BOY Scouts - The Sequel

Great Debates
1

In the old Boy Scouts thread, I raised the following issue, which was never addressed:

IF, as found by the NJ courts, BSA is a public institution
AND, a public institution may not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, or gender,

will BSA be forced to accept girls as Scouts?

I would like to know how others, particularly with experience in scouting feel about this, and to focus this discussion on the advantages & disadvantages to co-ed scouting rather than the legal issues, or the separate issue allowing homosexual boys & homosexual leaders, since these were already extensively discussed in the prior thread:
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001018.html

A couple of things to include in your consideration:

Worldwide, there are many nations with coed scouts. In most (all?) European nations, scouting is co-ed. It can be done.

Girl Scouting does NOT offer a comparable experience. There is much more emphasis on everyone cooperating & getting along than on getting anything done. There is much less emphasis on earning badges, or on camping, and (for older girls) much more on make-up, fashion, dating & relationship issues.

Both BSA & GSA have very high attrition rates once kids get past 12-14. My limited observations of troops in Europe suggests to me that the attrition rate there is lower, but there may well be other factors involved.

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

2

I don’t have an answer for you, Sue, but I would like to know whether the stuff NewtonsApple posted about the BS not getting any government funding is true. At the time, I had no reason to doubt him and accepted that he really had made the calls he claimed to have made. Now, of course, other events have made me seriously wonder…

3

If a girl asserted in New Jersey entitlement to membership in the BSA, under the same rationale used regarding the gay leader, the BSA would be forced to accept her as a member.

In California, if Melin is correct about the ruling regarding the BSA under Civil Code Section 51, the BSA would NOT be required to accept her as a member, as in that state the BSA is not considered to be a business.

4

[rant]I’d just like to state that for the record, the Girl Scouts is the most lame, badly run pointless organization in th US and maybe the world. You’re a horrible person if you make your daughter join against her will. I can directly trace every scarring personal experiend to my “scouting” days and have never heard anyone say they liked it. They actually had the gall to send me a letter soliciting funds last week and you better believe I ripped them a new one; I’d sooner give money to a cause that bought crack for kids – at least they’d get some enjoyment out of that. And how bad could they need money, charging $6 for a box of cookies?[/rant]

Love stinks! (Yeah, yeah!)

5

The Explorers accepts both boys and girls and it’s part of BSA.

6

Look, its $3 a box, and those coconut cookies are damn good! Don’t try and take away my peanut butter patties either!

7

I was afraid this post got lost in the aftermath of SqrlCub’s attack on Melin. For reasons known only to him, in the midst of that post, he included some links:
http://www.scouting.org/nav/about.html
http://www.infidels.org/~nap/bsa_government_grants.html

which he purported proved his assertion that BSA DID receive government funds.

The following was my respnose:

I have spoken with my sister-in-law, who is the administrative assistant to the head of BSA. (Secretary, gopher, tent-erector, etc.) I am not willing to publicly post her work phone #, but would, on request, provide her name & phone # to you, David if you would like to confirm any of this information.

She confirmed for me that BSA receives NO direct federal funds. They do pay rent for Ft. AP Hill, but she acknowledges that it may not cover all expenses. Grants are accepted by charter organizations (which are separate from BSA, with separate Non-profit organization ID #s) from other (non-federal) governmental agencies for specific purposes as described above. These grants are obtained through a competitive application process with other community organizations.

Hope this clarifies that issue.

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

8

How are the logistics addressed elsewhere?

The only personal comparison I can make with Boy Scouts is to co-ed church camps. (Bear in mind, this was a long time ago in Michigan.) In the Boy Scout camps, a volunteer Scoutmaster, or a designated substitute, takes responsibility for troops when going on weekend campouts. In co-ed church camps, paid counselors are assigned to groups of boys or girls (boys don’t share cabins with girls). In Scout camps, boys are often left on their own to hike, swim, explore, fish, work toward merit badges, etc. In church camps, every activity is supervised. There are chapels at Scout camps, though no one is forced to attend (I never did). Church camp religious activities are required.

Generally, I liked the freedom of the Scout camps more than the structure of the church camps. Would bringing girls into the Boy Scouts end that freedom?

Boy Scouts also have a military slant that includes uniforms, standing at attention in file, saluting, attaining rank, being assigned troop numbers, etc. Would this be desirable for girls? And is it really that desirable for boys?

Do Camp Fire Girls?

How do the boys and girls get along in Europe? And would they get along better, the same, or worse here?

If girls will be allowed to join the Boy Scouts, I hope the transition is gradual.

9

In short the answer summarized from the above poster in reference to the question of federal funding of Scouts;

NO they dont get money from the feds, or that they dont raise themselves.

NOW BACK TO THE OP

10

Thanks, Sue. Now that you’ve reposted it, I do remember seeing your message. No need for your sister-in-law’s phone number. I’ll trust you until you prove yourself to be a troll like N/A. :wink:

But I am a bit confused about the end part. You indicate they do get some governmental funding as grants. I guess I wonder whether other discriminatory groups can compete for those types of grants.

11

No implied connection acknowledged. So no harm no foul.

Troll Puppet: A well paid conveniently placed lobbyist and supporter of anyone having enough funds to retain him/her. :slight_smile:

12

To be honest, David, I don’t know all the rules on these grants. My adult experience with scouts is pretty much exclusively from military bases in Germany, so I don’t know all the ins & outs of how it works here. My impression is that city councils aren’t directly allocating tax funds to BSA for these purposes, but giving a block of money to the City Youth Services. Some of that money goes directly into city-run progrmas; some is divvied up into grants & up for grabs, subject to local policies. But I’m way out on a conjectural limb here, & would love to hear more from anyone who knows more.

::mumble, mumble:: looks who’s violating her own OP…

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

13

John Rush raises several interesting points related to my OP :slight_smile:

  1. Logistics - this is a legitimate concern. Europeans tend to be a lot less Puritanical than Americans about the propriety of boys & girls being together, and yet, the kids seem less likely to see any sexual issues about being together - it just seems normal to them. This would be the major stumbling block to coed troops in the US. Most male troop leaders would freak at having to deal with some 14 year old girl who forgot to bring her monthly needs with her. And it only takes a few girls (or boys) who cross the the line between flirting & seduction to make a fun trip a nightmare. But, I don’t think that accepting girls would inevitably lead to the end of Scouting as we know it. There would be a long adjustment period, but eventually the dust would settle & coed troops would seem normal & everyone would wonder what the fuss was all about.

Everyone except Girl Scouts, that is. I don’t think that Girl Scouts could survive the attrition of girls into a coed Boy Scouts. While I think that BSA had much more to offer me, I realize that for other girls, GSA offers a program more to their liking. So there probably would be losers, if this were to occur.

  1. As to the “military slant”, John, reread my name - I won’t have to explain why I fail to see this as a problem :slight_smile: Besides, Girl Scouts do wear uniforms, have assigned troop numbers, learn to stand at attention, conduct flag ceremonies, and march in formation in parades… Nonissue.

  2. As for Camp Fire Girls, I have had little contact with them for years, but believe that they have dropped the “Girls”, and are, in fact, coed. But I may be mistaken on this.

Sue from El Paso

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

14

Do boys and girls in Europe share the same cabins? The same restrooms (or latrines)? If so, it will take a very long time for such openness to be accepted here: we might not live to see it. Otherwise, the current Scout campgrounds will have to undergo some expensive changes. And troops might be required to provide both a male and female adult on camping trips.

Yes, I’m aware that you’re in the military, Sue. Perhaps I should have put it this way: why militarize them at that age? They’re kids: let them enjoy their youth while they’re still young. Let them consider a military career once they reach adulthood.

“You can observe a lot just by watching.” – Yogi Berra

15

Most of the camping experiences I’ve known about with BSA had 2 boys sharing a pup tent. Latrines were generally port-a-johns.
I agree about the female leaders; this is already done at the Cub Scout level.
I don’t know much about any fixed campgrounds used by scouts here, though.

I guess I don’t see how wearing uniforms, doing flag ceremonies, & marching in parades is really militarizing kids. The 10 & under kids are generally thrilled with getting to wear uniforms. Older Girl Scouts seldom wear uniforms; if my experience is typical, most girls don’t own them once they leave the Junior level & advance to Cadettes. From what I’ve seen, pretty much all Boy Scouts have a shirt, but most wear it with jeans, not official shorts or slacks. One of the key values of Scouting is teamwork & building esprit d’corps. I suppose the fact that the typical American teenager values independence & self-expression including the “right” to wear the same Tommy Hilfiger stuff as everyone else has a lot to do with attrition from Scouts.

Sue from El Paso

  • Siamese attack puppet - Texas

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.

16

The organization is now coed. They are called, officially “Camp Fire Boys and Girls”.

Leslie Irish Evans
http://leslie.scrappy.net

17

I hope Sue will forgive me, but I heard a song on the way to work this morning that seems so apropos of this thread:

I’d be inclined to think that making the (Boy) Scouting experience available to the girl who wants it (that particular form of experience), as Sue indicated she did in her youth, would be entirely within reason. The sexuality issue would only be significant to the adults worrying about it, IMHO – the kids would deal with it healthily if permitted to.

I’d be inclined to think that “just opening the doors” would produce an (IMHO) undesirable effect of diluting the Scouting experience by requiring adaptation to what Girls want at the scouting age, which as a stereotypical generality differs from what boys want. (No sexual innuendo intended, please.) To allow girls who want to be Boy Scouts to be such, much like allowing the girl who wants to join boy sport teams to do so, differs from adapting the Scouting program to incorporate a two-sex emphasis. Am I making sense here?

18

From my experiences, I think it would be fine to have girls in the Boy Scouts, but only certain types of girls. We tended to be a real rough and tumble group, and there are some girls that I remember growing up with that would have had a real traumatic time hiking/camping with us. Others, I’m sure, would have fared just fine. So, the main problem I see would be the problems that would occur when parents nudged their daughter to join when their daughter is not the type of girl that could handle us, and the lawsuits that would follow.

OK, I know that sounds real chauvinistic, but I don’t mean it to, really. But, if you saw some of the things we did to each other back then, and then substituted a (i.e. the wrong) girl in some of those situations, you would realize how hairy a situation it would be if an adult ever found out.

Flame away :wink:

PeeQueue

19

Sue, I let the issue die and apologized to Melin. I would be pleased if you didn’t try to rekindle it. However with that said, you can find all about the BSA’s funding sources from www.irs.gov or whatever that address was by requesting whatever those forms mentioned previously were. Personally, I don’t care one way or the other seeing how I would never support the BSA for personal and moral (they don’t have the same moral code as I) reasons nor any of their subsidiaries regardless of how much I believed in them (i.e. planting trees in public parks).

Again, please don’t mention me in relationship to verbally attacking Melin, if you do please phrase it so it was a former attack since I later apologized unless it is something that is actually current.

Thank you,
Sqrl

Dear Fascist Bully Boys,
Give me more money, you bastards.
May the seed of your loins prove fruitful in the belly of your woman.
neil

20

Sqrl, I don’t think that Sue’s intention was to dig up old fights, simply to review your allegations about public funding of the BSA and their sources and her refutation of them and her sources. The thread would likely have died, had I not resurrected it to post my own viewpoint. So don’t be offended about its being brought back to the surface.

In token of the peace offered above, here’s a smiling bear for you:

http://flowerkitty.tripod.com/smile/bear.gif

Just don’t let Chief know about it!