I agree. I found the insights of those still involved in scouting, very helpful. Ditto, those struggling with not enrolling their sons. And the links to articles.
I especially enjoy discussions that seem to roam around and then come back, shoot off in different directions, etc.
Don’t like the policy? Don’t join the Scouts. Unless your problem is that it’s legal for people to form organizations whose rules you do not wholly agree with. In that case, move to Sweden or Asscrackistan or whichever country caters to your particular set of likes and dislikes.
It’s not Asscrackistan that urges its populace to enclose all the country’s gays within an electric fence and starve them to death.
I take it this means you’ve never complained about anything, ever.
Klan groups think hating black people and protecting the white race makes you a moral, upstanding adult.
You didn’t actually read any of this thread, did you?
And frankly, that’s exactly what the people in this thread have been talking about, or haven’t you been paying attention. No one is saying it should be illegal for the Scouts to have these policies (well, there was one post on the judicial ruling).
However, as they have a right to form such an organization, we have a right to speak out and disagree with what they are doing. We also have no obligation to support them in exercising their right - we don’t need to sign our boys up, we don’t need to buy wreaths or popcorn, and we can even apply pressure to corporations that support the Boy Scouts.
Yes there are. There are dishonest people everywhere also. Most companies have a way of reporting unethical behavior, say if your boss tells you to, oh, lie about interest rates. But if you have heard the CEO support the same thing, you have no options except to support dishonesty by tolerating it or else to leave. Even if the company does good things also.
There is much thoughtful discussion in this thread but also posts that vary from uncompromising to fascist.
As if.
“Hate group” is a term rooted in the very intolerance it claims to oppose.
That was just off the first page.
I don’t agree with the policy either, but the medicine is worse than the disease.
Do you know what the word “fascist” means? Can you explain how it applies to any of the posts in this thread?
Can you expand on this a little bit? The logic behind this statement is… let’s just say it’s a tad elusive.
What medicine, exactly, do you think is being offered here? The only actions anyone has suggested taking against the BSA is not joining the organization. Nobody has argued that the organization should be banned. Nobody has argued that it should be forced to change its policy. We have, quite literally, five pages of people saying, “I wouldn’t join them because I don’t like this policy,” before you showed up and angrily told everyone, “If you don’t like this policy, don’t join them!”
Why? If the Boy Scouts serves a purpose (which I think it does) and you refuse to participate, one of three things will happen - it will starve, but as there is an international association for Scouting and a purpose that needs to be filled, something else will take its place. Or it will adapt to survive. Its brutal, but its faster than a “change from within” that provides support to the organization. The third thing is that a few people boycotting anything to do with Scouts will not have any impact at all, in which case, the medicine doesn’t do anything at all and can’t possibly be worse than the disease.
And it isn’t the only organization that fills its purpose. Y programs and team sports provide a lot of what Scouts does. So do youth programs through community centers and churches. It isn’t like the world can’t exist without Scouts.
Just read this quote on The Onion:
“As I tell all my sons when they turn 10, you have to choose: It’s either the gays or the Boy Scouts. You can’t have it all.”
I laughed my ass off.
For my fellow Scouters - this is not going away.
Gay Counselor at Summer camp fired, 10 others quit in protest.
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/07/25/4657546/firing-of-gay-staffer-leads-10.html
It is not the firing I am pointing out here - it is the 10 others quitting for the last two weeks of the camp season that got my attention. That is some significant attrition to hit a camp on a Saturday morning, before the next group of Scouts starts arriving on Sunday.
I think that’s what they’re worried about ;).
More seriously: Typo Knig and I had a discussion about this just the other day: our son Dweezil has been in Scouts for many years and is doing his Eagle project in just a few days.
We have serious qualms about the whole thing. Arguably, you don’t have to be a homophobe to be in Scouts, you just can’t be an actual homosexual - but we find the whole refusal to admit gays deplorable.
I’ve heard (have not researched this myself) that if someone later comes out as gay, their Eagle rank can be retroactively striped from them which is especially awful - the boy might not have even known he was gay when he earned that rank, therefore nobody reasonable could claim he violated Scout rules.
I have less of a problem with the religious aspect. They’re actually pretty open about that - can be any supreme being, any creed, whatever. We know someone who was not of any faith, and nearly choked in his Eagle board of review as a result, when he managed to say he did believe in some kind of higher power. Oops.
So, we feel slightly hypocritical keeping Dweezil in Scouts this long. If it weren’t for the fact that it has been his main social outlet (he’s autistic, and does not seek such opportunities), we might not have felt so compelled to have him stay.
All that said, there are some logistical concerns if you have gay members. Adults may not share accommodations with boys other than their own son(s). Boys, however, may obviously tent with other boys. And theoretically some hanky-panky, persuasion, coercion COULD happen (though on campouts I’ve been aware of, the boys were too exhausted at the end of the day to be able to get up to any of THAT mischief. It would be comparable to a co-educational group having boys and girls share tents. So I don’t know what the right answer is.
It would be pretty awesome if he resigned in protest immediately after receiving his Eagle badge.
Now this is pure prejudice / homophobia. It can NOT be argued that this situation in any protects children: that lesbian mom is in fact LESS likely to molest a young boy than a straight woman. Yeesh.
I don’t think you can take away an Eagle except if it turns out that the Scout did not complete the work. We had an Eagle here who on graduation night decided to smash into cars and steal stuff. The headline was, of course, Eagle caught breaking into cars and stealing. To my knowledge he still earned his Eagle - he just isn’t a great candidate for a recruiting poster.
My advice would be to talk to your son about this and let him make an informed decision for himself. If he is going to be an eagle scout he should be able to have the maturity and moral fiber to determine for himself whether he can or cannot ethically remain associated with this organization.
I’m an eagle scout and scouting was a huge part of my life as a kid, and an undeniable good for me. Since then I have become more concerned about the three G’s of scouting (You must have God, but no Gays or Girls) and have very conflicted views of the organization. Reading this thread has helped to clarify my thinking, so that I tend I agree with Alger.
A boycott of scouting by the tolerant people isn’t going to cause the organization to collapse, it will just remove all voices of dissent and lead to it becoming even less tolerant. Most boys who join scouts aren’t thinking one way or another about gay rights. And having only homophobic role models in an organization that has as its stated goal to teach morality is not helpful to the cause of tolerance.
Even if they don’t have the power to change the organization over night, I having dissenting voices with a seat at the table, and as examples to others is much better than abandoning ship. It serves no better purpose than all peace activists resigning from congress because Bush started a war with Iraq.
The only place where this breaks down, is that since getting my Eagle I have become an atheist, and to my mind could not in good conscience lie on my application form to become a leader, and so would be rejected immediately.
Maybe he was referring to Dawkins?
The game might be about to change:
A posting from a guy I know in Scouting:
I would if I had boys.