Apparently the Boy Scouts of America are permitted to recruit members by visiting schools and holding informational meetings that students, first-graders, are required to attend.
This really pisses me off - my momma-friends are now besieged by little boys who’ve been sold on the fun of camping. Who wouldn’t love camping? So parents who don’t want to support a disciminatory organization (parents who, BTW, might be Christian and are probably heterosexual, but who DON’T WANT TO SUPPORT A DISCRIMINATORY ORGANIZATION) have to explain this to little Jimmy.
I hope my son is able to understand the concept of discrimination at that age.
Schools need to quit letting corporations have access to children.
I’m with you. You’ve got every right to not support BSA. It’s going to take a little extra legwork on your part to explain it to your kid. Good luck with it, maybe you can take your young’un camping to make up for it.
Is there some alternative to the Boy Scouts? Perhaps something that would be a somewhat equal in terms of the fun stuff (like camping), but more inclusive.
So 6 is old enough to understand? Geez, mine are toddlers, and thus still in that rarefied Momma-bubble, where I can control most of what they see and hear. But that loss of innocence thing, it’s just around the corner.
We’ve done a fair amount of camping (though not since the twins were born); the Badlands in SD and Wisconsin along the Mississippin River were our favorites. Can’t wait to take the 'uns one of these days!
faithfool, sounds like 4H is a good alternative, lots of projects for them to do.
I went to 4H camp as a kid, and it was very religious. Vespers every night, and mandatory singing of Kumbaya and If I Had a Hammer. I think the leader of the camp was a minister.
Has it become more secular over the past 33 years?
Well, I don’t believe that any organization is permitted to recruit anyone under the age of 18 (in the US) without some sort of parental consent. If you want to go after this organization, go after them all, and keep going until your children are out of the public school system. Because most football teams do not allow women, most field hockey teams do not allow men. Cheerleading teams still label guys who join ‘faggots’, and I guarantee that same candy fundraising company that your school uses still associates with that Catholic school down the street that my son goes to, you know the same Catholic church that has covered up the molestations, is anti-homosexual, so on and so on.
Can you cause a big uproar? Yes, you can but you risk allienating your children (parents do talk, and they talk in front of their kids). Could you just sit your kids down and explain your point-of-view to him of why he can not join? Yes, it will be hard, but should not be too hard for you as you seem like a concerned parent that is only doing this for your kids own good. Right?
Welp, got a news flash for ya, but…“If I Had A Hammer” isn’t a “religious” song, unless you’re worshiping at the Church of Saints Peter, Paul, and Mary.
Also, the Unitarians hold Vespers services, so “Vespers” isn’t intrinsically “religious”, either, unless you’re going to include “celebrating world religions including Native American traditions and Humanism” as “religious”.
But I know what you mean. Y’all were sitting around a campfire crooning “Kumbaya” and maybe the guy gave a little prayer, so it felt religious. However, FWIW, 4-H is, and has always been, a secular group, a 501(c)(3) tax exempt group.
Campfires can make people do funny things, like think we should all sing “Kumbaya” and then have a little prayer in closing. I’d be very surprised if they were allowed to do that sort of thing nowadays.
The minute they hit the public school system. That’s when, on the first day at school, they learn such edifying things as, “Don’t pick up used syringes on the playground”, and what a blowjob is. thank you bill clinton
But, yeah, a Six can certainly understand the concept, “We aren’t going to join Boy Scouts because Boy Scouts has a rule that only certain people they like can join, and we don’t think that’s fair to the people they don’t like but who wanna be in Boy Scouts.” No need to go into the murkier corners of the debate, just leave it simple.
If your local Boy Scout troop is anything like the ones that my kids encountered during the 1990s, it’s not going to be a situation where all the cool kids are in Boy Scouts and your kids are pestering you to let them join, and languishing around the house because they’re the only ones not in Boy Scouts. The total amount of time they spend camping is actually rather small in proportion to the amount of time they spend sitting around talking about camping. Actually, I always had the impression that the Cub Scouts would probably pay people to be in there if the BSA bylaws would let them. There was always a kinda wistful look in the eyes of the guys manning the signup table at fundraising rummage sales, watching the Moms go past with armloads of size 8 boys jeans without signing up the future wearer.
And anyway, in Portland at least, the point would appear to be moot. From the article:
Also, just to nitpick, this is not…exactly…what happened.
A troop leader (and also presumably the dad of one of the members) walking into the classroom and saying, “Hey, come join Cub Scouts!” isn’t quite the same thing as “holding an informational meeting that the kids are required to attend.” I agree the bracelet thing was stoopid, but it’s not an ordeal for a kid to have a plastic bracelet attached which–horrors!–can only be removed by scissors. Like the first-grade teacher didn’t have a pair of scissors and could have removed the bracelet immediately from any little atheist’s wrist that began to bubble and char like Baby Dracula? “It burns! It burns! Aiiiyeeeeee…”
They show up at our PTA meetings to recruit and lead the Pledge. My son was all over it. I think the uniforms were what got him. I didn’t explain the entire concept of discrimination as it pertains to humans from Civil Rights to sexual harrassment in the workplace. I just said that the Boy Scouts are fun for some people but we don’t join the Scouts because they don’t want to hang out with certain people and we think that’s not nice. I went on to explain that if his classmate was a scout that didn’t mean the little boy was mean or he couldn’t play with him. Is it possible for a conversation to be consice and circular at the same time? This one was. It took about 10 minutes and he understood it pretty well. Well enough to be satisfied. He’s 5, BTW.
I was a bit irritated that they showed up and had a “non-prayer” and I had to deal with explaining all that to my son, but that’s how they learn that the world is not a one-size-fits-all, homogenous place. It’s also how they learn that we can believe in different things without coming to blows or taking it to court.
From the article “the Boy Scouts require a belief in God to become a member”, this is flatly untrue. “God” with a capital G refers to a specific deity, Scouting does not require members be Christian. The Pledge of Allegiance is as discriminatory as Cub Scouts are, if the number of people who bash Scouting would join me in fighting the Pledge, then I’d take all this complaining seriously.
Chasing Scouts out of the schools pushes us into churches where these mindless attitudes are encouraged. My children have never been questioned about their religious nor sexual preference in Cub Scouts. The required sections of the book state things like “talk with your parents about your religious beliefs” or something like that. The parent signs it and the kid never thinks about it again. Contrast that with a pack that meets in the Church of the Holy Jesus Christ Who is the Savior of Your Pathetic Worthless Heathen Soul, just going to a meeting would piss me off.
If you find a Cub Scout pack that pushes religion or asks 7 year olds if they’re gay, raise a stink! Me? My kids pack has atheists, Wiccans and X-ians that I know of (open believers, those who advertise on their cars) and has several pagans in leadership positions.
Yeah, atheism is frowned on and that sucks. Wanna change it? Let your kid join and volunteer to be Den Leader.
On my honor I will do my best, to do my duty to God and my country…
And let’s see: A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
Man, that stuff sunk in deep!
I don’t remember it being overtly religious, but it’s definitely got religion in it. And we all knew who “God” was in the pledge. At least that’s the way it was back in the 60s.
Seems to me that the TYPE of organization here is completely irrelevant…I don’t care if it’s a religious organization, an atheist organization, a sports organization, or whatever, and I don’t care what it’s policies are. No private organization should be holding informational meetings in a public school (I assume this was a public school?) that children are required to attend. That is just completely ridiculous. There is no reason for children who are in school should be made to be some kind of captive audience for a sales pitch.
Probably a better way to handle it would be for all organizations that need to recruit children as members to provide an informational flier, have the fliers put together in a packet, and send them directly to the parents. My kid is only 2, but I really loathe the practice I see with older kids, where other adults who have access to them when the parents aren’t around get them all fired up to join this organization or the other. The parent is inevitably put in a position of having to be the bad guy if there is some reason that they can’t or don’t want to be involved in that club.
Bahá’í, Hindu, Islam, Meher Baba, Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Unitarian-Universalist, and Jewish are all officially recognized, and although I don’t know what most of those believe, I’m fairly sure that Hindu’s don’t follow Jesus.
The Pledge is as bad as (or worse than) Scouting, public school children don’t recite the Scout Law every morning. Let’s fix the institutionalized christianity in our government… No, better yet, lets just refuse to vote because Dubya is x-ian! That’ll show 'em!
IIRC, most or all Cub programs now send home a flyer once or twice a year inviting boys (yes! sexest bastards) to a meeting after school, and we pay the use the school for the meeting.
Wait–the Scouts don’t allow gays in anymore? That would’ve been news to many of the guys in my troop, when Scouting seemed almost like a recruiting tool.
You think that’s bad? I’ve got the Girl Scout versions memorized too, and I was never a Boy Scout OR a Girl Scout. The Boy Scouts rejected me because I tried to join the Girl Scouts first. Hey, I knew where the action was. In the troops I’ve had exposure to the Girl Scouts do far more(more campouts, more service projects, more pretty much everything) and more sustainably(Hello cookie sales versus random fundraisers) than the boys do. I think they saw through me though and knew I just wanted to be where the girls were.
Girl Scout Promise. “On my honor, I will try, to serve God and my country. To help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law”
Girl Scout Law.
I will do my best to be
Honest and Fair
Friendly and Helpful
Considerate and Caring
Corageous and Strong
and be Responsible for what I Say and Do
And to
Respect Myself and Others
Respect Authority
Use Resources Wisely
Make the World a Better Place
And be a Sister to Every Girl Scout
I agree the bracelet thing was stoopid, but it’s not an ordeal for a kid to have a plastic bracelet attached which–horrors!–can only be removed by scissors. Like the first-grade teacher didn’t have a pair of scissors and could have removed the bracelet immediately from any little atheist’s wrist that began to bubble and char like Baby Dracula? “It burns! It burns! Aiiiyeeeeee…”