Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Is the Boy Scout program ready to fall?

I see the Boy Scout honchos are reviewing their policy of excluding queer scout leaders. I sure hope they have the fortitude to not give in to them. This country has all the perversion it can deal with.

Boy Scouts to review ban on gays

Published June 07, 2012

Associated Press

NEW YORK � The Boy Scouts of America will review a resolution that would allow individual units to accept gays as adult leaders, but a spokesman says there's no expectation that the ban on gay leaders will in fact be lifted any time soon.

The resolution was submitted by a Scout leader from the Northeast in April and presented last week at the Scouts' national meeting in Orlando, Fla., according to BSA spokesman Deron Smith.

Smith said Wednesday it would be referred to a subcommittee, which will then make a recommendation to the national executive board. The process would likely be completed by May 2013, according to Smith, who said there were no plans at this time to change the policy.

During last week's meeting, the Scouts were presented with a petition, bearing more than 275,000 names, protesting the ouster of a lesbian mother, Jennifer Tyrrell, who'd been serving as a Scout den mother near Bridgeport, Ohio.

Among those who presented the Change.org petition, and met with Scout officials, was Eagle Scout Zach Wahls, an Iowa college student who was raised by lesbian mothers.

Wahls, in a telephone interview, said he and his allies planned a campaign to mobilize opposition to the gay-exclusion policy from within Scout ranks, with the goal of building pressure for the resolution to be approved.

"Up to the day they end this policy, they'll be saying they have no plans to do so," Wahls said. "But there's no question it's costing the Boy Scouts in terms of membership and public support."

The Scouts, who celebrated their 100th anniversary in 2010, have had a long-standing policy of excluding gays and atheists. Controversy over the policy intensified in 2000 when the U.S. Supreme Court allowed the Scouts to maintain the policy in the face of a legal challenge.

Leaders of several regional scouting councils have asked for the policy to be scrapped or modified, to no avail.

I hope they will stick to their policy but I have my doubts..

I hope they study it very carefully.







And then stand their ground.
There is a reason why the Scout oath means anything.

They won before...1999, I believe?

I remember that we had a huge cheer at the Boy Scout Camp that I worked at when they announced it.

Sir Robert Baden-Powell must be a bit restless in his grave.

Ed

What a crock. Whatever imagined loss it's costing them is nothing compared to the real loss it will cause them should they cave. I promise you, my son will be removed from the program immediately should they change their policy. Their steadfastness to NOT give in to declining social norms is one of the MAIN reasons we are in the program to begin with. Most packs are sponsored by churches so they'll have some say in it as well.
Having said all that, they of course will cave eventually. Everyone does.

I agree 100%.

My son is showing interest in joining Cub Scouts this autumn. I'll be watching this issue closely.

Sounds like letting the fox in the chicken house.

"A man with no enemies is a man with no character." -- Paul Newman.

The same could be said for organizations such as the Boy Scouts.

I hope they don't cave.

Man, if I were a queer I'd love to be a Boy Scout leader! There would be "opportunity" all around me, all the time!
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Just what the hell are the parents of these kids thinking if they allow this to happen? THAT is where the ball must first stop and be picked up and run with! If the parents haven't the cojones to watch out for their own kids then they should not say a word when a new generation of mud daubers comes around!
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Anyone with a son thinking of joining this "ORGANization" should run, not walk, from it! Just take the boy hunting and fishing yourself and forget the rest of the drama!

Like politics, it's all local. My kids are beyond scouts age, but if I had a young one who wanted to be a scout I would check out the local leadership and if I was comfortable then it would be no problem.

When my kids were in it, the leaders were the same people who were the hockey coaches and baseball coaches. They had kids in the program, too. Maybe it's changed now.

In terms of being a sexual threat to boys, adult homosexual men are no more of a threat than adult heterosexual men. They're adults who have sex with other adults, and kids don't appeal to them. Pedophilia is a pschosexual disorder separate from homosexual orientation, and if you look at the statistics, more pedophiles are professed heterosexuals than homosexuals.

Pedophiles are a class unto themselves. They can profess to be homosexual or openly heterosexual in their "public" sexual orientation, but their REAL sexual orientation is children. Most pedophiles operate for years "under the radar", deceiving the adults around them while they abuse scores of kids.

So if you're concerned about pedophiles preying on kids in Boy Scouts, banning gay men and lesbians offers ZERO protection.

However, if your concern is that homosexual leaders are an affront to the ideals of scouting, just as atheism is, then banning gays is perfectly acceptable.

Just don't think you're protecting your kids by doing so. You aren't.

This is absolutely correct, BTW.

Personally, I find it hard to get interested in whatever the Boy Scouts are doing or not doing.

I was a scout in the 60s, and even then it wasn't anything like the organization that Baden-Powell envisioned.

I didn't understand that at age 11, of course. It was only later, when I read Baden-Powell - instead of reading about Baden-Powell.

But don't take my word for it. Read Baden-Powell.

Any of his books in particular that you would recommend as a starting point? I looked on Wikipedia and it looks like he published quite a number of books.

Thanks!

Exactly. I can say that the Boy Scouts, Order of the Arrow and my time at camp have made me into the adult that I have become. I will have my son (if I'm lucky enough to have one) in the organization. However, I will be a leader as well.

Just because someone is gay don't mean they want to sleep with your sons. Just the same as heterosexual male KINDERGARTEN teachers don't want to sleep with the little girls in their class (unless they are a pedophile).

Pedophiles are not always labled as "gay" or "lesbian". They are just what they are; sick pedophiles.

burner:

I have a couple of his early books at home. One of them, I think, is "The Downfall of Prempeh."

It's an account of the Ashanti campaign of 1895, and IIRC, it's in that book that he expresses his developing thoughts about what a "boy scout" organization might look like, and why he thought it would be useful to society.

I'll look through it tonight and report back.

all they gotta do is remember Jerry Sandusky.

Thanks, would be interested in looking at some of them. I was never a scout but I read his life story on Wikipedia after reading your post, sounds like a very interesting guy.

Yep, that. It would be nice to have one longstanding organization that children can participate in without having to accept homsexuality as not only socially acceptable/normal but admirable (which people in positions of leadership by default are to kids).