Just to be clear, the plan, if implemented, would leave it up to the local branches to decide. Some will accept gays and some won’t. I expect a lot of them won’t, but it’s still good progress if many do.
One thing that crossed my mind as I saw this in the paper today… The BSoA have always had a certain relationship with the military. Not an explicit relationship, but there are obvious parallels. Now that gays serve openly in the military, it really makes the BSoA look like a backward organization.
How can you lie to be a boy scout? It’s like lying to get into National Honor Society. Doesn’t that make a mockery of everything else they teach? I mean, it’s one thing to tell a social lie of omission when making small talk at a party or something, but how the fuck could a person stand in front of a review board and pledge a bald-faced lie (I am “morally straight” or “I believe in a higher power”) and then ever again call themselves an Eagle scout without a flush of shame and regret? You might as well tell someone to lie in their wedding vows. There are times and places where words mean things.
Yeah, the first point in the Scout Law is “Trustworthy”.
You need a troop like ours; kids have been honest in their atheism, or more often agnosticism. And even Teh Gay! I’m an asst. minister and Scoutmaster, and I have NO problem with that. BUT I’d have a huge problem with a scout that didn’t feel like he couldn’t be honest with us or himself.
And, no, they don’t have to recite things they don’t believe. Most atheists are more “Reverent” than I am, and they can skip any parts of the Pledge they don’t agree with, just like my kids did in school.
The thesis of our troop’s nasty letter to the national BSA board was that that their anti-gay policy was the total opposite of the Scout Law.
We pointed out that they were making hypocrites out of their Scoutmasters by telling them to be trustworthy and brave, and then telling them to hide what they believed and discriminate against their peers and a growing percentage of the scouts.
The “straight” in the Scout Law and other Scouting credoes is not straight as in straight vs. gay or straight vs. druggie but rather straight vs. crooked – that it means one has a moral code and lives by it.
Gays can have moral standards and live by them – e.g., “I don’t cheat on my boyfriend” or “I won’t have casual sex; I’ll refrain from sex until I find someone whom I love and who loves me enough that we commit to each other.” Those are ,moral decisions which a gay person may make.
About “reverent” and atheists I as a believer am having a harder time wrapping my head around the concept. But I associate it with respect – respecting the beliefs of others, for example, and giving reverence to that which you personally believe is worthy of it, if anything is; I’d welcome learning more about how an atheist or agnostic would see that part of the law as applying to their condition.
What? You’re saying the hundreds(/thousands?) of gay Eagle Scouts are hypocrites?
Look, “morally straight” has nothing to do with being gay. It couldn’t, being written in 1908. It’s paired with “physically fit” and “mentally awake” as a call to keep yourself in shape, sharp and with the highest morals/ethics.
And you really think a scout has to recite “I believe in a higher power”? No, just checked, that’s nowhere to be found. Are you confusing AA with the BSA?
This is really upsetting, if the uninformed masses are assuming these things.
You mean all our gay scouts are being viewed as liars/hypocrites by a public that assumes they stood up and pledged publicly to never be gay or agnostic? I’ve been in on a number of Eagle Scout Boards of Review, and none of our scouts ever said any such thing. I just hope most people aren’t jumping to these conclusions.
I was not clear. Of course I think gays can have moral standards and live by them. Of course I think the scouts are misreading their own handbook. But, unless I am very misinformed, a scout cannot be openly gay and stay in his troop or hope to make Eagle. If an individual troop is tolerant, he still has to keep his sexuality private when interacting with the wider community. He cannot be openly atheist.
People in this thread has dismissed that by saying “What’s the big deal? Just don’t mention it–they can’t take the Eagle back” or “My buddy went before the board and stumbled through the whole “God” thing but finally said he believed in a “higher power” and that was enough”. My point is that asking someone to equivocate about something fundamental to who they are in something as serious as becoming an Eagle scout is not a little matter, and it doesn’t fix the problem.
I was apparently not clear. It’s my understanding (from this thread) that when a scout applies for Eagle, he goes before a review board for a kind of oral examination, and that at that review board he may be asked if he believes in a higher power. If he doesn’t acknowledge some sort of belief in some sort of higher power, he will not achieve Eagle scout. People in this thread have related such stories. In this thread, people have said “What’s the big deal? Just say you believe in a ‘higher power’, that’s enough”. My point is that it is NOT a small matter to tell such a lie in such a time and place, and it’s no remedy to the problem.
Please correct my ignorance, but it’s my understanding that if the regional council discovered that an active scout was openly gay, and especially if he were in a relationship, he would be asked to leave the organization, and he certainly would not be awarded an Eagle Scout. Again, the response to this seems to be “Well, yeah, technically, but a lot of troops don’t really care, and they aren’t going to take the Eagle back.” Again, that’s not a solution. It’s not a little thing to stand in a ceremony with all your friends and family and troop mates and take an oath and know that you couldn’t be there if you weren’t obfuscating about a very fundamental part of who you are.
I don’t think gay scouts are hypocrites. I think they are stuck in a terrible position, and I have nothing but sympathy for them. But in this thread–most recently, by the poster I quoted–there’s been a “what’s the big deal, just say you believe in a higher power” attitude expressed. I find that offensive. My son’s one. As it is now, I won’t put him in scouts because I have no idea who he will be in 16 years, and I don’t want him to ever face the dilemma that gay/atheist scouts currently face. To minimize that dilemma with “What’s the big deal, just have your kids lie” seems offensive to me because it’s minimizing what has to be an excruciating dilemma for young men.
And while I don’t think gay scouts are hypocrites, I have tremendous respect for those scouts, gay and straight, that have publicly disavowed their Eagle in protest.
You’re impression of the Eagle Scout Board of Review is generally correct, but there’s no specific requirement that the Scout be asked about belief in god or their sexuality. I don’t think I was asked about my religion in mine, but I did get something along the lines of “How do you exhibit reverence in your day to day life?” I responded by talking about how I respected others believes even when I didn’t believe in them. I think it’s uncommon that a Scout would directly be asked “Do you believe in a god?” The Board is more about how you’ve lived and acted worthy of being an Eagle Scout, and the question of a belief in a god should have come far before the Board.
There is some minor dissonance for an atheist taking the Scout Oath, in which the Scout swears to do duty to god. An atheist would be swearing to do nothing, since they have no duty. I don’t see it as fundamentally dishonest, but it does skirt the intention of the Oath. I don’t see any obstacle for an atheist reciting the Scout Law. Anybody can be reverent toward the religions of others. If anything, that is the more challenging aspect of the point for many. Other elements of Scouting make the requirement more clear, but things like the BSA’s Declaration of Religious Principles or the Bylaws.
I see absolutely no hypocritical in a homosexual being an Eagle Scout. The BSA’s objection to homosexuality is is based in the belief that they are not “morally straight” (meaning they are immoral - “straight” does not mean “not day” in this context), and that homosexuals are not clean, a point from the Law. If the Scout does not interpret homosexuality as immoral or unclean, I see no hypocrisy on the Scout’s part. I think a Scout’s sexuality is far less likely than theism to be an issue during the Board of Review, especially for Scouts who achieve the rank relatively young.