Probably. When I was a cub we little brownshirt fascists had to repeat an oath to “do my duty to god and the queen.”
If shit like that is still extant, forget it.
Hmmm . . . just pick an American drag queen, and Bob’s your uncle.
Did something happen recently, as in over this summer? Is this just part of the general… stuff that has happened this year?
Until my son quit, I was active in the neighborhood Pack and Troop. We had several gay and lesbian parents. At a court of review, one kid was asked what point he would add to the Scout Law; he said "Tolerance, and it was well-received. None of that mattered, of course. What did matter was that we had fun and the kids grew up in a community that…worked. It helped that we had a leader (usually a behind the scenes leader) who cared about the unit, recruited the best people for each position and gave it his all.
I still get the email feed for the troop, so I checked it before posting to this thread. The behind the scenes leader has quit. As a replacement for assistant scoutmaster, he recommends the guy who I thought was the scoutmaster, a man whose track record of caring for others just stuns me.
(I’m sorry for it, but my first thoughts when I opened the thread were, “Oh crap, what did the Mormons do now!?” I apologize to any nonbigoted Mormons; it does seems like a lot of this agenda is pushed by the LDS organization in SLC.)
I actually got choked up reading this thread. So many people made such interesting, provocative, and touching viewpoints.
Asa got in from Katahdin late last night. We’re going to talk to him in the next day or so. My hope is that he chooses to stay in Scouts, but if he wants to get out (and he might–he’s got quite the moral conscience) then I guess we’ll have to let him. I figure, he’s 13–to him it’s all about getting to do Scouts and not so much about the bigger picture of adult concerns. He can make more deliberative decisions later. Anyway, point is: we hope he continues. We know that at troop level, he will not have to suffer any effects.
As for las mamas, we’re thinking we’ll address it at a meeting (of the adults, but with scouts too if the Scoutmaster considers it), saying just “Here’s the issue. Is there any discussion? How about if for now we continue with the troop?” and if all is accepted (and i believe it will be), that’s exactly what we’ll do. At least bringing it up and demonstrating how such matters can be problematic, we’ll have done what we can do without actually leaving. At the troop level, the value is in our staying and explaining the decision.
As for alternative organizations, I know it might be small-picture of us but we’ve been with these leaders and these boys for years. There is value in that w.r.t. scouting that we don’t want to lose. Poignant, too, isn’t it, that the principles, goals, moral viewpoints that make up the troop’s philosophy is exactly what we want our child exposed to. Acceptance, equality, understanding is all we’ve ever seen. It was mentioned above that a Scout with autism had a good experience–I’ve seen that with kids who maybe before hadn’t had any good peer experiences, and with kids who have a range of problems too wide to detail. I always say, “We’re the Boy Scouts. We’ll take anyone.” (Of course, that’s not quite true now, apparently.)
Thank you all so much for your thoughtful posts and the time you put into making them. I wanted to respond to each person but that’s a little over the top. Please believe that I considered the opinions and experiences laid out in each.
I’ll get back here after we talk to Asa and decide what we all want to do. Stick with, please!
Maybe the troop would be amenable to switching over to an alternative scouting organization (such as the Baden-Powell Scouts’ Association) as a unit? That would allow the group to keep the good aspects of Scouting while defying the bigotry of the National level.
No, they’re not. They enjoy some preferential access to public facilities, but to call them “publicly funded” is a huge stretch.
This. It’s surprisingly rare for a parent to ever have a nuanced view when it comes to their child and organizations (school, clubs, teams, society in general). Those that do are mostly the ones who have been forced to think critically about such things - in our society, that means families who are non-traditional in some obvious, often visible way. It’s not easy being in such a family, but it gives insight that is getting harder and harder to achieve for the rest of us.
That’s the fate of many venerable institutions - the Scouts, the GOP, the Saturday Evening Post. They start out being mainstream and big-tent. Then the brand, as with all brands, deteriorates with time, and becomes attractive to people with reactionary agendas who want to appear mainstream.
Just a thought…
Since you say that his Troop is appalled at the big, public, anti-gay announcement, why not discuss with them if they’d like to 1> remain together as a troop, but 2> officially sever ties with the Scouts? There’s nothing saying you have to be a Boy Scout to do activities that the Boy Scouts do.
The downside is likely to be that you’ll also cut yourself off from funding from the parent organization, but I honestly have no idea how that works and if it would be that significant relative to the fundraising the troop does on its own for itself. Also, uniforms, badges, etc… I don’t know how important those trappings are to your son, either. Is it more about the experience and the learning, or about rank, to him?
You’d lose some support from the bigger organization, but the gains (relative to quitting entirely) may be worth it.
I love the hell out of this idea. It would certainly prove that the decision doesn’t actually reflect the values of its membership. And if BSA commits suicide to make a point, well, win-win. The troops can band together and make their own scouting organization.
Even better if you can convince regional counsels to do so, like Northern Star. I guess they haven’t been officially kicked out yet?
Asa belonging to the Boy Scouts is about him… not you. It should be his choice, not yours. Let him decide and back up his decision.
Would you say the same if it was the Westboro Baptist Church? There’s not much difference between the two.
I’m not baptist… 
but since the BSA is an extracurricular “club” and the church is not, I’d say no.
Westboro is as extracurricular as you can get. Except for the BSA.
Would you permit him to be a member of an organization that prohibited persons of certain religions, or of certain ethnicities? No Jews allowed? No Blacks allowed?
That’s easily the most ridiculous thing anyone’s said this week.
This is something I learned in my church, which has struggled with sexual orientation and identity issues as well: if you leave, they will not learn different. The best way for people to get over their fear and misapprehension of gay people is to get to know some.
So I would suggest that you and your son stay, so that all the other boys and leaders in your troop can see that you being a lesbian simply doesn’t matter. And as more and more people in BSA come to believe that It Doesn’t Matter, eventually they will catch up with the times.
It might take a long time. But if you, and everyone who supports you, leaves, it will never happen at all.
Sure - but what if the same thing happens to tapu as happened to that other Scout leader, who got kicked out for being lesbian? What message does that send - “you can belong, but your mom is not welcome”?
Asa needs to think though the possibilities, and decide if he wants to be in a group that would not welcome his own mother as an Assistant Scoutmaster.
Why? Both hate gays, both won’t have them in their organizations, both are free to preach hatred, both destroy lives, both cause heartache — if not psoriasis — and both declare it’s God’s law to do all that, and in the case of the BSA, against children especially.
I have not been involved with the scouts in over 30 years, but I’ve never known them to PREACH hatred. Take it easy, there.
Bingo, that’s exactly what I said. Agreed, 100%.