moosetracker

The religion issue is exactly as I explained it to Beavah the last time we discussed it.. Remove state from marriage completely. All the Religious ceremony will then be is a pledge before God.. You get no state or government privileges from it at all. If you want a contractual agreement due to having children, or merging your personal money & belongings, or one giving up a career to raise kids, or in order to have visitation rights and choice of medical treatment if your other half is seriously injured or ill (whatever).. Well that is a separate legal contract, and has nothing to do with the church. Religions then can follow their own beliefs some will perform same-sex marriages and some will not. And the government contract should raise no-ones eyebrows, unless someone has equal problems with same-sex business partners. Of course right now, even in states that allow same-sex marriages, no religious institution is forced to perform the marriage ceremony. So the splitting of church & state with marriage, might complicate things for some people who want both the vows before God & the contractual privileges. But, maybe will be simpler for those just wanting one item or the other. But really you will get exactly what is now offered from states allowing same-sex marriages.. Because all religions will be free to decide the issues for themselves and there will be religions that will perform the marriages.. But the religions that are against gay marriages have to make up their minds. Do they want the government to bud out or bud in?.. I mean you cant have them bud out and insist the pass some bill or make an amendment to the constitution labeling marriage as only between a man and a women.. Make up your mind what you want.. As for the medical Insurance, with the newest change we are closer to this. The Catholics will not need to pay for that part of their insurance plan (if not self insured). It is just that their employees dont need to pay for it either. Now indirectly it may we may all pay for it through taxes or overall higher health premium. As for a vegetarian deeply committed to a view that killing animals is as much a sin as killing humans? They pay for meat related things through taxes, and their grocery bill at the store for non-meat items.. They pay for USDA food inspections.. Federally Funded programs to increase or improve food (including meat), school cafeteria supplemented meals that include meat, besides any other federally funded programs that use animals for scientific experimentations. At grocery stores the costs of maintaining the store equipment (freezers and back room storage and salary for the Butchers) and also food waste is averaged into the overall costs of all food you pay for at the grocery store. Iron out the small wrinkle of the Catholic buisnesses that are self-insured.. Tack it into the taxes, or they may figure out another way. (This message has been edited by moosetracker)

Don't know much about NAMBLA child/adult relationship.. So I will change it to something I totally object to that is in BSA, and I could see this happening. Maybe I could not train BSA soccer, but if I was required to put a training book in the back of my training room on BSA soccer with all my other manuals.. Ick.. But ok.. Or if they handed me a power point slide that listed BSA soccer on a list of types of units offered.. Ick.. but ok.. (be sure I will not spend much time on that line item..) And if I needed to offer a syllabus training for BSA Soccer, well I will not do the training, but if someone who is a BSA Soccer Adult Leader wants to run it, I will offer to promote their training date.. No one is forcing them to teach, or use, or change their position or veiws about contraception. The original plan where it was something on a long list of optional medical offerings in a health package.. I didn't even see the problem with that, nor did my Catholic husband or his Catholic brother.. It is similar to my vegetarian sister-in-law, hosting a party, and maybe she does not cook the meat items, but she welcomes others to bring them. She just wont eat them, and she knows we won't force her to either.. This is just an offering for their non-Catholic employees or the 95% of Catholics that currently do not follow this docterine. Now with the recent change to the policy they do not even list it on their policy. The employee of a catholic affiliated buisness would need to take steps to add it themselves. True there is one more wrinkle to iron out, the self insured Catholic organizations. So iron out the wrinkle.. And that is what it is a wrinkle, a mole-hill. Maybe we, the taxpayers will end up paying for that.. For sure the other employers who are using the insurance of a carrier that needs to give Catholic affiliated employees a free supplemental insurance plan, will be picking up the tab for that.. Does that mean Catholics will end up paying for some of it with all other taxpayers.. Yes.. But there are probably 101 other things you can name on the government spending list that you object to and pay for with your taxes.. As for the gay rights marriage, BOTH sides are working the courts, the government, and voting at polls to get their way. Alot of states have enacted the same-sex marriages through voting at the polls. Our state of NH for example does not do voting at polls for State policy, only town/city policy.. But if they did, the state wide polls show that the majority want the gays to retain their marriage rights (over 60%), the minority of 30-something percent is then split between those wanting the policy recinded and those who are undecided.. So only 20=something percent in NH is wanting the marriage law recinded. It is only a few political leaders who are driving the efforts to recind the rights, all the while stating it is for religious reasons, and ignoring the polls on the issues.. They are stating people voted for them so they could change this rule, when this is not why they were voted for, and guareenteed they will be the first out of office in the next election as the majority is upset they cannot focus on the important issues.. Right now it is a weak majority, in favor of equal rights for homosexuals.. So the votes are narrow for or against with either a poll vote or a vote of the law makers.. Can you imagine these type of wins or close votes 25 years back? 50 years back?.. Wait for this next generation to get to voting age, with each generation the population becomes more tolerent. What ever lawmakers try to pass to stop this definate trend and hold it back, it seems pretty clear that it will not work.. All that needs to happen is for 5 or 10 years to pass and the law will be recinded the law or policy.. Or recinded, the law that recinded the law, that recinded the law, that recinded the law....... You can't make policy or laws out of fear of the trend in the changing social beliefs of this country, and have any hope of getting it to stick.

Well scoutfish, may be a little off, but I know what he is saying.. Religion does try to use the system while screaming church/state seperation if government may stomp on it's turf.. It is just when they use the system, they try not to make it religious, but "what is right" according to their belief system, (which is largely due to their religious beliefs).. The anti-gay bills about marriage, although it is mainly made up of people who have been raised in a religious belief to this effect. It will be different religions of a similar belief in this particular region. Also it will include some homophobic people with no religious belief at all driving this belief.. (ie. you don't need to be LDS or Catholic (or whatever other religion believes this) trying to try to stop the fact that giving gays equality for marriage is slowly becoming a popular trend.) Similarly Pro-life is not a single religious group trying to get the state to revert the law that legalized abortions. Again, mostly driven by religious individuals & groups, of this belief.. But, it is a few religions combining in this effort, and a sprinkling of non-religious people who have come to agree with them for whatever personal reasons.. Without these religions getting behind these fights they would be not strong at all.. But, they are not a single religion trying to drive government laws. Still think Catholics are making a mountain out of a molehill, with the contraception insurance.. And any States jumping on the bandwagon, are doing so simply because they want to protest and put a monkey wrench into the government putting ANY package in place, and this just seems like a good enough bandwagon to jump on.. Personally I have not decided if government control of health insurance will be good or bad. All I know is this conflict is pretty ridiculous although entertaining.

SSScout - You confused me. First you say GSA is better, then BSA is Better, then GSA is better.. If your local GSA is doing well that is great! If the get a fantastic leader that will happen.. Just like an exceptional Leader in BSA may create a troop with 100 or more boys in attendance. With both poor adult leadership can take a healthy unit and turn it into a ghost town. It may reflect on the specific BSA or GSA unit, what they can control after working within the confines of the National directives of how it needs to organize.. I don't think that reflects anything upon the way their National Head organization model. Both have their plus's & minus's.. But, I think if the GSA groups come and go with the leader, and the girls in the group. (From what I understand, each unit stays with the same age level, so best they can hope for is until the girls age out).. I guess I would prefer the BSA model, which allows the Pack & Troop to cycle and countinue to live on for many generations.. For some reason, most crews I have witness seems to more mirror the GSA in that respect. They come and go with either the leader, or when the original members of the crew age out. Don't know what causes that in them..

In my opinion BSA would not want the responsibility.. They don't have the manpower to be monitoring rouge units. You would get units not following youth protection, maybe because they think they are silly, maybe because the SM is a pretetor.. You would have other problems, maybe not youth protection issues, but still headaches, adults bickering issues.. The CO is responsible for their units whether they are attentive or not. Sort of like a parent that lets their teenage son have a party, and does not monitor it. The BSA still gets sued for units that do stupid or illegal things, but they have the buffer of it not being their unit. It is the CO's unit.. What was the CO doing to monitor their unit.. Not always effective padding, but padding none the less.. Something the BSA would not want to do away with, because they could not be attentive to all these units without upping their manpower considerably.. Then still being on the hook for the sly con-artist who still manage to pull their illegal or stupid moves when they turn their head for a minute.

qwazse Ya, sure. Make the boys do more paperwork and table any real working independence. The boys will love you for that! If you are going to "ease" your way into more youth leadership. Give them a serious responsibility. Choose a real route to hike. Collect real money. Buy real food I believe he already does that.. From what I gathered the patrols organized & budgeted their own food (ie collecting money & buying food). They also choose where to go, (the only one nixed was the winter trek that the adults saw as grueling and dangerous.. What his troop doesn't do is have the boys execute from start to finish, mostly items that the boys really don't want to get involved with (ie paperwork & accounting ).. Things that they are normally happy to have an adult take on so they can just have fun.. Things a SM & ASM must slowly encourage them to take on for their own good, such as eatting your green beans.. shortridge - If a group of boys involved in an outdoor adventure program propose a trek that's safe and financially feasible, though perhaps physically challenging. but then can't find enough adults to commit, what the boys learned is that their adult mentors are basically wimps. Fred8033 - ...February camp out where the plan was to hike "DOWN" a mile long steep uneven rocky path to that would be covered with ice and snow. Oh... and the path has a sharp drop off (when you can see it ... not a sheer cliff, but still a sharp angle). We don't mind winter camp outs. That's fun. We just mind risking our lives. We were willing to schedule it if the scouts could find registered qualified leaders who would go with them.... shortridge - From what I gather from Fred.. (and I have to take his word for it not seeing the trecherous slope for myself.) The adults did find it risky (ie. not safe.) Now if I was CC of this troop and the SM and ASM were worried about their skill level for this type of trek.. It would not mean that I as CC would force them to go, and pooh pooh their skill level.. That would put everyone at risk. I would hope, that if we found someone outside the troop with the skill level to take the boys through the training and lead the activity, maybe at least one of your leaders would have an interest to take the training with them, and come to have confidence & enthusiasm to go with the group.

Well the committee cannot force unwilling SM & ASM's to accompany the boys.. You at least need one adult leader registered to the troop (or at least BSA registered). Might they have searched with the boys for someone outside the troop?.. It would have been nice had they worked with the boys a little more before throwing the plan in the trash.. Perhaps at a roundtable they could have found a willing soul to make the journey with them. But, if you have a dangourous trip lined up, how many parents would then be happy to put their son's safety in the hands of two strangers? Well anyway, Beav's right, when adults don't want something to happen the sure fire way to kill it is to lay all the planning at the kids feet, walk away, and wish them luck.. No guidence, no you guys look but we will look too.. No let's see if we can't find a solution together. I know one troop that was with something similar.. In fact I sent one guy to this forum to see if any of you could help them.. It was with rock climbing, they had some very knowledgable adults, but not certified.. Well the adults did turn over lots of stones to look for a certified guy.. I don't think the ever did, and the event never happened.. But, the adults did not lay the task of finding the certified guy at the boys feet. The adults wanted to help them find a solution, and not disappoint them.. But, it is a difference of how much the adults have bought into the plan (or not) as to how many stones they will turn over for the boys, (or not).. Easy thing is to not say "No".. but hand the difficult impossible feat of finding qualified leaders outside the troop at the feet of the boys.. Then it is their fault for the event failing. With the rock climbers, Adults & scouts can say they failed at getting the event to happen. But,the scouts will know that the Adults tried their hardest to help.. I will not fault the adults in your troop for not wanting to go.. Maybe Beavah would. But, if you know your limits, and would not trust yourself to lead or be responsible for the scouts during that high risk adventure.. And, you would spend a miserable weekend hating every minute of the event.. Then, volunteer is volunteer. Just, perhaps a little more work with them to find someone.. Having them come to one (or a few) meetings to see if the parents are comfortable with their qualifications.. Registering them if they are not already registered with the troop the town over.. Sure, the possibility of getting all the ducks lined up in a row to work, would have been slim.. I would say that your troop even with adults backing the boys would have had a hard time pulling it off. But, the difference is will the boys from the rock climbing group trust their adult leaders to dream big again, and try something else different (maybe scuba diving next time).. I would bet that the adults did not loose their troops respect because they tried hard, even if they failed.. How about your boys? Have they proposed any big dreams since then, or only events they know they have adults in the troop with personal interest in the subject matter to make happen for them? Sometimes troops do fall into activities the Adults enjoy for this reason. SM likes hiking so it is a predomantly hiking troop. SM likes aquatics it's a aquatics group.. SM likes camping.. Then the boys who join are of similar intrests to the SM, or they join a different troop. NOW the boys with intrests similar to the SM may then plan the events.. May happen anyway, a trip requiring you to look outside your troop adult leadership, would be hard to do montly.. But, then again, if you got a reputation as a troop with high adventure activities, you might get the interest of people in the community with no sons in the troop, but a love of high adventure. You never know. Never know Wouldda.. Couldaa.. Shouldaa.. But, this is one event out of many successful ones.. It is not the majority of events (like my old troop currently can claim). Personally Fred I would put your troop at a rating of normal.. Where as if Beavah & Shortridge maybe have exceptional troops.. Sure you can slowly ease into some of the easier things.. Attendence by the boys to be handed to an adult, Sign-up sheets by the boys.. Maybe let the boys do some of the trip planning with the guidance of the outdoor Adult leader.. Things like that could be goals to strive for.. Do you need to be in the same class as Beavah & Shortridge? No.. Take your troop to where you are comfortable at being.. I think all troops should have a goal of improvement to work for, there is always room for improvement.. Even Beavah's & Shortridge I am sure have troops that need improvement somewhere.

Well I have been in a troop that was (to my estimate) successful, then through change of SM turned dismal.. Even at our finest, the boys were not doing much financially except for Patrol food costs, and sometimes research pricing for a new or replacement item.. The Scribe took the weekly dues and attendance.. This was turned over to the Treasurer (maybe monthly).. And though we tracked events in TroopMaster, we never tracked weekly attendance in TM.. Did the boys?? I doubt it. Calendar Reservations - That was done mostly by Adults.. The boys decided what they wanted, and did the intitial plan of which month.. The actual dates were more fine-tuned around school, Holidays and other calendar conflicts by the Adults.. Sometime the boys inital month was changed too.. Like WW rafting was in a month that the company didn't operate due to low water.. Maybe should have gone back to PLC.. But mostly the adult would swap the May event with the June event without doing so.. So I guess by some peoples definition our Troop was "barely" boy-led, to not really.. All this was done with Adult guidence most the time.. And sometimes an adult picked up a ball or two that the Scouts would drop. Now it is worse.. SM makes all the plans, and then cancels them when they are not organized by anyone.. Sometimes SM didn't ask the scouts to organized anything, but didn't aske adults to and he doesn't either.. (Usually it is still the scouts fault for the lack of organization).. Sometime he does ask, but all it is is Bobbie you take care of the rafting trip (end of guidence..) Scout doesn't know where to begin, what to do.. Ball is dropped, event is canceled.. It is the scouts fault... PLC use to plan the weekly meetings some so-so and some awesome brillent work, now at the PLC the SM tells them what they will be doing. (Pretty much "You are my puppets..").. SM still ends up leading most the meetings (his puppets either rebel or have no interest in the assignment..) SM treats the rest of Adult leadership as threats.. He doesn't tell them what they should be doing, or tells them (in email) 24 hours before the trip.. And if they don't do it, it is their fault.. Doesn't matter that they did not get the email until 1 hour before the event, or after the event. Sometimes it's a "Hey! I don't have enough Adult leaders to.. have 2 deep leadership, drive, pull the trailer.. In email 24 hours before.. Then 20 hours before (having only given a 4 hour response.. ) Well I guess since we don't have coverage the event is canceled.. OK.. So.. In my opinion, adults doing some of the finance, and guiding the Scouts, and monitoring to pick up items the scouts kind of dropped the ball on is far better.. Then boy-led - With no guidence (Handing them a huge project with no direction).. Or Adult Lead with an unorganized, disfunctional Adult Leadership.. You do what you can with the abilities of your boys. I recommend if you pick up on a boy that will go that extra mile, well cheer him on.. And hope he will set fire to some of his buddies, but give him guidence.. If you want to improve boy-led, do so slowly.. One bite at a time.. And with guidence. Don't dump onto the boys that what they are unwilling or incapable of doing everything like a 10 ton boulder, then sit back and let them get squished beneath it's weight. In the meantime, start putting into your Adult leaders head a vision of using their positions to guide and direct rather then do for them (maybe through some trainings on how to guide).. Don't just tell them they have been laid-off from their scouting postion. Anyway that is my two cents.. Fred your troop could be alot worse.. And it could become alot worse if you try to get the boys to take on more without a well thought out plan of how to do so.

Son did the pictures of what he saw, before the camera phone (but I think we did have a digital camera.).. So not so new a concept with the phone camera. Well the thing is to find the animals or signs of.. They went on hikes with leaders and never saw much more then small species birds (which he wasn't too great at naming bird species, and was not going to get signed off for bird, bird, another bird..) chipmonks & squirells.. But not much else.. We had Turkeys and deer in the yard, voles in the lawn, snakes in the wooden railroad tie landscape grading, we came upon turtles crossing the road on the way to a scout event (but no leaders where with us at the time), we had a pond close buy that geese hatched and raised their young in, plus mud prints of other animals that came for water.. Could he have found something on scouting events..? Probably, but on scout events he was with his buddies, and his attention span was that of a gnat..

I will need to see if this sale is in our local scout shop. We have a few people on our WB staff, looking to buy one. They would appreciate notice of a sale. But, there were some of our staffers comming & going from the scout shop Sat. while we were holding a staff meeting in the next room. No one noticed the Sale if there was one.

I could see the need in 1915. You had very rural areas, and didn't have great transportion, and even if you did there wouldn't be a troop within a 5 mile radius.. Plus you didn't have parents who coddled their children, and had to either live their second childhood through them, or put them in bubble wrap so that they were unable to expirence anything at all. Now adays is should not be handed out so easily. I can see for the child that travels too much to hook up with a troop for very long. There may be other rare instances, but they should have good reason as to why a normal troop will not work. "No one is spoiling my child enough", isn't one of them.

Jeff - I would hope that is so in any part of the country.. Am I hireing you or your Momma? Or do I need to hire the both of you as you can not take a step without her?.. (No Parents, no spouses, no friends should be in tow on an interview) I am sure alot of them will do behind the scenes work, like organize your resume, or do dry runs of an interview process. Momof2cubs - That is awful! Unless you are the draft pick of the year for a sports team or the Hottest new model or actress, employer have hundreds of canidates to pick from for any single job.. The slightest thing can knock you out of the running.. Anyone who brings Mommy or Daddy to the interview is nuts!

While I agree DeanRx, I have heard a similar comment from my husband. They will tell the scout up-front that althought they could go through with the project as outlined, they will let him know if that is all that is done, it will be rejected when they come in front of the EBOR. So someone else can explain it, but it almost sounds like during the project approvals, the board doesn't get to really approve or deny the project.. If they use to have that right and the new workbook took that away from them and gave it to the troop, I am unsure. But I know that now the troop does have alot more responsibility with the Eagle project.. Therefore, I guess if the scout (or parents) start complaining the EBOR do not have a right to accept or deny the project at this level (maybe because the troop accepted it & the board can't deny it???) The board's only resource is to state "OK, you can do that if you want, but we do have the right to deny the project for not having enough leadership when it comes before the EBOR. We are just giving you warning, it will be denied there." then explain they will then need to go through the appeal process and what it is.

My guess will be that as a lone scout, mom or dad will become the MBC of any merit badge he doesn't want to do, then simply sign him off.. Maybe with counting what the rest of us would consider "unacceptable" like spending the "days" at summer camp, or spending the "day" at a district event. I get that the Eagle has "some" benefit with college, car insurance, and military starting rank/pay.. But I am sure this kid will not go into the military.. Other things can help with college acceptance and car insurance.. I guess I just don't see the benefit to going through the motions, because the most important effect of your son being in boy scouts is lost. That is help with raising your child with good values, social skills, self confidence, leadership skills etc.. This isn't the Wizard of OZ. Handing you a piece of paper will not make you an Eagle.

Yep! That what is going on here. Last night they had 6 project approvals, and 2 EBORS.. It was the project approvals that was having the difficulties.

I agree, and I believe our District Advancement is trying to hold the line, which is why they did not allow the one sign only redone by the scout himself. The thing is, that the scout (parents, maybe even troop leaders look at the 2 person 1 hour minimums.. Not the vague district will still turn down a project if it doesn't meet the scope..) And think the scope can be met with a 1 hour 2 person project. Thomas54 posted in MIB's thread on Lone Scout something, I will repost here as I think it is pertanent to this discussion also. This is a can of worms but I will wade in anyway. We had a scout that submitted an eagle project for sign -off. Myself, our Eagle coordinator and the committee thought it was a little light on leadership. We asked him to hold a work day where he could lead others and not just his mom and younger brother through a work day. We thought it was relatively a minor request. He was at this point only 13 years and 2-3 months old. Well it blew up and everybody dug in. The parents were not going to have him do another thing. The kept chanting that I cannot add or subtract from the requirements. The charter was brought in, the district and council were brought in too. Meetings between me, the parents and the Charter were held. Meetings with the District advancement chair and finally with the Council advancement chair. Neither side would yield. The parents were not going to have their boy do another item and I was not going to sign off. It got so bad the scout quit our troop and went to another troop. But they wouldn't sign off there either. Mind you all this took place over at least four months and it would have taken the scout one Saturday morning to complete the task. So in the council's infinite wisdom they decided to make this scout a lone scout for two months. While he is alone scout his dad was able to sign off on his eagle project which cleared the way for him to become an eagle as a lone scout. Sounds like in his district the troops wanted to hold the line on a worthwhile scope, while the parents were all about narrowly looking at the minimums and seeing in it the bare minimum scope.. And the District/Council found a way to let this scout pass through with a very unworthy project.. (If 2 troops, not 1 troop thought it was a weak project, I will have to consider that there is merit in that one side of the story.) It just means more scouts coming to the board with very weak projects, and the board either having to turn them away, or offer suggestions on how they can put some more meat to it. And maybe alot more helecopter parents trying to demand acceptence of the very weak project, so junior doesn't have to waste much time on it. Our District Advancement Group wants to put together a Training for Troop to train at least one Eagle coach per troop in helping the Scout organize and understand the new Eagle workbook.. Fine by me, but I will probably look for my Trainers for the Course from those people who sit on the Eagle board.. So, aside from them getting my blessing, promoting the course for them, and helping with the registration.. As far as my job goes to put this course together for them.. Piece of cake. But, I think it will be a good idea.

Well it is February. My husband just returned from an Eagle board last night and 3 of the 6 projects they had to bulk up, before they could approve them. Before it was a once in a while thing. But the Eagle workbook has the scouts now thinking the Eagle project is as a sprint around the gym for one loop. One kid had one sign for a cemetary that he himself was going to refurbish. That was it. The board got him up to two signs and a kiosk. (Will be subject to the cemetaries approval, but scout thinks they will like the idea).. And he was made to understand that he had to DIRECT others to do the work.. Their board has now changed to rejected due to "not enough leadership shown.". But my husband see this as going to be a growing problem. Have any of you already seen an immediate change for the worse ?? or ?? better with the first round of Scouts trying to interpret the new workbook?(This message has been edited by moosetracker)(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

All boards may ask different questions, but they normally are not grilling him about his homelife or if he ever was arrested. They more ask him his scouting career background, and his project, and his future plans. Now during the conversation the scout may bring up a zinger like having been arrested. Normally though something like that would probably be brought up to make a point of how he has changed his life for the better, and learned from such an experience.

Sorry, not much we can say about your son earning Eagle. It's done, it's over. Sorry, his actions hurt you. It doesn't matter if we think he earned it or not. What is important is that you put the hurt of it behind you, and whatever else he has done in the past that has hurt you, in order to repair the relationship with your son. Maybe emotions are still to raw between your son and yourself/family to do this until your son matures a little more, and earns some independence, so he can feel he can have a relationship with his parents on an equal footing. Maybe now is the time. It sounds like even though you have been hurt, you are proud of his recent accomplishments. ....Why do you want me to focus on his time in juvie? It's over, and from what I can tell, it helped him focus on what's important to him. Besides earning the eagle, he is getting very good grades in school and has been accepted to at least one college.... Put the hurt of his getting Eagle behind you also, as you did his stint in juvie.. Let him know you are proud of his accomplishments. That you would though like to celebrate them with him. It's an award you can get as a youth. If earning it helped him redirect his life to the positive, it was a good thing. Will what he learned follow him in shaping his life to the positive? That is the important thing to concentrate on. If not, it is just a piece of paper with no meaning.

Well looks like the Bishops are still beating their tom-toms.. So Beavah probably is also. I can see their molehill is still there if they are self-insured. (But, I thought I read something that indicated self-insured would not be an option with this new plan). But from what they also say, it is a definite they want to stomp out this policy for everyone and be the moral religious conscious of the world.. ...Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether... ...and individual employees and students forced to pay premiums for the coverage.... ...and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions... Deeply held convictions of religious people? Are they talking about the 2% of Catholics that still follow this outdated nonsense? Or do they put on rose-color glasses and choose to ignore the fact that 98% of their parishioners have chosen not to follow them. They would have to take the extra steps to get this part of the insurance, so they would have to go to the devil, the devil will not come to them. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/catholic-bishops-obamas-solution-unacceptable

Seems like alot may be left out of this story. It would have made sense if his parents were totally unsupportive of his being in the Boy Scout program. But, if they both were adult leaders and he was in scouting since wolf, then the parents must have been supportive. I did know of a SM & wife who raised a boy who was from a family of all drug dealers and other criminals. The boy wanted a different way of life, and the family wanted him in crime. So he moved in and was raised by the SM & wife (and did get his Eagle). I am unsure in your case or the one I pointed out, why the parents just couldn't get the law to bring the child back home. I would imagine in the criminal family, social services involvement possible got the SM to be a foster family.. If your scout had a decent family, this wouldn't be the case. Anyway, all the missing pieces may hold the info for me to make MY opinion. But, my opinion will still be different then others opinions. And even if my opinion is he broke some scout laws to get there, well there are other Eagles out there, my opinion would have been he is not qualified.. In the end, if all the boxes are checked, you get your Eagle, and if you made some wrong moves to get there, they are really overlooked. Sounds like the boy was driven, and there was something that made him think his family would hinder his dreams. Something that the SM must have agreed with. He followed his dreams. He definately followed "brave". The "kind" and "Curtesy" and "Trustworthy" are wrapped up in a story of what caused the family split in the first place.

Well this is the goofiest squirrel to hit this thread yet.. It was just an example of making a mountain out of a molehill.. Apparently you agree the seatbelt law is a molehill. EagleDad - I agree.. It was aggrivating when son was little too. If husband & I was in the car well kid went in back.. But, rarely did kid go in back if just driver & kid.. And yes that was serious risk to the kid with the airbombs, but I have rarely seen any kid sit in the back when there was an empty seat in the front.(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

Yes but forced brushing of teeth, saves others from my stinky breath! And forces me to save the insurance from the cost of having to fix my cavities or worse yet, pay for my false teeth.. It's all about the squeeky wheel (in this case the wheel that bellows at the top of their lungs.) Maybe Jehovah's Witnesses saw the molehill for what it was. Well after all this, don't know if the health care will go through, or if it will be better or worse, or not make a lick of difference, or be recinded a few months later when the next President gets into office.

Mandatory Coverage of sterilization, is not the same as Mandatory sterilization.. If it was mandatory sterilization, well then I would agree with you!But, it was a molehill way out of proportion.. That's like here in New Hampshire.. If you force me to wear my seatbelt what else is next? Are you going to force me to brush my teeth by law, mow my lawn weekly by law, join the army by 18?.. Tell me where I can and can not work? Tell me who my frieds are? etc. etc. etc. We can all get carried away playing the "What if" game.. You just need an active imaginations, to paint a picture that the sky is falling. Anyway, I am happy and you should be happy with Obamas solution. Catholic affiliated businesses don't have to pay, workers at such institutions will be able to get free birth control coverage directly from health insurance companies. (Who is picking up the tab was unclear, if the taxpayers, then the Churches are free & clear.. If it will be picked up by all customers of the insurance company, they will still pick up a portion, just wont see it that way as it will not be an itemized item. But from the article, looks like not all religions sided with the Catholics. The sentiment on the other side, though, was also fierce. Women's groups, liberal religious leaders and health advocates pressed Obama not to cave in on the issue. http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/10/10371870-obama-revamps-contraceptive-policy So maybe the priests and bishops can slow down on their political retoric long enough to do a decent sermon or two.. (Except they (with a few other religions) still have to wage war about those d*mn same sex marriages).. No rest for the weary.

TT : This may be a pocketbook vote.. Do you want something for free? SURE!!! Basically for BirthControl to be at no cost to employee entire health plan would be at no cost to employee (or at least all prescription medicine).. Because it is hard to say we will pay 100% for BirthControl, but you must pay 10% of all your other prescriptions. Anyway Free is never really Free.. If the company pays more for your health benefit they pay less for your salary.. I was never advocating that the Catholic Church had to pay 100%, even stating that they would just need to look at the co-pays and Health care deductions they take out of an Employees salary as their payment for whatever they object to. But, the Hawaii thing of a small supplemental insurance is fine to.. But this morning on the news it was stated that 98% of all women use contraceptives at some point in their life and that included 97% of women who were Catholic.. So I doubt few are opposed to the contraception notion. Even the men who have spouses who use, or have used them.