy Scouts are okay with him joining, we choose to condemn him to Hell of course.”
I interpreted that as “if there were a God, how would he want you to act?”
I acted accordingly, because that pretty much fit my definition of “right” minus the weird religious rules about meat and what to do on certain days, and how you could do something really bad, but then be forgiven for doing so.
Religion - 1, Knowledge of the outdoors - 0
“They’ve had a bigoted policy for years, but nobody cared that much until lately, because until lately the vast majority of everyone else was bigoted also.”
I’d be entirely happy if this “scandal” never existed, and you know what would have made that happen? If BSA had just said from the beginning, “Oh, gay Scouts? No problem, of course.”
Were you a Boy Scout that witnessed discrimination? No. I was a Boy Scout, and I’m pretty sure there were a few gay scouts in my troop. The Scouts were FINE until policy, and official stances reared their heads.
Know what the BSA (in practice) has always said? “Scouts? No problem, of course.”
All of this official recognition, political posturing, and clerical damning is all WAY above the level of the Scouts themselves.
A group of kids that likes to go camping now has to have a political and moral stance on sexuality?
FUCK EVERYONE THAT HAS MADE IT COME TO THIS. SERIOUSLY, FUCK YOU.
I used to be able to camp with friends, gay or not, and have a good time. Now churches and other rights groups want to make an issue about how kids learn about nature.
Fuck. You.