DWise1_AOL

I have seen situations in which a unit has rejected a member on religious grounds. However, that did not expel the member from BSA membership. When the member tried to seek redress, BSA backed up the unit in rejecting him, but kept him on as a member free to join another unit that would have him. To me, that is what the "local option" is about. Rather, the situation we are faced with is where the unit wants to keep the member, but BSA National has reached down and plucked him out of there while ignoring the unit and the chartered organization. That is what all these discrimination lawsuits have been about. Ironically, BSA's arguments in court have been that it wants to preserve its rights of "intimate association", and yet it arbitrarily denies the units themselves of their rights of intimate association. Furthermore, BSA's argument in court has been that since it is "a secret religious organization" (a fabrication suggested to them by their lawyers) then it is immune to any discrimination lawsuits; it is free to discriminate all it wants to for whatever reason. However, the argument continues, the plaintiffs are still free to sue the chartering organization and the unit itself for discrimination. So not only are they throwing their COs under the bus, but they are also making their COs liable for the discrimination that BSA commits despite all efforts by the CO to stop that discrimination. No wonder BSA is losing so much support!

click23, you should read what you post. How could you have overlooked this:

No, you were not asking for a definition, but rather I was. In your question, "So, you do believe in God?", what definition of "God" were you applying? What definition of "believe in God" were you applying? That is an extremely important question, because this entire issue revolves around BSA applying its own definition in complete opposition to its own rules that it does not and cannot define or interpret those terms. So if I were to have simply answered "yes" or "no", just exactly what was I saying "yes" or "no" to? I assume that you are a theist and most likely some form of Christian; please correct me if that assumption is in error. Most if not all Christian definitions of "God" are that of a personal God, which is to say a literal supernatural being. The BSA non-rule's "Supreme Being" is likewise a personal God. But not all religion depends on believing in literal supernatural beings. Many religious and spiritual people can use "God" to describe impersonal things and forces, ideals, or even abstract ideas; eg, Nature, humanity as a whole, harmony, Ki. I am reminded of a line in one UU hymn: "Some call it 'God'; some call it 'evolution'." True, many non-theists (ie, those who do not believe in literal supernatural beings) would prefer to not use the actual word "God", considering it to be overloaded with unpleasant and unwanted baggage, but what they believe would still satisfy BSA's "absolutely nonsectarian" requirements. Buddhism is not at all theistic and can even be downright atheistic; the Buddha taught against believing in the gods, because that would only hold you back from gaining Enlightenment. But while some Buddhists will agree to being called atheists, many will not solely because "atheist" sounds too materialistic to them. Theists believe in one or more of the gods. I am not a theist. I do not believe in the gods. I am an atheist and have been one for about half a century. And I am religious. I do have positive beliefs that entail what some non-theists would call "God" even though I would not be inclined to use that specific term. And I do do my "Duty to God" in accordance with my religious tradition.

Yes I do. I did throughout the events from 1989 to 1998 during which I was subjected to religious discrimination by BSA. My minister is recognized by officially published BSA policy to be the one to determine whether I do my Duty to God and he certified to BSA in writing that I do, but BSA chose to ignore both his letters both when he sent them and also each time I included them in my requests for review and my requests for status of my review, which dragged out for several years. Of course, my Duty to God has nothing whatsoever to do with YHWH nor any other literal supernatural being, completely in accordance with my religious tradition (UU) and in accordance with officially published BSA religious policy.

Elsewhere while waiting for the server to come back up, I responded to qwazse having posted there about this question with: You asked me if I "believe in God". In asking that, you ignore officially published BSA religious policy. The 1991 Reaffirmation of the Position of the Boy Scouts of America on Duty to God clearly states that BSA does not intend to define what constitutes belief in God. The Advancement Guidelines RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES states that BSA "Does not define what constitutes belief in God or the practice of religion." It also clearly states that a member is to be judged according to the standards of his own religious tradition and that it's his own religious leaders who determine whether he's living up to their expectations. In 1985 and 1994, BSA National Director of Relationships Division unambiguously stated officially in writing that belief in a "Supreme Being" is not required, interpretation and definition of "Duty to God" is none of BSA's business but rather it's the business of the family and religious leaders, and that any Scout who can recite the Oath and Law in good conscience is welcome to participate. So what exactly is your question? And how is it even relevent?

Yes I do. I did throughout the events from 1989 to 1998 during which I was subjected to religious discrimination by BSA. My minister is recognized by officially published BSA policy to be the one to determine whether I do my Duty to God and he certified to BSA in writing that I do, but BSA chose to ignore both his letters both when he sent them and also each time I included them in my requests for review and my requests for status of my review, which dragged out for several years. Of course, my Duty to God has nothing whatsoever to do with YHWH nor any other literal supernatural being, completely in accordance with my religious tradition (UU) and in accordance with officially published BSA religious policy. Now if somebody could please get this forum software fixed, we can move this discussion to where it belongs.

I know that this is not the place for this, but then you should have known that too. In the meantime as we wait for the forum software to work: You asked me if I "believe in God". In asking that, you ignore officially published BSA religious policy. The 1991 Reaffirmation of the Position of the Boy Scouts of America on Duty to God clearly states that BSA does not intend to define what constitutes belief in God. The Advancement Guidelines RELIGIOUS PRINCIPLES states that BSA "Does not define what constitutes belief in God or the practice of religion." It also clearly states that a member is to be judged according to the standards of his own religious tradition and that it's his own religious leaders who determine whether he's living up to their expectations. In 1985 and 1994, BSA National Director of Relationships Division unambiguously stated officially in writing that belief in a "Supreme Being" is not required, interpretation and definition of "Duty to God" is none of BSA's business but rather it's the business of the family and religious leaders, and that any Scout who can recite the Oath and Law in good conscience is welcome to participate. So what exactly is your question? And how is it even relevent?

You need to get over it, or go to the local council and view the bylaws, or hire a lawyer and call the LA Times. Unlike the ban on homosexuals, the BSA's religious stance is right there on both the youth and adult application, it's in the oath, it's in the handbook, it's part of the program. If swearing as an atheist to do your duty to God didn't tip you off that you were going to intrinsically be in conflict with BSA, you either weren't paying attention, or you wanted that conflict. BSA didn't cause your suffering, you caused your suffering when you knowingly and willfully joined an organization which you knew was incompatible with your beliefs. You can camp without god in Campfire USA. We've answered your question: Refer to the BSA Declaration of Religious Principle. There are already plenty of websites dedicated to tearing BSA down, I'm sure they can give you the ammo you're looking for. The last person to ask and get an honest truthful answer is a BSA professional. I asked them during the time period I describe (1990's) and they insisted that that "rule" did absolutely exist and that it was forcing them to act against anyone who didn't believe in a "Supreme Being" (curiously while ignoring Buddhists). They even spent a lot of advertising dollars to tell the public about this "rule" and paid lawyers to insist in the court cases that they had created that that "rule" did actually exist. Even our council's SE did the same; he was the one who told me that that "rule" did indeed exist and he promised to send me a copy of the rule, one of many promises that he broke. But then a judge in one of those court cases order our council's SE to show him that "rule", to which our SE finally had to admit in court that that "rule" does not exist. The 1990's taught us three sad facts: BSA lies. BSA refuses to honor its promises. BSA violates its own rules. I truly wish that were not so, but we cannot escape reality. I have read and studied the DRP along with the Rules&Regs, Bylaws, and the Advancement Guidelines. I did so when asked to sign on as Cubmaster, so I did give the matter very serious thought. Despite your own narrow interpretation, officially published BSA religious policy does not require "Duty to God" to involve YHWH nor does BSA even allow itself to define or interpret what "Duty to God" must mean nor does BSA allow itself to determine whether anyone does his "Duty to God". Rather, one is to perform one's "Duty to God" in accordance with the teachings of his own religious tradition and the determination of performance of one's "Duty to God" can only be made by each individual's religious leaders. Scouting is not incompatible with my beliefs. Officially published BSA religious policy is not incompatible with my beliefs. Religious bigotry is incompatible with my beliefs. You should try to familiarize yourself with the actual rules. I also offer a working document I had started in the late 1990's and have recently revisited. It's a text file that I just now posted at http://dwise1.net/scouting/timeline.txt . I also recently found a reposting of a message I had posted in rec.scouting around that same time and which delves into these questions much more deeply. It's at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/rec.scouting/adi4Dl5TlZY . If some people appear to want to tear down BSA, it is because BSA is destroying Scouting. BSA is not Scouting. It is Scouting that matters!

Let's try this again. I need to know about changes to the BSA Rules & Regulations, Bylaws, Advancement Guidelines, Declaration of Religious Principles, etc, pertaining to religion that were made since the late 1990's. In particular, I am interested in learning whether the "belief in a Supreme Being" non-rule has been incorporated into officially published BSA policy. In other words, has that non-rule been turned into an actual rule? And if so, then where? My own experience was from 1988 to about 1998. During that time, I became very familiar with those official publications and with the events of the time. However, I have not followed it since then, so I need to know what has happened in the meantime from circa 1995 to the present. That is the only reason that I joined here, which is not to say that I wouldn't mind sharing some of my knowledge and experiences. Starting around 1990, BSA started expelling members for the expressed reason that belief in a "Supreme Being" is required. BSA spokesmen and lawyers even went so far as say that they wouldn't mind keeping those members as members, but they were forced to expell them because of this here "belief in a Supreme Being" rule. And yet nobody could ever find that rule and all requests to see it were deflected or simply ignored. Finally in the Randall trial, the judge ordered BSA to show him that rule and BSA had to admit to him that that rule did not exist. So my primary question here is whether that non-existent "rule", which BSA even had to admit in court did not exist, has since 1995 been made into an actual rule. The history of that phrase goes back to the early 1980's when it was created "to broaden rather than constrict the understanding of the phrase 'duty to God' (i.e., it was intended to allow for non-Christian understandings of deity)." (as BSA had told UUA President Dr. Schulz). Then in 1985 it resulted in the expulsion of Paul Trout, a Unitarian Life Scout. The bad publicity and hundreds of letters of protest led CSE Ben Love to reverse the decision, to reinstate Trout, to name that "belief in a Supreme Being" wording a "mistake", and to apologize for that mistake. Then about five years later, the exact same CSE Ben Love had reinstated that mistake and used it for the purpose of religious discrimination. BSA professionals and lawyers would even tell the public and judges that they wouldn't want to expell these people, but this here "belief in a Supreme Being" rule was forcing them to. Despite the inconvenient fact that that "rule" simply did not exist. Their other excuse was that the Mormon Church was forcing them to expell non-believers, but that's another issue altogether. Even if a "belief in a Supreme Being" requirement were to exist, how could it be reconciled with BSA's other officially published requirements, such as BSA neither defining nor interpreting "God", "Duty to God", the practice of religion, that each member is to be judged solely by the standards of his own religious traditions, or that only a member's religious leaders can determine whether he performs his Duty to God?

Since the server seems to be back up now, am trying this to return this topic to the top of the list.

I think that official BSA publications describe very well what that means and how to implement it. I just found a post I had written for rec.scouting in 1996 that somebody else has quoted in full: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/rec.scouting/adi4Dl5TlZY In it I quoted those officially published BSA policies and then described how BSA was (and undoubtedly still is) willfully violating each and every one of them. Every member is to following his own faith, not somebody else's, and put it into practice. Every member is to be judged by the standards of his own religious tradition, not by anybody else's. BSA is specifically and explicitly prohibited from defining "God", "Duty to God", or the practice of religion. BSA is specifically and explicitly prohibited from determining whether a member performs his own "Duty to God"; that duty is assigned explicitly to the member's own religious leaders. Instead, BSA violates its own rules by defining "God" as a "Supreme Being" and "Duty to God" as requiring "belief in a Supreme Being." Furthermore, BSA persistently lied (and undoubtedly still does) about having a rule that requires belief in a "Supreme Being", when such a rule in fact did not exist (if that has changed, then please inform me; that is what those aborted attempts to create a new topic were about). Indeed, during the Randall Trial the judge ordered our Council Exec to produce that "Supreme Being" rule and our CE had to admit in court that it does not exist. I do not have a problem with a private organization setting standards and rules for membership in that organization. I do have a problem when that organization then violates all those rules and then lies outrageously about it.

I suffered through BSA's religious discrimination in the 1990's and was very active on the rec.scouting during that time. I was also very active in Scouting at the time even though I had been summarily expelled for being an atheist, but since my boys aged out I have been out of the loop since circa 1999. I am starting to prepare web pages describing my experience and I need to know the current situation. The main problem was that BSA claimed to have a rule that required belief in a "Supreme Being" and used that "rule" as the reason for expelling both youth and adults for religious reasons. That "rule" did not exist. That wording was tried in the 1980's purportedly to make BSA more inclusive, but when it resulted in the expulsion of Life Scout candidate Paul Trout, a Unitarian Universalist who did not believe in a "Supreme Being", BSA and CSE Ben Love responded to the negative publicity and hundreds of letters of protest by reinstating Paul Trout and dropping the "Supreme Being" wording, calling it a mistake. By 1991, the very same CSE Ben Love had reinstated that mistake saying that it was now a rule and was now using it to actively root out and expel non-theists. When I affiliated in 1989 I hadn't heard about that situation, but knowing about the "Duty to God" wording from my prior involvement as a youth I knew that I had to deal with it. So I researched into what "Duty to God" is supposed to mean and found that the officially published policy on "Duty to God" and on religion did agree with my own beliefs and that I would have no problem swearing to do my "Duty to God". It was a couple years later when news about the Randall twins broke and I suddenly found that BSA was violating its own officially published rules, regulations, bylaws, and policies. That was also when I first became aware of that definition of "Duty to God" as requiring belief in a "Supreme Being", which itself directly violated officially policy that BSA is forbidden to make any such definitions. I went on rec.scouting to discover what was going on, the resident BSA spy included my postings along with countless others that were submitted as evidence in federal court (Welsh v. BSA), and that led to my expulsion. I was able to research what BSA's Rules & Regulations and Bylaws said because at the time they were sold in the Scout Shop and so were readily accessible to all. Then when copies kept showing up in court to show that BSA was violating its own rules, BSA took them out of the Scout Shop and restricted access to them. They were also used in the Randall trial in which the judge finally got fed up with BSA's double-talk and directly ordered our Council Exec to show him that "Supreme Being" rule, to which our CE had to admit in court and under oath (I would assume) that no such rule actually existed. My question is whether such a rule exists now. In the 14 years since last contact, has BSA changed its officially published rules, regulations, bylaws, or policies to give that "belief in a Supreme Being" mistake actual official status as a real rule? If so, then when and where is it? Every time I try to post I get an Edit Conversation box that complains "Empty Response" I suffered through BSA's religious discrimination in the 1990's and was very active on the rec.scouting during that time. I was also very active in Scouting at the time even though I had been summarily expelled for being an atheist, but since my boys aged out I have been out of the loop since circa 1999. I am starting to prepare web pages describing my experience and I need to know the current situation. The main problem was that BSA used a "rule" that did not exist, belief in a "Supreme Being", to expel both youth and adults for religious reasons. My question is whether such a rule exists now. In the 14 years since last contact, has BSA changed its officially published rules, regulations, bylaws, or policies to give that "belief in a Supreme Being" mistake actual official status as a real rule? If so, then when did that happen and and where is it officially published? EDITED BY PACKSADDLE: I'm also trying to respond and getting the "Empty Response" message. I sent a message to the managers to see if they can fix this problem. Anyway, I'll abuse my moderator status just a bit by offering Welcome to the Forums! Even if the forums are evidently not working well just now.

My first experience with this forum and I get the same problems. Notification of two messages, but none to be found. Issues & politics won't display any topics. However, if I sneak in through the back way (through a Google search), then topics do display. That is how I saw that my attempts to post a new topic caused a rash of new topics to appear, but then they are all empty. All attempts so far to post (ie, new topic, reply in an existing topic) have failed with the same error messages noted above. Who knows about this current attempt? Who's in charge of the software? Have they been notified?