It was bad enough a couple weeks ago when I was ushering with some recent confirmandi and one of them was wearing a tee shirt, rolled his eyes at our resident trannie, and sat on the floor in the back of the church during the sermon.
“Don’t scare the kids off,” said my wife.
“Don’t worry. I’m the alternate usher and the more of those kids who are happy to be on the schedule, the more I get to blow off church. I didn’t even tell him about how Fr O’Hara would slap an altar boy in front of God and the congregation if he screwed up.”
Then this last Sunday was “Boy Scout Sunday.” I’ve undoubtedly told the tale of how, as a newly-minted Patrol Leader of a group of the troop’s losers, misfits, and homosexuals, I whipped (urged? figured out a way we could beat the odds without making too much extra effort?) them into shape so that we won the council’s Top Camper award, not just once, but twice (one time could be dismissed as a fluke; twice showed our Sr G-Man (Special Agent In Charge, Chicago) Scoutmaster that we weren’t just fuckoffs). A tale fit for a bad 70s comedy, except this time it was real. Suffice it to say I know the difference between smart and slack.
So Sunday, when a kid came in with his neckerchief askew and his blouse pulled out in the back, my blood tried to boil. In my head I could hear my wife say, “The kid ain’t right. Leave him alone,” so I did. However, I have a few guidelines that should be followed:
I realize that few troops require, and their Scouts cannot afford, the full, official uniform I wore, both Winter and Summer. This does not excuse a kid from looking his best.
I am the father of a handicapped child and that is not only NOT an excuse for a parent to excuse slackness, sharpness is something a responsible parent should encourage to help his kid to do as well as possible in life. Nobody wants to hire a slob.
Blouses are to be tucked in properly and all badges are to be sewed on all around. Looking like they are Velcroed on is slack. Sewing them on properly is a useful skill for a kid and can be done while watching TV.
This one annoys me the most: Blouse collars are to be turned under all around and both the first and second buttons of your shirt or blouse are to be unbuttoned and the neckerchief slide is to be adjusted so that it follows the line created by your decolletage. No troop around here follows that, though the summer uniform has it built in.
I’m not asking for much. Most of my demands do not actually add to the time a Scout spends getting dressed. I just demand that kids care about how they look and take the actions to look good. They do not only represent themselves but their troop and Boy Scouts in general.
ETA, lest you stay at attention indefinitely: At ease.
Well, the parish sponsors a Boy Scout troop. I could help there as the Assistant Scoutmaster in Charge of Dressing Sharp.
panache45, I had to mold them into good Boy Scouts, ie: capable of winning awards (our Scoutmaster put a lot of stock in awards. Now his kid runs a cheesy security agency. He may be straight, but that has to be a come-down from being a kickass patrol leader). And it wasn’t my job to mold my guys into Manly Men, since THAT was a lost cause. Our job, as a patrol, was to rub the Scoutmaster’s kid’s nose in how us “losers” beat him twice, to the point that the council stopped awarding the award to the top patrol, but the top troop. By then I was an Eagle Scout (though just a Star in BSA parlance–told you I was a fuckoff) but took some satisfaction in how the troop kept winning it. And we did it not because we could afford the uniforms, but, since the tests were technical, not sartorial, we were damned good. My patrol was just better.
As for the gay thing, this was 1968. We were YEARS, even DECADES, ahead of the curve, acceptancewise. If a kid could tie a sheepshank knot in just a few seconds, I didn’t care if he propositioned my APL.
Toronto has had a gay Scout group for a decade. Meanwhile, in the USA, Scout leaders have been turfed because they are gay. Sad to see the lack of morality in Scouting in the USA when it comes to basic human rights.
Poor Scouts? Think I had it covered when I said they may have an excuse that they were not in full uniform, but that sloppiness was a different thing.
Sloppy Scouts? Thought this would be a dealbreaker amongst the hippies of the SDMB. So far, so good.
My acceptance of my gay scouts at a time when that was anathema, versus my use of a term our transgendered brethren appear to have claimed as their own? Fuck you.
Forty years ago? Both nations were insensitive jerks toward gays. Still are in many ways, but the lack of progress in the USA is of significant concern to me. That an organization whose focus is on raising youth of strong moral character deliberately drives gays out of its leadership is galling.
I am not happy with the official policy. But, luckily, there’s enough autonomy that local troops are able to completely ignore the idiots in Texas who come up with these policies, at least for the scouts. As for the leaders, I think the idiots in the country that think homosexual=rapist or homosexual=pedophile (and let’s not debate the exact use of the term pedophile) are to blame. I think it’ll eventually change, but unfortunately it’ll probably take maybe as much as another generation (I hope not more.)
As for the OP, I think he’s being a little silly, but I knew plenty of adults who thought like that (and oddly enough, the worst weren’t the military/ex-military ones.) Besides, a lot of times, it was something we wore because we had to and they aren’t the most comfortable or practical things. Though at times, dressing up a little and putting everything on (neckerchief, merit badge sash, OA sash, etc.) could be kind of fun for special events. Kind of like the difference between wearing a suit to work and dressing up to go to a fancy dinner or a party.
It is my position that the right to employment without discrimination based on sex is a basic human right. If you doubt that this is not a generallly recognized basic human right, have a look at Articles 1, 2, and 23(1) of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Now go back and re-read my post. The basic human right that is being impinged is the employment of gays in the leadership of the Boy Scouts America. That the USA does not consider gays to be part of a protected class (i.e. the protected class of sex) when it comes to basic human rights is a prime illustration of the bigotry problem in that nation that all too often has been enshrined both in legislation and in judicial decisions, and lies at a number of grossly discriminatory practices in the USA, including not only a violation of the right to employment (Art. 23), but also violations of the right to marriage (Art. 16), the right to have a family (e.g. adoption) (Art. 16).
So pick up your socks, Boozahol, and get you and your nation to join the 21st century when it comes to basic human rights.
I had to wear a jacket and tie six days a week, so I really didn’t like to dress up for Scouts because uniform shirt was supposed to be buttoned all the way up all the time (we did not have the informality of the American open collar uniform). Top dodge the issue, I never got around to buying a Scouting shirt. One of the leaders eventually guilted me in to wearing one by giving me one of his old ones.
Having had to wear a jacket and tie six days a week back in the days when hippies prowled the earth (my mom once took me to Yorkville to “look at the hippies”) taught me the value of social camouflage, so when wearing a Scout uniform was important, I wore my gifted shirt and grey flannels neatly pressed, kept my boots polished, and addressed the adults as Sir or Ma’am. It worked, for each year I won the regional Scouting competition.
Since landing jobs often depends on how one presents one’s self, including one’s attire, and since the first few jobs in a person’s career often have a significant effect on one’s career path, I think that learning to dress for success by dressing appropriatley for the situation is important. Scouting can help a child learn this skill so that when the time comes, he or she (in Canada, Scouting does not discriminate), will have a better chance at landing that all important job.
Interestingly, there is presently a move in Scouts Canada to have the scouts themselves decide what is appropriate to wear for a given situation. I think that is a good approach, for it gets the kids discussing and making conscious decisions about what is appropriate attire in different situations, while at the same time not making them feel like they are being forced into a geeky uniform. Learning and empowerment at the same time – a good approach. http://www.scouts.ca/media/documents/FEB03uniform.pdf
In my country, protection from discrimination based on sexual orientation is constitutionally enshrined. See the unanimous decision by the full sitting of the Supreme Court of Canada in Egan v. Canada, 1995 CanLII 98 (S.C.C.), that found that sexual orientation is an analogous ground of discrimination, putting beyond question the ability of gays and lesbians to rely upon the equality guarantees of section 15 (sex) of the Charter of Rights.
In the USA, there is no such constitutional protection.
A lack of tucked in shirt makes your blood boil? Wow.
I’m so glad my Scout leaders were focused on other things, like being trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
I guess you could be pretty focused on the obedience and clean bit. Maybe squeeze in reverence, too, depending on the situation. But damn that’s a stretch. Teaching and inspiring is one thing; disdain for those that don’t conform to your stylish demands is pathetic.
Fuck off. I’m not saying that gays don’t have the right to employment. I just think that throwing around the term ‘human rights’ in regard to anything that should be done is weakening the import of real human rights cases. Human rights does not include the right to go camping and weave baskets. Life, speech, religion, private property, assemlby? Go right ahead.
The BSA is a private group that has made a decision as to whom they want involved in their activities. You want to decide whether I invite gays to my boy scout troop, Asians to my friday night poker game or hire the Irish to run my sewing circle? Go fuck yourself.
Mine were into taking us down rivers of no return. One day I stayed in camp figuring that the riviere du jour would eat the canoes. That evening the rest of the troop returned, sans canoes. I got very good at swift water rescue. Fortunately, none of us ever died (but we were involved in the drowning and body evac of a person in another group). Good times! Truly stupid times, but good times!
Looking back, I am astounded at how ignorant the leaders in Scouts and Venturers were of basic wild water technique and safety, but the flip side of the coin is that it helped introduce me to moving comfortably through the wilderness, in making decisions under pressure, and in managing groups in stressful situations. In later years I ended up earning my keep guiding wild water trips, teaching outdoor adventure leadership, paddling and skiing, and developing wilderness wild water tripping programs, so I believe that Scouts Canada, and the Scout and Venturer leaders who volunteered so much effort when I was a lad, had a significant role in my development, for which I remain very grateful.
