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Good for you and your son. Hopefully he will return to scouting soon.

I will have to check the Insignia Guide, but to the best of my knowledge "temporary insignia" may be worn on the merit badge sash.

This thread highlights one of the problems with proper uniforming. The problem I have in mind is the willingness of local councils and districts to create insignia that are either inappropriate, in violation of the insignia guide, or simply too large to fit on the uniform or merit badge sash. For example, in our area the San Francisco council (I forget its proper name) sponsers a high adventure award call "rim rovers". By hiking up to the top of designated peaks (Mount Saint Helena in Napa Valley, Mt. Diablo in Contra Costa County, Mt. Tamalpais in Marin County, etc) one earns a large patch with "rockers" to go around the patch with the name of each peak. You add the rockers as you do more of the peaks. The central patch barely fits on the back of a merit badge sash, and the rockers add to the problem. This is a popular activity. Most troops in the area participate in this. But because of the sheer size of the patch you see it worn everywhere, including the back of the tan "class A" shirt. People who design these things ought to restrain themselves and do things that make sense.

littlebillie's point about gay merit badge counselors is an interesting one. If I recall correctly, non members can be merit badge counselors and do not have to fill out or sign a volunteer membership application. Certainly there are qualified counselors in the system who are not otherwise active in scouting. Could a unit or district rely on the services of an out of the closet homosexual as a merit badge counselor and still be in compliance with BSA's policy? Coming back to the question in the original post, banning these Christian groups from campus and treating them differently from other groups that discriminate on campus is rank discrimination. Tax monies are not at issue here since the funds involved come from pools of student activity fees. My thought behind posting the original thread was to illustrate the kind of discrimination against believers that is going on. These are people who are being discriminated against on the basis of their harmless beliefs, just as scouting is being discriminated against.

Correction: The web site I referred you to does have info on outfitters.

Try this web site: canoe-camping.org This is the best web site on canoe camping in the USA that I have found. It does not have information on outfitters, but at least it might give you some ideas of places to go, including within Texas.

Column pasted from Townhall.com ________________ Anti-discrimination policy threatens 1st Amendment Is it reasonable for a university to insist that campus Christian groups accept non-Christian or anti-Christian students as group leaders? Ask a hundred ordinary Americans, and you would very likely get 99 or 100 nos. Ask Rutgers University, though, and you'd get an answer that would earn a summa cum laude for political correctness. In September, Rutgers banned a Christian group from using campus facilities and stripped the group of university funding because it selects leaders on the basis of religious belief. Rutgers is punishing the InterVarsity Multi-Ethnic Christian Fellowship for violating the university's non-discrimination policy. That policy states that "membership, benefits and the election of officers" cannot be biased on the basis of race, sex, handicap, age, sexual orientation, or political and religious affiliation." "Political and religious affiliation" is not really the sticking point at Rutgers, though the anti-discrimination language here would require a Democratic club to allow a Republican president, a Jewish group to allow a Holocaust-denying president, and a Muslim group to accept a leader who believes in Christianity, animism or voodoo. The real intention is to break or banish religious groups with biblically based opposition to homosexuality. Using apparently non-controversial anti-discrimination rules, this tactic pressures a group to deny its own reading of Scripture. Evangelical groups have been the primary target. Two high-profile efforts to coerce campus evangelicals failed two years ago at Tufts and last week at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. A month ago, UNC-Chapel Hill threatened to revoke university recognition of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship unless it modified its charter by Jan. 31 and waived its doctrinal requirements for leadership positions. But the university backed off after evangelicals and the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) filed suit in the Rutgers case. FIRE sent UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor James Moeser a friendly warning letter on Dec. 27, and three days later Moeser capitulated. He said the university opposes discrimination but wishes "to uphold the principles of freedom of expression," so it is withdrawing the threat against the evangelicals. "UNC couldn't defend in public what it was willing to do in private," said Alan Charles Kors, president of FIRE. "Everybody on campus would immediately see the absurdity ... if an evangelical Christian who believed homosexuality to be a sin tried to become president of a university's Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Alliance. The administration would have led candlelight vigils on behalf of diversity and free association." At Tufts, a student tribunal defunded and "derecognized" an evangelical group for refusing to allow a bisexual member to become a leader in the group. The group said it knew that the bisexual woman was "exploring sexuality" and had no trouble with it and made no effort to expel her. But while the group supported gay rights, it said it could not accept a leader who challenged the group's conclusion that homosexuality is incompatible with Scripture. By ruling against the evangelicals (without a hearing), Tufts in effect said that the Christian group would have to abandon its principles to remain on campus. Tufts backed down under pressure from FIRE and David French of Lexington, Ky., lawyer for the evangelicals. The primary lesson here is not that universities are torn between freedom of religion and anti-bias rules. Rather the lesson is that administrators are willing to respond to a powerful campus group, the gay lobby, at the expense of one that is weaker and usually disfavored on campus. Though written in the bland language of brotherhood, anti-discrimination laws give critics of private groups "a public hammer with which to beat groups they oppose," said Richard Epstein, professor of law at the University of Chicago. Such laws also provide a way for outsiders to reach into a dissenting group to determine its membership, policies and officers. Using a verbal screen of "diversity," "fairness" and "non-discrimination," university officials delegitimize religion by substituting campus orthodoxy for religious principles. Even if a university feels torn, said French, its anti-discrimination rules shouldn't trump the First Amendment's protection of freedom of religion, association and speech. Anti-discrimination laws are in fact becoming a threat to these freedoms.

I agree with Chippewa that an honor by your peers is more significant. I too was surprised earlier in December by being called out for the Vigil honor. Congrats to Ed Mori. Well earned I am sure.

NJCubScouter is presumably correct as regards simple membership in BSA. As far as I know all the cases have involved non paid members of BSA. What about paid staff? Is BSA allowed under these laws to not hire an out of the closet homosexual who wants to work in the back office of a council?

Welcome back BW. Some folks were starting to get concerned about you.

FOIA applies to the executive branch of the US government. The only way it might apply to BSA is where BSA, or some branch of BSA, had dealings with the government. For example, documents in the Department of the Army dealing with the jamborees at Army facilities would be subject to FOIA, but only those documents in the possession of the government would be subject to FOIA. Documents internal to BSA concerning such matters would not be subject to FOIA.

I read the One Minute Manager several years ago. I agree that it is the single most useful book on managing people I have ever seen. It is an easy read. Furthermore it is both entertaining and funny. Anybody would benefit from applying the principles suggested in this book.

A good place to start is with Scouting magazine for January-February 2003. There is a good two page article on this very subject.

As kwc57, try your local historical society. If you do not have a local society, try your state society in Springfield. My wife and I spent several days going through micro filmed Illinois newspapers in the Springfiled archive when I was working on my doctoral dissertation.

We distribute hard copies of permission slips at meetings, include them in an electronic newsletter, and put them up on a troop web site. We also have them available at the time of departure. We usually get these back from the boys on a timely basis. Rarely do we hand out permission slips directly to parents.

I made a set of these several years ago without plans. If I recall correctly I used 2x4's that were 8 feet long. This resulted in spacing the lines about eighteen inches apart. I used heavy metal staples, like the kind used for attaching fence wire to wooden posts. I measured back one foot from one end and put two staples in, one on each side. I did not drive these staples in all the way, because I wanted loops to pass the line through. I cut the rope in about three foot lengths. You may want to start with four foot lengths. You can always shorten them. I tied a knot in one end as a stopper, passed the line through one staple, over what was to be the top and through the other staple. Spacing these eighteen inches apart leaves a foot at each end. The scouts use the skis as follows: Lay the completed skis on the ground about a foot and a half apart. The boys step onto the wood and fit their feet underneath the rope. When they stand up with the lines in their hands, they pull the lines tight. This holds the wood to their feet. Hope this helps, even if it is late.

Twocubdad's point about better guidance and communication of that guidance are well taken. Clearly privacy has to be balanced with need to know, but need to know should always trump privacy. I cannot afford to be in ignorance about the health status of any other member (adult or youth) in the boondocks. I am Type II diabetic, but that has not kept me off the trail. But I do make a point of informing the other adults I am with. Likewise I expect to have access to the health forms of all participants in any outing where I am the adult in charge.

This is a horrible story, but it raised more than just academic questions. The scouts in St. Louis have had to deal with this very real problem. OGE, I am not familiar with the law you cite, but your first post in this thread contains language that seems to allow the parent to disclose anything. The question remains, can BSA ask? I don't see anything in logic, or the law (the two not being the same), that would prevent the scouts from asking such questions. Employers can ask questions about health, provided the questions are work related, such as ability to lift heavy weights, etc. It seems to me that any youth organization, scouts, sports, or otherwise, would be negligent not to ask, and to put the question in writing in the membership application. When you get right down to it, we rely totally on the honesty and intelligence of parents to accurately represent the capabilities of their children and to disclose all relevant medical facts. Being a carrier of dangerous disease is relevant. However, being HIV positive should not disqualify any boy from being part of scouting. Full blown AIDS may be another matter. Having said all that, our first aid training should give greater emphasis to self protective measures.

There is a two page article in the January - February 2003 issue of Scouting magazine that covers the same ground as has been covered here. Just reinforcement for a point of view.

Hey gang...Join this thread in offering a prayer for Merlyn Leroy. May the joy of the season get under his skin and help him to see the folly of trying to undo the good that others do.

Same to all of you.

Scouts to get free condoms at international jamboree BANGKOK, Thailand - In keeping with their motto "Be Prepared," scouts from around the world attending a jamboree will be provided with free condoms on request, media reports said Tuesday. A public health official said condoms would be supplied at the 20th World Scout Jamboree because reports of participants engaging in sex had emerged from past scout gatherings, The Nation said. About 20,000 boy and girl scouts from 80 nations are expected to attend the Dec. 28-Jan. 7 event at a large seaside campground about 130 kilometers (81 miles) southeast of Bangkok. Most of the scouts are aged from 14 to 18. "We talked about this issue from the very beginning, but we didn't want to publicize it as we feared the publicity may encourage more people to do it," the inspector general of the Public Health Ministry, Dr. Pipat Yingseri, was quoted as saying Monday. Despite control measures, it was still possible for young couples to engage in sexual activity at the event, he said. "So please ask for condoms if you need them," the official said. "Or please buy them from nearby convenience stores."

I too had noticed his absence. Hopefully he will return in due time.

Scouts Help With Rescue After N.C. Plane Crash Tue Dec 17,11:05 AM ET Add Local - WYFF TheCarolinaChannel.com to My Yahoo! A troop of Greenwood County, S.C., boy scouts on a hike in the North Carolina mountains Saturday morning made an unusual discovery -- the wreckage of a plane that had crashed into some trees. Just before noon, a single-engine aircraft crashed about halfway up the side of Whiteside Mountain, just north of Cashiers in Jackson County, N.C. Members of Troop 66 helped the two people on the plane get down from the wreckage and then call for help on a cell phone. Rescuers took the two men, who were in their early 20s, to Highland-Cashiers Hospital, where they were treated and released. The scouts said that the conditions could have been dangerous had they not arrived to help. "When we got there it was snowing and it was 27 degrees outside," scoutmaster A.P. Neal told WYFF News 4's Erin Hartness. "They were disoriented, so it would have been pretty bad situation if assistance had not arrived." When the scouts arrived, the plane was upside down and the wings were broken, scout Cameron Coffey told News 4. "I just think if we didn't get there pretty soon they might have died," he said.

You should check out some of the other threads under this classification on backpacks. You can do a search. There are some excellent points made. I own only one pack, an external frame pack that has served me well. The principle advantage that I see in internal frames is the advantage in trekking in difficult terrain. Having been to Philmont twice now, I can say that none of the trails I went on were so difficult as to make the external frame pack a problem.