swcline

For me it is still an organization that shares my values and reinforces what my children learn at home (I am LDS). The Scout Oath and Law are excellent moral guidelines, whether you are LDS, Catholic, Jewish, Unitarian, or Volunteer Fire Department. I see that they have just drawn their circle a little bigger. No Chartering Organization is being forced to adopt multi-gendered units - the LDS church has said they do not plan to change from male only units. COs also control their own staffing, so no unit is forced to accept leadership they are uncomfortable with. The guidelines from the LDS church used to say to register all young men ages 11-17 during annual rechartering. Going forward, ages 11-13 will be registered by default, but boys 14 and up will only be registered if they are pursuing Scouting advancement. After 2018, the church will no longer cover the fees for boys 14+ via the lump sum from Salt Lake, they will have to be paid locally by the boy, the family, or the unit. I have worked in the LDS Young Men program and Scouting for several decades, and I see this as a reflection of reality - only about 3rd of the older boys (my gut, no data to back that up) want to do traditional outdoor program Scouting, others have band, or sports, or jobs, and were just not using the program. The new LDS activity program for older boys is more activity based, almost like a Varsity Team or Venture Crew, and more open to/encouraging of being mixed gender in those activities. Speculation hat on: I think moving the older activities out from under the BSA wing has a component of being less regulatory - NRA certified instructor not required to do a shooting activity, or maybe take the boys paintballing, for example

And to underscore that LDS folks can have a diversity of beliefs ( one of my favorite phrases to use during training my fellow LDS Church members is "don't confuse tradition with doctrine" - see, for example, the New Testament :-) ), I came to different conclusions than The Latin Scot. The presence of female youth members at scout camp is already happening, without too much drama. It may vary by council, but at camps I have attended in the Mid-America Council we had Venture Crews with female members. Ditto Jambo. I actually can not remember if I have seen female non-staff in summer camps in my current council, the Atlanta Area Council, because *it is not remarkable* in areas where the LDS units are not a large majority. All BSA camps are required to offer gender and age segregated showers, and the ones I have dealt with have been very accommodating regarding gender sensitive tenting arrangements. I see this as a non-issue. You have the usual incidences of COWs (Crush Of the Week), but much less so than events like Especially For Youth (a BYU sponsored co-ed week of religious instruction, often held on college campuses in rented dorms in the summer) where the gender ratios are more balanced, or any church summer camp. I do believe that gender segregated programs can offer benefits that co-ed ones do not, and vice versa. I am not convinced that a co-ed scout program would be that hard to implement. That said, I do not see anything that indicates that the LDS Church, as a chartering organization, is moving in that direction.

My mistake. However, I have received that information from several members of your Church. Comments on several sites, including LDS.org seem to validate that in at least some circumstances YW are in Venturing. Could not figure out how to correctly quote to reply to the above, but wanted to clarify - the Church itself does not charter female Venture crews, but is a relatively common practice for "Dad's Dentist Office" or "Mom's Towing Service" to charter an all female venture crew, or even a co-ed crew, if they have a daughter and friends who are interested in doing outdoor adventure activities that are not normally in the scope of the LDS Church's young women program. I know that are one or two all female "LDS" venture crews in the Atlanta metro area, chartered by LDS members, but not by the Church.