First, I personally don’t care whether the Boys or Girls scouts leaders are gay or not.
The supreme court ruled they can ban gay Boy Scout leaders.
Doesn’t seem to apply to the Girl Scouts leaders. Don’t ask my how I know they have gay girl scout leaders, presidents, etc, but the question is, why don’t they give similar attention to gay girl scout leaders?
handy: do you have the most posts of all of us?
Personally, I don’t care if a scout leader or teacher or coach is gay.
Now if they belong to nambla, thats a different story.
I guess the question is Are the scouts allowed to discriminate on the basis of sex?
I think the decision was that not only can’t the leaders be gay, but the scouts themselves can’t, either. A freind who was an Eagle Scout who just came out hs year is quite upset about this. It’s like a “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” policy for 11 year olds.
A gay Girl Scout Leader did not bring the issue to the supreme court. A guy Boy Scout leader did. I suppose the decision would have been the same if it had been the Girl Scouts, but it wasn’t.
The Boy Scouts of America does not want to have gay leaders. The Supreme Court did not say that gay men cannot be Boy Scout Leaders. The Supreme Court said that they can’t be forced to have guy leaders if they don’t want to. If somewhere down the line the Boy Scouts changes it mind and wishes to have guy leaders it can.
The same goes for the Girl Scouts. Maybe they don’t mind having gay leaders. Maybe it just hasn’t made its way to court yet. The Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts are two different organization.
GSA and BSA are seperate entities. From what I recall, GSA allows gays. In fact, I think they even allow boys. Not that I know of any boys wanting to join GSA.
BSA are the ones making the stink about it. Thus the case.
Boy Scout troops are more often than not sponsored by churches. The Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) makes a particular point of sponsoring Boy Scout troops. (Note: I’m not accusing the Mormon church of anything sinister. In fact their sponsorship is probably a good thing for most communities)
In any case, most church groups are (vehemently) opposed to homosexuality. That, I think, is where the bias comes from.
Are Girl Scouts less likely to have church sponsorship? Do they meet in churches, or more often in homes?
BTW, my (straight) son and his (also straight) Eagle Scout friend quit the Boy Scouts when this issue first came up 2 years ago.
I believe that intolerance of gays is no better than intolerance of blacks, Jews, or any other group. I hope the Boy Scouts has a serious membership dip because of this ruling.
The GSA has dealt with the issue in a completely illogical way that works. The rule is that Girl Scout adult leaders cannot display any indication of their sexuality to their charges. The rule is broken every time a leader is picked up after a meeting by her SO, but everyone at GSA seems happy with the compromise as it treats all sexuality equally and simply removes the issue from the table.
Information in this post was from a NYT article from a few months ago. Any errors or misinterpretations are my own. (man, you people have made me very anal about citations ;))
Sua
Yes, they are. They are a private non-profit organization, and as such, are free to discriminate.
Speaking from experience (as a former Boy Scout), I can assure you that if girls were allowed to become Boy Scouts, our behavior would have been very different. There would be those problems that the Citadel (the all male military academy) encountered when they first admitted women – hazing, sexual harrassment, even sexual assault.
Keep in mind that one can be a Boy Scout up until the day before their 18th birthday. So with all those adolescent hormones in the air, I have no doubt that the aforesaid would occur.
now, I don’t know about Boy Scouts in all areas, but in my niece’s case, her Brownie troop is in a public school. I see the BSA getting kicked out of the public schools in a lot of areas if they deny gay scoutmasters. As a private group, they can choose membership, but may be barred from public facilities.
Danalan, you rock! It sickens me that a fine organization like BSA is, by example, promoting intolerance and ignorance.
One problem is the blanket condemnation of different sexual orientations–which rapidly gets into the quasi-religious, political quagamire of whether or not gays should exist. (The whole brouhaha reminds me of debating gravity: it’s real, deal with it.) Sheesh, do they think gayness is catching or gains members by recuitment? IMO, teaching kids to judge others by character instead of convenient labels would be a swell thing.
Another problem is the so-convenient blurring of homosexuality and pedophilia. Hell, nobody wants kids molested. Gay does not equal sexual predator! It’s stupid, wrong, and self-defeating. By focussing on convenient targets, the BSA, GSA (etc., etc. ad nauseum)perpetuate ignorance and bigotry, wearing comfy blinders to the real predators in life.
Wally put it best for me: the more I see of people, the better I appreciate my dog.
Veb