MattR

AZMike, we're probably not going to get anywhere with this discussion, but it's interesting and I'm having fun arguing with you. I'd never heard of Natural Law before, so I looked it up. In a nutshell, it seems vague at best. I have to agree with ThomasJefferson, the only natural law when it comes to human behavior is best described by Machiavelli. Morality is what keeps us above that muck. Sexual slavery and debt was real, it was not just POWs that were slaves. Look at wikipedia under the bible and slavery to find a real great quote about selling your daughter as a slave. Comparing criminal incarceration with sexual slavery is not a reasonable comparison. The comment about keeping kosher was really just to point out that many religious leaders, over thousands of years, have been interpreting the rules and stories in the bible. To answer some of your questions: The behavior is wrong if it's a choice. Just like being stupid is wrong if it's a choice. But what about a scout with Downs? It's not a choice for such a kid. Let me ask you this, do you think gays choose to have same sex attraction? Do you think a gay kid can encourage a straight kid to become gay? If so, then that's where our differences are and there's nothing left to say. I can understand that some parents will be uncomfortable with gay kids in other troops. Unfortunately the same thing was said of blacks until 1975 when summer camps were finally desegregated in the South. Do you think a gay kid is likely to abuse another kid more than, say, kids with Aspergers, or PTSD (both of which I have in my troop)? Sure, different kids need to be watched differently, but there seems to be no evidence that gay kids are going to be any more dangerous to other kids than kids with other challenges that we already have in our troops. Is it that you don't want gay pride meetings in your troop? Trust me, nobody else wants that either. "Every kid may come from God, but so do all bullies, racists, alcoholics, and drug addicts. We are allowed to discourage that kind of behavior as well." In all of these instances the kid chooses to do these things. It keeps getting back to choice. Character and morality come from the choices one makes. For a kid that can't make that choice, and isn't harming anyone else, I don't see a problem.

AZMike, I agree with some of what you say and disagree with some. First, there is not a consistent set of moral rules. Different religions believe different things about a few things, homosexuality in particular. I agree that "doing what he or she feels is subjectively right" is a bad idea. But my religious beliefs are different from yours. You might say that I'm not true to the bible, but I'm fairly certain you aren't either. Do you keep kosher? 2500 years ago slavery was fine. It was actually considered a good way to help slaves pay off debts. Nobody believes in that anymore, although it is in the bible. Over 2500 years society has evolved. So it's not that people are doing whatever is convenient, it's that slowly, over decades at the shortest, our definition of moral is changing. Regarding your point that gay kids present a problem, you may be right. Most kids have problems because they haven't accepted who they are. Accepting that you're gay when your friends are everything has got to be hard on anyone. But is a gay kid any different than a kid that has Aspergers? I've had a few in my troop and one of them would fly off the handle and attack other kids because he couldn't read their signals. Another kid was fine, once you figured out how to talk to him. I know you don't want us to ban all kids with Aspergers. But you're right, it is a risk having a different kid around. I take a risk every time I go on a campout with the children of other parents. Climbing on rocks, throwing snowballs, starting the whole forest on fire, flying canoes from wind, tornadoes, I've been through plenty. Being prepared is important in mitigating that risk. I appreciate that you wouldn't want a gay kid in your troop. I'm willing to take that risk. I might completely screw up. But if I know that a kid is gay it's going to be a lot easier for me to deal with the risk. I'm willing to take that risk not because I think we should have gay appreciation meetings or any such crap, but because every kid comes from God, and that's why the phrase "love the stranger" is also in the bible.

It's pretty easy to copy and paste tables into spread sheets and graph them. Canada changed their policy in 98. The drop in beavers and cubs (ages 5-10) from 1990 to 1998 was nearly a quarter of their membership (~20k, or 2.5k/year). From 98 to 05 they lost another 30k, or 4.3k/year. After 2005 it leveled off. All told, the younger scouts lost 3/4 of their membership from 1990 to 2005. Their venture scouts (ages 14-17) hasn't changed much from 90 to 12 (6800-6100). The age between the younger scouts and the older scouts was between those two extremes. While policy on gays may have had something to do with this, there's something else that's a lot bigger going on. I found a similar chart for the bsa from 99 to 12. cub scouts has dropped from 2.2M to 1.5M (roughly 1/4 in 13 years. scouts has dropped from 1M to 900k (10%) and ventures went up from 202k to 220k. It's peak was at 293k in 02. What all this says to me is the younger scout programs need help. Having been a den leader, I have to agree. I was clueless. I think these trends have more to do with parents being willing to volunteer more than anything else. Boy scouts have us old codgers around to hold things together while waiting for some enthusiastic blood. Cub scouts don't.

My plan is to keep working on the Patrol Method in my troop. We've made a lot of really great progress in the past year. Irrespective of all the bloviating going on by adults far far away, my scouts are a bunch of great kids and are the reason I keep going. The people that say the country is going to hell don't know the scouts in my troop, or probably any other troop. Most of the scouts would be fine with gay scouts and some would be real uncomfortable. Either way, they know the right thing to do, they can be tougher critics than the adults, they can figure out how to get along with each other better than the adults, and they are our future. If sexuality were one of the methods of scouting I'd quit if this vote didn't go my way. But it has nothing to do with how my troop operates. The only thing this whole issue has anything to do with is future membership. The BSA should reflect the USA. It's probably close right now. Part of the population is OK with gays, part is not. Whether they are good people has nothing to do with their views on homosexuality. If all those that are OK with gays leave the BSA then it will no longer reflect the country and a century old institution will go down the drain within a generation. That would be a shame. There is no comparable organization to the BSA. I looked at the BPSA and my troop is roughly the size of their entire membership. I don't care what anyone says, religious youth groups are run by religious leaders and they don't have nearly as much fun as we do. That's not to say the BSA doesn't have challenges. They just don't have anything to do with the 3 G's.

Krampus, there's nothing that says gays can't be in scouting now, they just can't admit it. So they're already sleeping in close quarters. What does "not avowed" really mean anyway? So a kid knows he's gay, is part of the local gay organization, but denies he's gay. He's not avowed. What an ugly mess. I talked to my DE and it looks like council's South of the Mason Dixon line and East of Texas (including Texas) are voting against, North and East of the Mississippi are voting for (not sure about Florida). The West coast is for. The center of the country is following the red/blue map.

Thanks for posting that link to the whole survey results, AZMike. I never knew it existed. I read the whole thing and what a mish mash of numbers. Predicting what will happen based on these numbers is like predicting the Final Four. It's a Rorschach test, you can find anything you want in there. What struck me was that the parents and the scouts are fine with some sort of change and the scouters are not. Something about knowing your customers applies here. Maybe I picked up on that because I'm the one in my troop always defending the notion that the scouts do know the right thing to do and the adults need to back off and let them lead. The other surprise is that it's as close as it is. Before this whole thing came up I figured maybe 20% of members wanted a change. I'm not so sure this thing is going to pass but I also know the genie is out of the bottle. If I predict anything it's that national will lose control of the situation. If it passes, those that don't like gay scouts will drive them out. If it fails, those that don't mind gays will be more vocal about it and turn a blind eye to the rules.

Have you ever noticed how little boys beat on things and little girls beat on emotions. Children beat on things to understand them. Boys are wired to understand things, girls are wired to understand people. Not always, but generally. We had an exchange student from Denmark stay with us and she was a scout. She, said, confirming what someone else said, that most scouts are boys. The bigger difference seems to be that in Europe parents aren't involved, it's mostly 20 somethings. She was very jealous of our calendar, though.

Yep, that's why I didn't put Islam in the list of religions that don't have a solid stand on the issue. By "most mainstream religions" I assume you mean Christians and Muslims, as they're the only two that take a consistent stand on homosexuality. Those two religions are, by membership, the largest.

That concern, while a great example of a confused bureaucracy, is probably less of a real problem. How many parents in your troop help out but aren't registered adults? So tell the scout not to register but ask him to help out. It won't work for the guy that wants to be SM or a camp director, but will work for everyone else. As packsaddle said, it will work itself out. It's not great, but I'd rather deal with that problem than splitting my troop in half, or splitting camporees, or .... It's like the people that tell us scouts can't climb on rocks over shoulder height. That probably works fine in the Texas pan handle, but not where I live.

My point is that organizations sometimes need to figure out what they do well and what they should stay away from. What the BSA does well has little to do with gays and is more about creating troops and packs with a good program. By taking a stand on gay rights the BSA has become a focal point of the culture war. They've been that way for a long time, it has done them no good, and going all in or all out won't change that. They recognize that society is mixed on this and taking a position that reflects the middle ground is a position that reflects society. I can certainly see how you would not be happy with that stance. But to paraphrase what you said, as society changes and the scout membership reflects that change, the BSA will change its policy. I also understand your desire to just make the change and get it over with, but society really isn't there yet. It's split fairly evenly. i.e., let someone else fight that battle, punting is OK. The core competencies of the BSA include things like developing leadership in teenagers, and doing community service. Nobody can come close to what we do right, so let's make that the focus of what people think when they see the Boy Scouts.

I must admit, I like the idea that there won't be two different types of troops. On May 25th I'll just be able to say this is the way it's going to be, take it or leave. I don't need to worry about splitting the troop, or split camporees, or split summer camp. There's some wisdom in that. If the program is good then scouts will stay. Maybe the strategy isn't to appease the far left or far right, because they will still scream and oxygenate their blood no matter what the BSA does. They also have no qualms about destroying the BSA to make a point. Maybe the strategy is to appease the center and focus on the young parents that control the future. The survey said parents are overwhelmingly OK with gay scouts but they are split over gay leaders. That's what drove the resolution. That's where society is. All of those with strong opinions on this will disagree with society and not be happy with the resolution. Just maybe the BSA is standing up for what they believe in, which is scouting. High adventure, service projects, self sufficiency, leadership. I could really go for that.

My take on this is that it started with the top 70 when they said they wanted a change. They did an informal poll of the councils and came up with the 2/3 want to change it number. They start talking about the change in Feb and the blow back is big, so they figure they'll do a real survey and things will go their way. As the results indicate, it's really a mixed bag. The future implies change is needed but the current membership is on the fence. A little risk analysis - they don't want to walk away with nothing - suggests change the scout policy now and the adult policy can wait. It's interesting how they wrote the results page. In the summary of results, the first four items are "people's views are changing or have changed." The fifth and seventh item is that gay scouts would be tolerated now. The sixth item is all by itself stating that a local option is not favored by a majority. I'm not sure that the result details are really covered by the result survey. The result summary I would think would be closer to the details are that the future suggests change (young parents, kids, cubscouts donations) but that the old folks like it as it is. i.e., changing it all at once is too much.

Only Orthodox Jews prohibit only homosexual acts. No Jews would likely prevent a gay scout or leader from being in a unit (Orthodox and conservative Jews would not be happy with married, gay parents). Reform, reconstructionist, and conservative Jews will ordain gay rabbis. Buddhism is just as all over the map as Judaism. Hinduism is similar. In both cases homosexuality isn't mentioned very much so it seems like it's up to the individual.

I'm sure it was the ghost, there was nothing obnoxious about the joke. No offense was taken. At this point, we need a place to talk so I'll be thrifty and leave things alone.

I'm posting this here because someone erased my joke, the other threads seem to be messed up, and this one has plenty of room. The reality of what I do as a Scoutmaster sort of hit me last weekend at a campout. It really got me thinking. I know I won't change anyone's opinion, but here's mine. The biggest problem I have is with scouts that don't have a stable family. I have scouts whose fathers have died, a scout whose father held him and his mom at gun point, a scout raised by his grandmother because his parents are in jail, a scout suffering PTSD because of things his biological mother did around him, scouts with split families that fight in front of their kids. And to think that I live in a nice town, too - I can imagine my problems aren't that bad. These are the kids that need scouts, but I don't have the time to help them. I try my best, but sometimes I wonder if I'm helping that much. These kids need constant attention, a mix of tough love and someone that will just listen. I don't have that much time. At this point, I wouldn't turn down help from a gay parent, and neither would any of these kids. The adults that help the most in my troop are religious. Religion is neither necessary nor sufficient, but these people help more often than not. I thought about it and it seems that character is like any skill, you have to practice to get good at it. Not only that, but you also need an instructor that knows what he's talking about. Anything that has a long history of practice and principles is ok by me. I have no idea how the Boy Scouts word it, but we all know a duck when we see one. Many people say the wisdom from the bible is absolute and doesn't change. I beg to differ. Anyone that believes in one God and has no problem eating a bacon cheese burger, especially for the eight days starting with the first full moon after the Northern vernal equinox, can thank someone's interpretation of dietary laws explicitly written in Leviticus, to get them off the hook. There's a long history of such interpretations. After the 24 books of the Tanakh (Bible) were canonized sometime between 200 BCE and 200 CE, the Mishnah was completed in 220 CE. This was the first collection of rabbinic work interpreting the Bible. After the Mishnah was completed the Gemara was completed around 500 CE. This is a set of interpretations of the Mishnah. That's just the beginning of what is still going on to this day. Within Jewish law the death penalty hasn't been practiced in over 2000 years. Slavery ended in the 18th century. Attitudes towards the deaf changed in the 19th century. Attitudes about gays started changing in the 70's. Finally, for all those that say they'll leave if the vote in May doesn't go their way, I'm wondering if that's not throwing out the baby with the bath water. Think about the kids without the fathers, with the parents in jail, with moms that are heroin addicts. Will you still be around these kids to show them good character? No matter what your view point, you have to live out in the muck if you're going to help those kids that need it most. If you leave where will you go to keep helping out? Will you start a new troop in some fledgling organization? The answer to both groups is the same, the BSA is the best there is. Sometimes you remind yourself that a scout is cheerful, and you keep going. I hope some day a scout thanks you.

How does the comment "wasphood at its finest" help the discussion? It comes across sounding like a personal dig or someone making fun of gays or any other minority. I doubt if that was your intent.

Packsaddle, I could see how one survey would be better. I read that they are sending out 1.1 million surveys. With only 3 million scouts, that's real accurate. They'll know unit by unit. The process is odd but I think it's slow for a reason. This is a big change. Change is hard. Maybe they're trying to minimize the fallout. All the talking and blogs and angry comments and grandstanding media sessions are just filler to give people time to come to terms with this. Some will go no matter what but a lot will probably realize that scouts is still a good thing and hopefully figure out how to work the system to get where they want. I don't want to see people leave, no matter their view on this. To me, this process started when the chairman of the board, or whomever it was, said he wanted to change things from the inside, and didn't get replaced right away. That's when I knew this was coming.

Well Packsaddle, I just got a survey and it's pretty much what you wanted: 1) Should the National Organization remove the BSA's membership restriction regarding sexual orientation? 2) Would this change to the membership standards affect your involvement in Scouting? 3) If there was no change to the membership standards, would your involvement in Scouting be affected? 4) In your opinion, what is in the best long-term interest of the BSA regarding the issue to remove the organization's membership restrictions regarding sexual orientation? 5) How are you affiliated with Scouting? Question 4 was open and the rest were multiple choice. I suspect leaders are getting different questions than parents. Makes sense.

Packsaddle, you must be old to be making Ross Perot jokes. And I must be old to understand them. I applaud them for asking any questions at all. I'd rather see what the parents of scouts say than those that would be just fine with destroying the BSA to win an argument. I think the clarity comes from forcing people to think about real situations. I doubt most parents understand the relationship between the CO, the unit, and the council, so using scenarios seems like a good idea. Unfortunately this whole thing has little to do with logic, so there's no point in reasoning about it. You're welcome to toss all of my arguments. I won't be offended.

Paraphrasing the questions, I read: 1) Can gays be in scouts? 2) Can gays be morally straight? 3) Can gays tent with others? 4) Can leaders of cubscouts be gay? 5) Should the CO be able to decide about gays? 6) Can a gay leader go camping with boys? 7) Can scout adult leaders be gay? 8) Can gays be in scouts? 9) Should the CO be able to decide about gays? 10&11) What's bothering you? 12) Is the issue of gays a core part of scouting? 13) Will you leave if it doesn't go your way? There's a lot of similarity between the questions and questionaires often do this to make sure they get a consistent answer. 1, 2, and 8 ask whether gay scouts should be allowed 4, 6, and 7 ask whether gay adults should be allowed 12 is a combination of 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, and 8 5 and 9 are about whether the CO should decide 10 and 11 are a chance to talk 3 is about fear for your child 13 is about how you will deal with the change Looks like a pretty solid survey to me. I'm not sure what else they can ask for considering they're sending out a million of these.

Too late, I've already made plenty of mistakes. But I know exactly what you're talking about. Troop culture is very hard to change.

Barry, thanks for the ideas. I agree with most of what you said. I like the time and "everyone is accountable". I've done it some but it could be more. A lot of what you're talking about is problem solving. ILST mentions communication, planning, and EDGE, but not problem solving. The PL and SPL handbook talk about conflict resolution and problem solving, why not ILST?

If I had a couple of tenderfoot scouts that sounded like the two of you I'd put them in the circle of death and wait for just one to stagger out (no, not really) or sit you down and make you shake hands. This falls under the category of a bad argument. Neither one of you is going to convince the other of anything. So give it up, make your peace, and move on.

Hi Barry, I'm asking because I'd like to modify the existing syllabus. Mostly I want to extend some of the ideas with concrete examples. The duty roster is an example of making delegation easier to do. When I ask PLs what their biggest problem is it's almost always dealing with a scout that won't help out. There are lazy kids, self centered kids, and kids that want to check the boundaries. Fortunately it's not many but even one, for a 14 year old PL, is hard to deal with and it ruins the cohesiveness of the patrol. The average teenager doesn't want to rock the boat so his first tendancy is to back off and avoid confrontation. That's what I see anyway. That's the easy solution but does nothing for building a team or learning leadership. There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for. Leadership is about gaining respect. It's part servant leadership and part Machiavellian. Confrontation done the right way is a useful skill. Confrontation done the wrong way can be seen everywhere. This isn't described in the ILST. Respect is barely mentioned and how to confront self centered scouts in a positive manner is nowhere to be seen.