How would you feel if the written pledge was “On my honor, I will try to serve humankind …”?
And what if there was no rule preventing individuals from substituting in a deity?
In the alternative, what if there was an explicit footnote permitting the substituting in of a deity?
Girl Scouts?
…
In my Troop, bacon. 
The Handbook, however, defines Reverent:
A Scout is reverent, he is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion.
Both my sons were scouts, both now self-identify as agnostic as do I. Having said that, I think this swings too far the other way now. I suppose the terms of the lease are important but I don’t see how leasing (implied that BSA pays money) is supporting the organization. Individually, the members of BSA are citizens and have a right to the public resources like anyone else.
Issue is a preferential lease - can other groups get the same deal, or not? Then again, are there any groups TRYING to get a camping permit for the area?
I know of two camps on public land that the BSA walked away from in the last decade or so. In both cases, the BSA needed to spend some money on facilities updates. They asked the public agency for a guarantee that they BSA would be able to keep using the site if they invested in it. In both cases, they could not get that guarantee so the BSA walked away.
In both cases, these sites are now overrun with weeds and the old buildings are now falling apart. There wasn’t another group to take over, and the government does not have the money to maintain it either.
The BSA is slowly going to owning their camps, rather than leasing. This will be the last year that the National Jamboree will be held at Fort AP Hill. The BSA has instead purchased a permanent site. Philmont works thanks to Phillips donating the land.
It’s a real shame, isn’t it? Especially since the issue could have been so easily resolved if the BSA would get rid of their discriminatory policies.
I’m not sure, but it’s not really relevant to the disagreement Dangerosa and I have. She thinks the pledge does not endorse religion because one has the option to replace the relevant word that makes it an endorsement of religion with another word that is spiritual in nature. A relevant question for her might be: If the pledge said “On my honor, I will try to eat lean human flesh in place of cuts that are unhealthy”, do you think the pledge does not endorse cannibalism because the words ‘human flesh’ can be replaced with others of the pledge takers choosing?
Yes, because I see it as mad libs. Its a blank that has been traditionally filled with the word God. But that doesn’t mean YOU need to fill it with the word God. Since the GS goes out of there way to say that God means many things and you can use it to mean whatever you want or sub in a different word, it isn’t an endorsement of religion since religion is a concept the may or may not have to do with God (i.e. some Buddhist, Taoist, Unitarians, et. al).
My husband is a Unitarian atheist. We are religious, but he doesn’t believe in God (I’m a Deist myself and won’t use God in the Girl Scout Pledge.
Possibly, but that would require them removing all references to God and spirituality, their gender specific rules, and their homophobic interpretations.
In the meantime, camps are closed and kids loose opportunities.
You really think if the pledge was written the way I re-wrote it that the group wouldn’t be condoning and endorsing cannibalism?
Nonsense. If it’s already filled in, it isn’t a blank. It’s a promise to serve God. There’s no reason to have a promise to serve God in a pledge other than to endorse serving God. Why would one need to promise to serve something else? It already includes a promise to serve the country. How could it possibly be important to a group with a certain mission, values, etc., to serve any old thing the pledge taker chooses? The disclaimer that one can promise to serve some other spiritual word is clearly just to cover their ass and the excuse that you’re making now could be used in case someone accuses them of endorsing religion.
They “go out of their way” to cover their ass. You said it’s used because God has been used traditionally. It’s been used without an ‘a’ in front of it, with out an ‘s’ at the end and with a capital G traditionally to represent the Judeo-Christian god.
So, if there was no disclaimer that one could fill in ‘God’ with another word, you still feel it wouldn’t be an endorsement of religion? And this is because not all religions have God?
God forbid.
I fail to see why we should lay the blame at anyone’s door but the bigoted organization that’s refusing to join the modern world. You sound like a spoiled child whining that his parents are *so mean *because they won’t let him have dessert because he didn’t eat his vegetables first.
The *only *bad guy here is the organization that refuses to comply with established rules about how we behave in a civilized fucking country if we want to make use of public resources.
How is allowing a religious organization (assuming that is what the BSA is) to lease publicly owned land an establishment of religion?
Regards,
Shodan
And you sound like a clueless fuckwit who wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The kid is whining, then starves to death, and your response is “he should have eaten his veggies.”
I FUCKING AGREE THAT THE BSA HAS BIGOTED POLICIES.
However, each lawsuit that has shut down some of the BSA’s activities has ONLY served to reduce opportunities for kids. NOBODY is stepping into the gap. To ignore this reality is ALSO a bad thing. I was trying to point out another cost of these lawsuits that nobody seems to care about.
I am in the trenches on this one. I fight for inclusion. I do outreach in the inner city. I try to help young boys become men. But while I am fighting against some bigots on the inside, assholes like you are trying to destroy my organization all together. You will then sit around with your thumb up your ass and wonder why kids no longer have something to do this weekend.
So, while I have tried to give some information here - this is the pit. There are assholes at the ACLU and its ilk who want only to destroy, and never look at the path of destruction that they leave while on their grand quest for justice. They never try to build, only destroy. They don’t create another youth organization to fill the gap, they just move onto the next target.
The problem is leasing it at a special discounted rate that applies just to this one group.
Okay, so what should people outside the organization do? Sit back and let the BSA break the law, and hope that folks like you might be able to get them to change their mind at some undefined point in the future?
How do you know this? I mean, obviously the ACLU as an organization isn’t setting up their own scouting groups - that’s a bit outside of the purview of the organization. But on what basis do you assume that the people associated with the ACLU are not involved in helping to promote other scouting groups that do not aggressively pursue discriminatory policies? It seems likely to me that most people who work for the ACLU are pretty community minded in the first place - that’s not the sort of work you go into if you’ve got a purely mercenary mindset, generally speaking. I can understand why you’ve got your back up over them going after a group you’re specifically working with, but they’re also doing the right thing by enforcing the law and assuring that everyone gets equal access to government services, regardless of their religious affiliation. Why do you automatically assume the worst on their behalf?
If this were a standard lease on property that any person or group is eligible for this would not be in court. Historically, the BSA has had access to these leases that either are for them only or given to them at well below market. When I was Scouting I knew a few Girl Scout leaders who were perpetually complaining about the difference in government support between the two.
The issue of this case was not simply leasing land to the boy scouts. There as no argument that shouldn’t be allowed. The argument was the opportunity to lease the land should not be exclusive to the boy scouts and should not be done at a reduced rate.
The boy scouts were being offered an exclusive sweet heart lease on the land(1 dollar per year)
The boy scouts in defending their homophobic policies argued in court that they were allowed to discriminate because they are a private religious organization.
Many public properties in the country in turn made note the have policies against providing free or subsidized use of their facilities to private religious organizations.
The boy scouts are still welcome to lease the land in question. In order to do so they must pay a fair market rate and compete with anyone else who is also interested in leasing the land.
The organization to fill the gap is the BSA. The intent of the ACLU is to beat the BSA up until they change their views.
Yes it is unfortunate the BSA would rather bleed to death then change.