DWise1

What the frakkin' frik are you talking about? What you "quote" me as saying cannot be found anyway in what I had posted. That makes you a gorm-darned liar! Would you please attempt to clarify just what the frak you might be talking about?

Admittedly, this thread has wandered far away. Stupid question: You have a member's parent who is in a deeply committed relationship. What do the exact particulars of that relationship have to do with his being a Scouter? What really does sex have to do with Scouting? Please answer that first for different-gender sex. Nothing whatsoever, right? So what does same-gender sex have to do with Scouting? Nothing whatsoever, right? So just what is the difference supposed to be? Huh? Here is a basic principle that we had to make maximum use of while I provided training services during my official expulsion for atheism: A parent is always welcome to a meeting involving his own child. So gay parents are always welcome, including in den meetings and on campouts. And if the gay parent has a practical skill to teach, then what? Ignore that valuable resource? Or make use of it? Again harking back to the Penn and Teller Bullshit! episode on BSA, there was a campout set up with gay and non-gay scouts in which, as I recall, the gay scouts out-performed the non-gay scouts. So you ignore what the gay scouts have to teach you? As for the issue of sex education, I remember a memorable quote from the then-Governor of Mississippi (AKA, "missisloppy" by those, like myself, who had been stationed there) in the mid-to-late 1990's. He was a strong advocate of educational reform. In support for his position on education reform, he said: "We have already tried ignorance, so we know that that does not work." So now the Republicans are doubling down on ignorance -- it didn't work then, so it won't work now either.

Merlyn_LeRoy, I am not saying nor would I ever say that anything would "magically turn discrimination into not-discrimination." Nor does any BSA religious requirement actually require "members to make a promise to a god". Of course, by "god" I am referring to a literal suprenatural being, which officially published BSA policy does in fact not require. All I am saying is that officially published BSA religious policy makes all of BSA's acts of religious discrimination NULL, since they have no legitimate basis for that discrimination. I would indeed agree that the use of that unfortunate word, "God", is a source of great confusion. In standard English, "God" refers to one very particular god, AKA YHWH, though the Jews are bound to not refer to their god's actual name (it is a variant of "I am that I am", but then that could invoke the Popeye corollary which extremely few would dare invoke for very good reason). In public opinion polls of which the public's view of the trustworthiness of various religious groups are gauged, Mormons, Muslims, and atheists always rank at the bottom. Though since 9/11, Muslims have replaced atheists are the bottom. Interresttingly, the politics of BSA religious discrimination seems to have followed an apparent take-over of the movement by the Mormons in the 1980's. Admittedly, I'm playing on Penn and Teller's Bullshit! episode on TV, but Scouters' problems with Mormon Scouting are still a very real part of Scouters' lives. In District camping events, what do the Mormon units do? They pull out on Saturday night in order to be in church on Sunday morning. How do Mormons conduct their programs? All male youth are registered with BSA up to the age of 18, but in reality they are expected to "Eagle out" by age 14, whereupon they enter into Mormon youth sports programs. And in all the religious discrimination lawsuits, it was the Mormons who repeatedly threatened to completely withdraw their support of BSA should even one atheist ever be allowed to set foot within a single BSA meeting. My second professional job was at Hughes Aircraft. I vividly remember a co-worker who had married a Mormon woman. He had two daughters, and yet he had been drafted by the Church to be Cubmaster. I remember him railing against the very idea, but that is how the Mormons operate. Within BSA confines, I heard it expressed as, "What is the least that I can do? And I do mean the very least." I very much believe in Scouting and its values. I have been an atheist for at least half a century and I believe in Scouting and its values and even the officially published policies of BSA. I realize that there is a common misconception that morality depends upon being personably responsible to an actual supernatural being, AKA a "god". That is an outright untruth. Here is my own personal religious testimony. I was baptized around age 10 or 11. About a year later, I decided that I needed to get serious about this religion business. So I thought about what I was supposed to believe. I decided that I was supposed to believe the Bible, so I started to read it. Now, mind you, I am fairly sure now that my church did not require belief in the literal truth of the Bible, but I naïvely assumed that it did. So upon realizing that I simply could not believe what I was reading in the Bible, I realized that I should leave. At that point, I became an atheist. Well, by that time, I was already very well aware at the incursions upon the Wall of Separation (which it turns out precedes the First Amendment, though as "The Great Barrier that defends the rights of the people"). I remember having a very serious sit-down with myself. I knew that I could not base morality upon the Bible, so what was I supposed to base it on? I thought long and hard and came to a decision. The Scout Oath and the Scout Law. I could see no other precept to base my morality upon. Interestingly, many years later, BSA provided this in its own publication for Scouters: Scouting, March-April 1991, page 12, quoted from Lord Baden-Powell: As a result, I always taught the Scout Oath and Law to our Webelos not as an obligation, but rather as a gift from Scouting, a way to live a good life. A way that I have always sought to live my life.

All members of the reserve forces enlist for a period of time, just as every Scout and Scouter registers for a period of time, namely until the next rechartering. The Navy Reserve, like BSA, has membership requirements, though the Navy's requirements are more stringent. In particular, participation is a major requirement in the reserves. We take muster at the start of each and every drill (the period of time that constitutes one unit of attendance and service). We require a particular percentage drill attendance for each anniversary year (a 12-month period which starts based on the member's initial or last enlistment). If the member does not meet that particular participation requirement (95%, as I recall, but as a retiree my memory is admittedly fading), then he is subject to administrative separation (AKA "being ADSEP'd"). Additionally, each member's monthly pay depends directly on his having participated in scheduled or re-scheduled or equivalent drills. The point I am making here is that there is of necessity a system set up in the military reserve to track and document each individual member's participation in the reserve program. It is not just that there is a system in place to ADSEP a member for unsatisfactory participation, but rather that there is even a system in place for tracking individual members' participation. BSA doesn't have anything like that, because it has no requirements for tracking individual participation. My question here is to ask how reasonable it is to implement one. Here is what one of our DEs had described to me -- mind you, this was circa 1990 when we still rechartered on BSA's birthday in Februrary. The biggest registration numbers were in Cub Scouting, which always occurred in September, at the start of the new school year. Even though a large number of those original registrants dropped out within a month or two, they continued to be carried on the books until the rechartering in February. My DE showed me the graph of membership. It hit a low in February, after which it climbed steadily (with no way to track those who had dropped out, how else could it climb?) until September when it took a very steep climb, continued to climb steadily until February, when it plummetted and then started to steadly climb again. My point is that that is all that BSA has to work with. They can track new registrations, but they cannot track any members who drop out until time for rechartering comes around. The only way I can see for BSA to properly track active membership on a month-by-month basis would be for it to adopt a similar administrative model as the military reserve forces, but that would require monthly/daily reports of attendence and participation from all units in the field. Personally, I don't see that happening the BSA. Yes, in the meantime BSA districts and councils will continue to take advantage of the system in place. But I personally don't see much of any alternative.

I knew the family personally in the 1990's. The breaking of the news of their problem was my first indication that there even was a problem. When they were able to get a stay from the courts that allowed them to continue to participate, a Cub Scout in our pack attending a different school that the CO but the same as the one that the Randalls were attending, invited them to join our pack, whereupon we welcomed them -- at the time, the Council was spreading a fear campaign among the volunteers that "the Randalls are coming!!!!!!". They were excellent Cub Scouts and, when they advanced on to Boy Scouts, their Scoutmaster praised them as exemplary Boy Scouts, saying that he wished that all his boys were like them. Here is what happened. On their own, the boys questioned the "Duty to God" wording. A number of wishy-washy compromises were proposed to them (eg, "read 'God' as 'good'."), but they still dare to question the wording. The very first indication that their parents had of any problem brewing was a rather confused phone call from a den leader who never actually broached the subject but intimated that there was trouble brewing. The second indication to the parent of any problem was a letter of expulsion from the Orange County Council. If not for that confusing phone call, that letter of expulsion would have been the very first indication to the parents of any kind of a problem. So how, then, could you assume that it was all the parents' doing? BTW, their father, Jim Randall, tried his best to resolve the problem at the lowest level possible. It was BSA who refused to allow any kind of resolution. For that matter, it was Orange County Council's SE, Kent Gibbs, who directly instructed Jim Randall to file a lawsuit against them. Which he did and won. Then BSA appealed the decision, but during that time the court granted a stay that allowed the boys to continue to participate in Scouting. They both completed all their requirements, with distinction, for Eagle. So as their Eagle Court loomed, BSA was able to pressure Californian state officials to intervene and to push their appeal forward to the California Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court did find that BSA does indeed discriminate on religious grounds, but it is not subject to the Unruh Act, which is what the lawsuit was based on (remember, we have no justice system, but only a legal system). And since BSA has been found to discriminate, they are losing the support of former donors and sponsors with anti-discrimination policies of their own. No, the only "adults" who are causing the problems are the BSA professionals. The mistake made by their original den/pack leaders was to refer the matter up the line to BSA professionals. Every single Scouting volunteer must make it his primary mission and imperative to keep BSA professionals as far away from his unit and from his people as is at all possible. Nothing. But that is not the way of BSA professionals. Scouting is the solution; BSA is the problem.

I am so hoping that this forum software accepts the mark-up tags in use by others. That is what BSA demands, not allegiance to a specific god in violation of its being "absolutely nonsectarian". Rules and Regulations, ARTICLE IX. PRINCIPLES, POLICIES, AND DEFINITIONS, SECTION I: But what is the officially published BSA policy on the definition and interpretation of "God"? More pertinent, the emphasis is on being faithful in one's religious duties and respecting the beliefs of others (meaning that BSA professionals fail in this point of the Scout Law). Advancement Guidelines, early 1990's, page 5, RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES: Even though "God" is not defined nor may it be. Please note that officially BSA does not and cannot determine whether a member performs his "Duty to God". My minister wrote to BSA twice explicitly informing them that I do indeed perform my "Duty to God" in accordance with our religion, Unitarian-Universalism. Not only did BSA deliberately ignore him both times, but they also deliberately ignored those same letters every time I included them in my repeated requests for information on my review, which dragged on for several years. BSA yet again in flagrant violation of its own rules and policies. POSITION STATEMENT REAFFIRMATION OF THE POSITION OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ON "DUTY TO GOD", 10 October 1985: Reaffirmation of the Position of the Boy Scouts of America on Duty to God, 12 June 1991: Relationships Division deals with BSA's relationships with religious organizations. The director in charge of Relationships Division is in a unique position to think long and hard about officially published BSA religious policy and its ramifications. Letter from William McCleery III, BSA National Director, Relationships Division, 26 August 1985: Letter from Donald L. Townsend, BSA National Director, Relationships Division, 21 December 1994: Now, both letters explicitly state that "belief in a Supreme Being" is not required. Mark that well! But they were written at two different times under two different circumstances. In 1985, a newly adopted wording, "belief in a Supreme Being", which CSE Ben Love stated was meant to be more inclusive, instead caused a Unitarian Life Scout candidate, Paul Trout, to be expelled. After hundreds of letters of protest (mark that number very well!), BSA relented and reinstated Paul Trout as well as meeting personally with the head of his church, Unitarian-Universalist Association (UUA) President Dr. Rev. William F. Schulz in which BSA CSE Ben Love made personal assurances which included the dropping of that "belief in a Supreme Being" wording as a "mistake". CSE Ben Love then circa 1991 unilaterally broke all those personal assurances (Scout Honor, anyone?) and reinstated that "mistake" as the sole reason for expelling members by the hundreds, all while deliberately ignoring literally thousands of letters of protest (do you remember that I asked you mark those 1985 numbers well?). In the case of Townsend's 1994 letter, that was at a time when BSA was flagrantly violating its own officially published religious policies as it was flagrantly exercising a frensy of religious discrimination. I see Townsend's position as one of being in a position where his duty was to read and to research into officially published BSA religious policy and to think about it. James Randall, the father of the Randall twins (Randall v. Orange County Council, which when it broke in the local newspapers circa 1991 was my first indication that BSA was violating its own rules and policies; it was also undoubtedly the appeals on this case and the Curran case (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curran_v._Mount_Diablo_Council_of_the_Boy_Scouts_of_America) that delayed my own review for so many years), obtained a copy of the Townsend letter and passed a copy on to me. When I showed it to my DE, his immediate response was to exclaim, "But that's what you've been saying all along!" Then I included it in my packet requesting information on my review. A few months later, I heard that Townsend had been bumped down from National back to a local council. I see his situation as one where he could see that truth and he dared to speak it, so the powers that be who are so embroiled in their own lies and deception had to remove him. BTW, BSA unilaterally and arbitrarily kicked out the Unitarian-Universalist Association. It seems that they could no longer deal with being constantly reminded that they are flagrantly violating their own rules. I have to admit that I have not had the time to assemble a very rigourous set of direct quotations from officially published BSA religious policies, especially since most of my materials are packed away, but the tone should be inescapable even to the most ardant advocates of BSA religious discrimination (though I am notorious for underestimating the power of the blinders that religious bigots can don). In brief summary, as I wrote in 1996 (https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/rec.scouting/adi4Dl5TlZY): So, Kahuna, as you appear to wish to imply that belief in YHWH is required of Scouts and of Scouters, officially published BSA religious policies say the exact opposite! You are, I trust, aware of the World Organization of the Scouting Movement (WOSM). As I understand, BSA is supposed to adhere to their standards. Here is what they have to say about "Duty to God" (What does Scouting mean by Duty to God? : Scouting embraces diverse spiritual expression, theistic or not, http://scoutdocs.ca/Documents/Duty_to_God.php, by Scouter Liam Morland, 1996): I added the emphasis in that last paragraph, but the actual wording remains unchanged, as you yourself can attest to by reading the article for yourself. Unlike the proponents of BSA religious bigotry, I have nothing to hide. So then, in light of what BSA's actual officially published religious policies say, what do you have to say?

Yes, they're private, but they also have a congressional charter and they are a corporation. I don't know corporate law, but I would think that there have to be laws governing how a corporation conducts its business. BSA has bylaws, rules and regulations, and many policy statements. Why do that if they don't need them? Are they required to as part of the charter or the process of incorporating? But what use would there be to such requirements if they are free to ignore those rules. I was part of the process of merging two congregations into one and coming up with the bylaws was a very important part of that process, especially since the bylaws govern how the new church is to operate. The only use for their officially published policy that I've seen BSA use was to display their "absolutely nonsectarian" policies to donors who themselves have non-discriminatory requirements so that BSA could get their money. So BSA was lying to them in order to get their money, but to me appears to be fraud. And now that the courts have repeatedly found that BSA discriminates -- they just aren't subject to the laws against discrimination -- they have been losing sponsors and donors. So, yes, honesty and honor do matter. I have repeatedly seen BSA banking on the good will of the public for support for its outlandish discriminatory practices, which included many direct lies, lies which they also tried to tell the judges in the lawsuits they create but which at least the judges won't let them get away with. Now that BSA's true face is coming to light, the good will of the public is eroding away, so, yes, honesty and honor do matter. And I still cannot find any rule that would require the expulsion of atheists. Their "rule" requiring "belief in a Supreme Being" doesn't even exist (or at least it didn't in the 1990's; I joined here to find out if that has changed in the meantime) and was yet another bold-face lie that BSA was telling everyone, so that cannot be cited. And that is also part of a much larger question that has puzzled me for the past 50 years: why are atheists so hated? It makes no sense whatsoever.

What? Those totally disconnected icons at the bottom of the screen? Whatever are THOSE for? Have you even bothered to read the DRP? Or the OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED POLICIES about the Oath? Or the about the Law? Or the Reaffirmation of 1991? Are atheists welcomed as members? HELL NO! WHY NOT? What OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED BSA RELIGIOUS POLICIES exclude them? SHOW ME!!!!!!! In more than 23 years, I have yet to find one, so SHOW ME ONE!!!!! I submitted my application affirming my agreement with the DRP IN ACCORDANCE WITH OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED BSA POLICY. I was accepted, but then when the BSA spy on CompuServe marked my very first posts there as "ATHEIST LEADER", I was marked for removal. We all know how BSA acts in such cases. Totally without warning, the individual gets a letter expelling him and that is all there is to it. That is exactly what BSA did to the Randall twins. So what is the reason for the exclusion of atheists? What specific OFFICIAL BSA POLICY demands that? Oh, yes, BSA claims to have a "rule" requiring "belief in a Supreme Being", but in the 1990's while BSA was fervently insisting on that "rule", no such rule actually existed. For that matter, such a "rule" would have directly contradicted OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED BSA POLICY. And when BSA tried to continue that stupid game of "we have this 'belief in a Supreme Being' rule" in court, the judge immediately ordered BSA to produce that rule, whereupon BSA had to admit, in court, that that "rule" simply did not exist. So then, my question still stands, what OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED BSA POLICY OR RULE requires the expulsion of atheists? An honest answer, please.

With all due respect, a "BSA type organization" is a total non-starter. BSA, Inc, holds the CONGRESSIONAL CHARTER for Scouting in this country. No other organization can even begin to compete against it. No other organization but BSA can provide Scouting in this country. Others have tried, but have failed in the courts. Rather, we need BSA itself to HAVE THE TESTESTERONE-LADEN TISSUE to live up to its own OFFICIALLY PUBLISHED RELIGIOUS POLICIES. So far, BSA has been completely wimping out.