packsaddle

Moosetracker, it is incumbent on you now to provide references to those millions of studies that contradict him. It would be helpful if you summarized one or two of the best of them in the same manner that he did.

I'm covered with little circular scars where girls used to dare each other to touch me with a 10-foot pole, lol. So...I have some friends, a gay couple, guys. One developed a serious medical problem and he opted, in the course of things, to go ahead and complete the transsexual procedures. He is now a she and they are now....what? A gay couple? Not for anyone who meets them on the street. A heterosexual couple? By the superficial standards of BSA, I think they pass (pun intended). If BSA and so many of BSA members are so obsessed with all this sex and gayness stuff, I'd really like to hear how they resolve this situation. The couple has adopted a set of twin boys. As far as BSA is concerned, if they show up at roundup, they're just another family. Right? If these parents decide to apply for leadership positions, what then?

I think that's pretty much all anyone writes about now in academia, Merlyn - whether someone is or isn't gay. Usually, you can make an academic career by claiming someone - anyone - is. Claiming they aren't really won't earn you any points. The sliding scale for gayness is pretty easily met nowadays. Some biographers have claimed Hughes was gay, others (like Arnold Rampersand) have written that he wasn't. No gay lovers ever came forward. He could have been asexual, and lacked a strong sex drive, or felt largely romantic but non-sexual feelings. Some people are that way. He could have had a same-sex attraction or a bisexual attraction, but remained celibate, which seems likely. That's not unknown. Not everyone feels a need to play out their sexual fantasies, and some people with a SSA may realized that they will not ultimately be happy if they become a practicing homosexual. A man who has an overwhelming attraction for a woman (who happens to be married to another man) may never pursue her, out of a realization that such an act would be immoral (as fornication or adultery), or likely to lead to greater unhappiness than he feels now. Ultimately, who cares? We'll probably never know. Who cares? I guess that would be Peregrinator, perhaps Merlyn. I'd like to note that in my academic career I have never written about someone being gay. Perhaps I need to rethink my strategy....

Men work diligently to cultivate skills in their devious tendencies. Women merely summon them.

That's for sure about Watson. He didn't hold back one bit. Gotta admire him for that as well as his intellect, not so much for the way he and Crick treated Franklin. Science isn't immune to jerks.

As BSA incorporates STEM into the program, that is a minefield they'll have to tread through very carefully.

Did you miss this part of Seattle Pioneer's post? "...everyone is entitled to and encouraged to express their religious and moral beliefs, and to struggle to have them accepted by the community at large." What do you think that "struggle" is? It is as if merely having a belief and not worrying about what the "community at large" thinks about it...isn't enough. Instead, "everyone is entitled to and encouraged to express their religious and moral beliefs, and to struggle to have them accepted by the community at large." I'm reminded again of that quote by TheScout, "The purpose of religion isn't to bring people together"

Man you are sure right about that! So much for out-of-touch-with-youth leadership in Texas. It wouldn't have taken much effort on the part of any of their PR people to fill them in on things that were relevant to the times back then. In this case, either they knew and didn't worry about it, or they didn't listen to their PR people, or else they just didn't think to look into it in the first place. Which of those is the good thing? But I'm OK with it. Their lack of awareness has provided one more wonderful irony for the stupid membership policy.

I agree with Moosetracker. Takei's orientation was common knowledge to anyone who cared, and that was no big deal to Trekkies. He wasn't in a closet. If there was a closet, it was the one that others put themselves in with regard to lots of gay people. In 1995, Takei allowed people who had no other interest in him to 'come out of their closet'. I can only guess at the jumble of confused thoughts that BSA must have had with regard to him.

Just a side note, if (and this is a big IF) the council keeps good records, there is also a record there and if all else fails (usually it's the council records that fail around here) you can rely on those. However, as BD noted, they'll probably just hand them over if you've got the cash in hand. Always worked for me.

NJ, indeed.

Is this the one you're thinking about? http://www.scouter.com/forum/issues-politics/361655-help-me-understand-your-point-of-view

Delicious!

Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.

Yeah, I had tried to start a new topic earlier today and then about 30 minutes later I saw that someone had succeeded and then Terry told the moderators about it. Whew!

"Why would you, or anyone else, think that the BSA would NOT reflect American attitudes at that era in its view of homosexuality?" Please inform me as to where I thought otherwise. If an application for membership does not state all of the qualifications, then how can an applicant know what those qualifications are?

The similarities to other prejudices that have declined in public is interesting. I remember other clubs and even churches which at one time openly discriminated on the basis of skin color as well as the social upheaval that followed Judge McMillan's ruling on busing. That was the school system that I was in at the time. And now we look back on those times and the people who were militantly opposed to school integration (and those who were white supremacists openly and proudly) now take some solace in pointing the finger at others, claiming they were forced into the fight, as if that justifies the awful hurt they inflicted needlessly on other people. As Trevorum stated in another thread long ago, the times they are a changing, and the question of who 'started it' is really not relevant. The change is there regardless and I really do understand that some of us want to live in the past and fear the future. Sorry, change is inevitable.

AZMike, I'm aware of those documents. They were not open documents in the sense that applicants were made aware of them. For that matter, as far as I can tell, CO's were also not made aware of them, at least none around here (and around here those documents probably would have been welcomed by some of the CO's back then). My point is not that BSA didn't have such a policy but that it was something kept 'out of sight' and effectively unknown by the membership until Dale caused those policies to become public. As far as I am concerned a membership policy should be stated fully, openly, and completely in a manner that any person applying for membership can be fully aware of it. This wasn't. But I get your point that BSA did have an established, but unpublicized, policy. You too evidently were made aware of them by reading the court document. Edit: Outside these forums, I've still never SEEN these policies in written form. Not at roundtable, not at annual meetings with the SE, not at the council office when I asked to see them. If I applied the same standard to these documents that seems to be popular for birth certificates, they'd fail the test.

CaveEagle, you stated, "This issue is being forced onto the BSA. I for one don't want to see any sort of lifestyle witch hunt." For some reason I was under the impression that BSA chose to eject Dale and their decision to eject Dale was the beginning of this issue. Do you know of an earlier action than this one? Can you quote me the written BSA policy against homosexuals that existed at that time. I'm trying to find it and haven't been able to. I was in scouting back then and I was completely unaware of the anti-gay policy. I still haven't actually seen it in written form, at least not from that time.

DigitalScout, I agree with KDD and offer a different view of that link. It was a survey by the SBC but it didn't necessarily survey only SBC members. It seems to have surveyed the general public and if that is the case, it could also be viewed as an attempt to confirm or reject the results of similar surveys. There is nothing in the article that suggests that the SBC is going to use the results to change their policies or ideologies and, on the contrary, since the evangelical subgroup was singled out as the 'bastion' of resistance to gay rights, I'd suspect that the SBC will probably resist as well. The article, read from the standpoint of watching them wring their hands in the face of such 'inevitabilities', makes more sense. It's as if they thought all they had to worry about was making sure their wives continue to submit to their husbands or something....and now they've discovered something else to worry about.

You are SOOOO wicked, acco40, lol. I like that.

I don't know about BadenP's 'vendetta' but I definitely do not have any kind of vendetta against anything other than 1) indecisive, weak leadership or 2) decisions that are needlessly unfair or hurtful to others. Therefore, I often agree with the spirit of BadenP's comments about BSA National if not the underlying reasons (which I admit I probably don't understand any better than I understand the stupid decisions that BSA National makes). At any rate, to further comment on the idea that gay people will be awarded the Eagle rank....of course they've considered this possibility. Here's the worst of all possible scenarios: BSA decides, after all this, not to change a single thing about the membership policy. That would be just awesome. I almost hope it happens. "The suspense is terrible, I hope it will last."

I concur with the view that as the geezers die off, the young will lead us into the light on this subject. I've seen this same transition with respect to other things as well, like racial segregation. It's one way that death can be a creative and constructive influence. Too bad that it has to work that way.

Thomas Jefferson, etc. Look, I'm reading all the indignation and outrage and I'm scratching my head wondering....why? You guys DID understand that a committee was going to create this, right? You DID understand that the committee was composed of the same people whose genius has put BSA where it is already? What the heck were you expecting.....reason? So get down off that high horse and grab onto some reality. Gay youth are no longer excluded. THAT is huge. Think about it. Really. I mean, REALLY think about that. Gay youth are no longer excluded. This means that not only are the most open and 'in-your-face' personalities welcomed as youth members, gender identification is no longer an issue for youth membership. If you think those are the same thing, think some more. Of course that leaves the adults right where they are now. Which is what? Gay adults are already members and they will continue to be members. They just can't be open about it. If any of you think this is NOT practically an open invitation for COs to discreetly practice local option anyway, think again. That IS going to be the result. The organization is already moving in that direction at the grass-roots level and this will just grease the skids, so-to-speak. So do not despair. Yes, the national leadership has made themselves look like thoughtless troglodytes. And that is news to whom? Just take these new opportunities to spread the openings even wider and shrug off the stupidity. It's working. It's not working as fast as you want. But it IS working. Thomas Jefferson, after you've finished feeling sorry for yourself with all that moral outrage, ask yourself: what do the boys gain and what good does it do in the larger sense...for you to quit? Nothing. Stick it out and if nothing else, make a sport of needling the opposition. Merlyn might appreciate some company from time to time.

There is also an option under the 'Filter' pull-down for 'today' that will give everything that's been posted in that thread for the last 24 hours. I sympathize with some of the comments. Some of the features don't seem to work well...or not at all. But I also understand that in my case, at least, I'm still kind of 'low' on the learning curve. So as I learn more navigation skills, and as Terry seems to be working out some of the bugs, albeit slowly, the site has improved noticeably.