It would be as simple to fix as “If you discriminate, your charter will be revoked.”
My son is an eagle scout and I’m proud of the BSA.
If some liberal groups dont like it - start your own group. THIS article mentions 4 such groups.
THIS article mentions several others both past and current.
So quit your griping and either start your own or put your kid into an organization you like. Quit trying to change the Boy Scouts.
As for the scouts, I like it that individual troops can set some of their own rules based on their chartering organization. For example, we have some troops run under Jewish synagogues that are very strict kosher. Other troops are run by Mennonite churches which have strict rules on language. The point is a person can find a troops which is to there liking. Want one that camps out every month - they are there.
Finally as for letting girls join - that has been coming for quite awhile. Actually girls have always been a part of Venture crews and many were in like cub scouts “unofficially” or doing it right along with their brothers. Also if the girl scouts hadnt gotten so lame they might not be losing members right now to the boy scouts.
Not discriminating is “Liberal”.
Got it.
Question: did your troop do much camping?
One of the many complaints many girls had with the GSA was it rarely did any camping or if they did, was kind of “wimpy” about it. Meaning they would pack up and go home if it looked like rain.
Whereas my sons troop have camped in drenching rain, mud, snow, cold, heat, etc… I’ve always said it isnt really a true scout campout unless you get your shoes muddy.
What do you have a problem with?
The scout oath?
“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country, to obey the Scout Law, to help other people at all times, to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.”
or law:
“A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.”
Many troops also do the “Outdoor Code”
As an American, I will do my best to –
Be clean in my outdoor manners.
Be careful with fire.
Be considerate in the outdoors.
Be conservation minded.
What is the horrid, bigoted part of any of that?
Also what organization would you suggest is better?
It also says, “Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly listed Boy Scouts of America’s estimated assets.”
Online articles get updated with corrections, information or just for word choice. If you’re lucky they’ll flag the change. If you’re not, you have to live with the fact that two people accessing the same url as little as hours apart may see different info.
The god part. Irreligion is growing quickly in the US. Maybe not in my day, but someday the irreligious will outnumber the religious.
Ceremonial deism my ass.
Not sure why this thread has “Breaking News” in the title; surely it was something thought out & planned before it was announced.
Do you think Chik-Fil-A would allow a Jewish franchisee to be closed on Saturday instead of Sunday or a Muslim one to be closed on Friday instead of Sunday?
The BSA failed on the bolded parts in handling the molestation and gay rights situations.
The potentially legitimate issue some people might have with BSA is their policy on gay adult volunteers at a certain point in time between where all of US society basically would accept the idea that gay men shouldn’t be youth instructors, and now when the BSA also allows it. When I was a Boy Scout in the late 1960’s this simply wasn’t an issue, societal consensus was solid in one direction. Now it’s solid in one direction, just not the same one.
The Boy v Girl scout thing I agree is not a simple question of gender equality, though also influenced by changes in societal issues which were not even controversies not so long ago. Gender equality is in a way more complicated than sexual orientation equality because it doesn’t necessarily imply that male or female organizations shouldn’t exist, or which should take over for the other if they don’t both exist.
And again no matter how many times people on the thread repeat that BSA is a ‘Christian’ organization, that is bullshit. BSA does or did have a veneer of vague deism as was referred to earlier, like most US social organizations till recently. But our mainly Jewish and Catholic (few white Protestants where I grew up in NY area) troop was not a ‘religious organization’, ridiculous to claim otherwise. And there were probably kids from non-religious families. People would assume which of the by then basically mutually friendly NY white tribes you were from based on your last name, but actual discussion of religion or whether you actually observed any: pretty much never. So I didn’t know who was observant or non-religious except other Catholic kids I saw at church and religious instruction. Race relations were another thing. Our troop was IIRC all white because from the white part of town. A lot of my school friends were black but if Scouts then in troops in their part of town. It wasn’t the BSA dictating that, and this was NY area, generally relatively liberal white middle class voters living in de facto segregated neighborhoods, as remains somewhat true now.
All such orgs reflect their societies. Pretty silly IMO to wish them to disappear as ‘penance’ for past social consensus which has now broken down or changed.
So what organization do you think is better?
Well the girl scouts took religion out of their oaths and program years ago and has many lesbian leaders (about half of the average GS scout camp staff) and it hasnt helped grow their program.
Starting on June 14, 1954, I have never uttered the pledge and never will. Since my kids all went to school in Canada, they never have either.
Is the drop in membership in these kinds of groups any different than the drops in membership in other similar groups? Aren’t many social groups losing lots of members anyway? I would expect the BSA to suffer from attrition due to many other activities available these days. Back when your only entertainment was 3 channels of fuzzy reruns on TV, kids had a lot of free time to be in scouting. But now with the internet, sport clubs, and demanding school work, I suspect there are a lot fewer kids who have time for scouting regardless of what policies they have in place.
No, of course not. Wendy’s is a corporation that is headed by a CEO and a Board of Directors. The individual franchisees are bound to the corporate office by contract. There would be serious financial repercussions for any franchisee who ignored the dictates of the corporate office.
BSA is an organization that is almost entirely made up of unpaid volunteers. The youth are there voluntarily as well. You have to make changes by consensus.
Also, maintaining cleanliness standards is non-controversial. A better example would be if Wendy’s was trying to decide if they should stop using beef in their hamburgers or not. There may come a day when that decision is a no-brainer, but that day has not yet arrived. If Wendy’s CEO were to make that decision today, there would likely be a revolt of its franchisees, and legal action. Such a decision could even put the company out of business.
That’s the kind of existential threat that the BSA has been faced with as it grappled with the decision to allow LGBT members to join, as well as girls.
It also says
When I posted the article, it said less than $50,000.
You’re old enough, then, to remember when the Pledge of Allegiance was changed to add the phrase “under God” to it.
I was born after that, so the “under God” was always in the Pledge of Allegiance growing up. I recited it unthinkingly, like most American children. I don’t think it made me any more or less religious than I am (which is basically not at all).
With respect to the Boy Scouts, one point of the Scout Law is that a Scout be reverent. Part of being reverent is being respectful of other’s religious beliefs. I certainly don’t have a problem with that (so long as their religious beliefs don’t infringe on me).
The little bits of ceremonial deism present in the Boy Scouts, in public life in the U.S., and even the military oath of office that I took don’t bother me too much.
When you show me where in trademark law it says you can continue to use a trademark because you’re a volunteer, I’ll believe you.
So’s accepting gay people, at least among reasonable human beings. You know, like the ones abandoning the BSA.
The Impossible Burger exists, and is a reasonable success, making this comparison out-of-date, and human beings aren’t fast food patties, making this comparison something between insulting and incoherent.
The BSA holds itself out as a group which teaches morals, so committing immoral acts is contrary to its entire purpose, and allowing bigots to spread bigotry under the BSA’s brand is indeed immoral. The leadership is failing to lead, failing to set examples, and failing to save the organization. You say it’s accepting bigots to retain members, I say it’s losing members right now, so it’s retaining bigots despite the drop in membership, which shows where its true priorities are: It would rather cease to exist than accept GLBTQ members.
You’re missing the point. A volunteer organization can’t make radical changes in policy without first building a consensus.
Not all people are reasonable. Sometimes you have to work with unreasonable people for the greater good. BSA just lost a lot of members due to the choice to accept LGBT people.
And don’t forget that the people who are most affected aren’t the adults making these decisions; it’s the youth who are caught in the crossfire. It can’t have been an easy decision to lose several hundred thousand Scouts because they happen to belong to an intolerant church. And it’s not like these youth chose to belong to that intolerant church – these are kids we’re talking about.
Also, in case it’s not clear, I don’t know anyone who is abandoning the BSA because it is intolerant. It’s pretty easy to find a tolerant BSA unit in my experience. The people who are leaving are those who are upset that the Boy Scouts are allowing LGBTQ adults and youth to join.
I know it exists. That’s why I brought it up. So let me ask you: do you think Wendy’s is now ready to switch solely to meatless burgers? (FWIW, sales of BK’s Impossible Whopper have been recently been slumping.)
Hey, buddy, you’re the one who brought Wendy’s into the discussion. :rolleyes:
You think not admitting LGBTQ members is immoral (as do I), but not everyone in America agrees with you (or me).
You know, it wasn’t that long ago when “Don’t ask, don’t tell” (DADT) was considered to be an advancement in LGBTQ rights. The social landscape has changed fairly quickly in recent years.
Since every BSA unit in the country is now free to allow openly gay youth and adults to join their units (and has been since 2015), I don’t see how you come to that conclusion.
And I will add, it has been the unofficial policy for a long time before that in many units to ignore the old policy that prohibited openly gay leaders and youth. The gay Scout in my troop made Eagle Scout over a decade ago, several years before the policy was officially changed on the national level.
When my son was in kindergarten there wasn’t a Cub scout den available for him. I was drafted to serve as den leader and filled out the adult application, leaving the religious affirmation line blank. A couple of years later the head of the local organization came to me, noted the omission and asked me to complete it.
I said I wouldn’t, as that would require me to lie, I did not believe that “no member can grow into the best kind of citizen without recognizing an obligation to God” and I would not swear to that as I was and had been an atheist. She said that without my initialing the affirmation I could not continue as leader, and that lying on the form should not be a problem for me, since as an atheist I was going to hell anyway. I’m paraphrasing here slightly, but not much, that was the gist.
So the Cub scout den was dissolved. There wasn’t a den available for most of the boys and they ended up leaving scouting. I accept the news of the bankruptcy with an uncomfortable amount of schadenfreude. I feel like it makes me not that good a person, but that’s how I feel, and I guess I have to live with it.