DanKroh

Sorry, Brent, but what Mr. Baldwin wrote is not a "study", it's a literature review. And, frankly, I find anything written by Mr. Baldwin highly suspect, given that he's the president for a conserative activist council. Without reviewing all the original source material listed in his "citations", I am unable to tell whether this material is from equally biases sources, or with his degree in communications (can't find any mention of an law degree, despite the fact that he is writing for a law review), he has (purposely) misinterpreted the studies. Somehow, I suspect the latter. But an article by Dr. Gregory Herek, a doctor of psychology who studies sexual orientation and sexual prejudice, had some rather unfavorable things to say about most of the works cited by Mr. Baldwin, when they are twisted to support Mr. Baldwin's premise. http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/html/facts_molestation.html This particular article is addressing a "study" similar to Mr. Baldwin's done by the Family Research Council, and Dr. Herek's main conclusion after reviewing the cited literature is: "In summary, the scientific sources cited by the FRC report do not support their argument. Most of the studies they referenced did not even assess the sexual orientation of abusers. Two studies explicitly concluded that sexual orientation and child molestation are unrelated. Notably, the FRC failed to cite the 1978 study by Groth and Birnbaum, which also contradicted their argument. Only one study (Erickson et al., 1988) might be interpreted as supporting the FRC argument, and it failed to detail its measurement procedures and did not differentiate bisexual from homosexual offenders."

"The problem is that there is a significant portion of the homosexual community that is involved with such molestation. Not surprisingly, studies have borne this out (see, e.g., http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/674504/posts)." Then it would be nice if you referenced, you know, an actual *study* instead of a Freeper article that links to a WorldNetDaily article. Excuse me while I fall out of my chair laughing at your "sources". I only noticed this post because for some reason, I can't squelch multi-page threads to blank out comments from ignored users. Anyone else notice this problem?

How about a merit badge called "Clothing Care"? 1. Demonstrate hand sewing techniques a. sew a button on an article of clothing b. sew a patch on an article of clothing 2. Demonstrate proper operation and care of an iron. a. iron a dress shirt properly b. iron dress pants, putting in a proper leg crease 3. Demonstrate proper operation and care of a sewing machine a. tell the proper use of different stitch types (straight, zig zag, stretch, etc.) b. use a sewing machine to construct a simple, useful cloth article from scratch (we used to make drawstring gym bags in home economics in school) c. use a sewing machine to repair an article of clothing d. use a sewing machine to install a zipper e. use a sewing machine to creat a buttonhole 4. Demonstrate the proper operation and care of a washing machine and dryer. a. tell what the different cycles/temperature setting on a washing machine are used for b. tell what the different settings on a dryer are used for c. explain the advantages/disadvantage of different types of detergent, fabric softeners, pretreatments, and bleaches and when they should be used. d. do your own laundry for a month. e. explain when an item may need to be hand-washed or dry-cleaned. I could probably come up with more eventually, but that's what comes to mind right now as really useful skills. Would certainly save the young men (and their mothers) a lot of grief their first month of living on their own....

1. I'm the Cubmaster, my son is currently a Bear. 2. All our dens meet 2-3 times per month, plus the pack meeting. 3. Pack meetings are once per month, plus we have one additional "pack activity" just about every month. 4. Last summer, we had a campout, a fishing derby, and a trip to the local AAA baseball team. We shoot for one pack activity every month for July and August (still meeting regularly for most of June), and usually we end up with two each month. Plus most of our boys go to Cub Scout summer camp for at least one week.

Trev, I'm not sure how Day of the Dead relates, but here's my (semi-)educated opinion. I think it is probably more related to the Catholic holiday than the Pagan one (although the debate on whether or not the Catholic one is based on the Pagan one is for another time), and then tweeked with the local beliefs and customs. The native Pagan religions of the Americas don't really have any shared traditions with the European Pagan religions, but the Native American (both North and South) peoples were very heavily influenced by the Catholics who conquered them. Beardad, my sons' schools have celebrated Halloween since the oldest was in kindergarten. Youngest will have his class Halloween party this Friday. And our town still has a Halloween parade. CalicoPenn, that further shows that Jack-o-Lanterns have nothing to do with Samhain, since we have no Devil in our pantheon.

OGE, I think there is a difference between accepting that sex is happening between middle schoolers and accepting that it's "a good thing". However, I think if one is going to accept reality, then many parents also need to accept that they are not going to be able to stop their middle schooler from having sex (short of never letting them out of sight and/or installing a chastity device). And before we start criticizing the moral of the parents whose children are having sex, I know plenty of church-going folks who have become grandparents via their teenager. So given our acceptance of the reality that it is happening, and we can't stop it from happening, it is more or less moral to give them access to birth control? Well, I guess that probably depends a lot on what your religious beliefs are about birth control in general. But assuming for a moment that you belong to a religion that says birth control as a concept is ok. Which is the more moral stance? Giving your kid birth contol, or risking the chance of our teenagers having kids? As far as the age of sexual consent, well that's society's conundrum right now. How do we deal with teenagers whose emotional and psychosocial maturity lag so far behind their sexual maturity? That's a problem we've really only had to deal with in the last, what, maybe 100 years?

"Dan, no one celebrates the Pagan Samhain anymore?" Yes, people celebrate Samhain. I will be doing so Wednesday night. But that's it, the religious holiday is *Samhain*, not Halloween. Halloween didn't "evolve" from Samhain. Halloween is a secular holiday created out of whole cloth, whose entire purpose was originally to mock the Pagans and their Samhain celebrations. Nothing about Samhain resembles ANYTHING having to do with Halloween, except the same date. Lots of people mistakenly call what the ancient Celts celebrated "Halloween", but it's not the same thing as what is celebrated today. Calling Halloween a religious holiday is akin to calling Festivus a religious holiday, because it was created to mock Christmas. So that gives it a religious overtone, right? Is Groundhog Day religious because it also happens to fall on the same day as a Pagan holy day (Imbolc)?

"Just because a relatively few people celebrate it as a religious holiday is no reason to support it through public funds" OGE, the difference is, NO ONE celebrates "Halloween" as a religious holiday. I'm not sure what the celebrations for "All Saint's Day" are for the Catholics, but I am willing to make a solid bet that they don't involve anything resembling "Halloween". Pagan celebrations of Samhain also have nothing to do with the observance of "Halloween". They happen to occur on the same day. That's it. Saying that Halloween celebrations are religious (at least, from a Pagan point of view) is like saying snowflakes are religious decorations because they happen to be around during Christmas. Halloween was NEVER a religious holiday. It was a secular holiday created to detract from Samhain.

"This mystified me as uch as Dan suggesting that non-Pagans celebrating Halloween is creating a mockery of a religious day." Well, Trev, I think the difference is that every single secular Halloween "tradition" was originally created with the express purpose of mocking the Pagan celebration of Samhain. Whereas most people who celebrate a secular Christmas feel they are honoring the "spirit" of the holiday, if not the Christian celebration. I agree that in modern times, the mockery has been mostly forgotten, and most people celebrate Halloween secularly, without any intention of mocking or insulting Pagans. Which is why you will see very few Pagans making any public fuss over how anyone celebrates Halloween. Well, except for maybe those hideous effigies of witches. And I know lots of Pagans who observe many of the same secular Halloween traditions (although if we include any "witches" at all, they are usually much prettier). In fact, most of the impetus these days to ban Halloween celebrations is coming from the religious right, not from the Pagans.

"Trying to tar all religious folks who object to homosexual activity on ethical grounds with the brush of gay-bashing is the worst sort of religiophobic hate-based prejudice." Sorry, but I'm so not doing that. I'm just trying to keep "gay-bashing" from being dismissed as something that is not happening, or that when it is happening, that religious beliefs aren't at the root of some of it. "There's not a single western religion that teaches it's OK to beat up or kill a man for his orientation." Again, not what I said. I specifically said "some religious folks", not "religions". Although some sects of Islam do teach just that. But there are more than just "a few" people out there whose personal interpretions of those teachings say that it is OK to do that. So it sounds like your real beef is with the people in your religion who are misinterpreting the teachings of your religion, not with the people who are calling them "hateful" because of it. Still trying to figure out how someone who is devoutly religious can still be a religiophobe...

Just to clarify, OGE, since I can't seem to edit right now. I don't think it's ok for schools to celebrate Halloween. Just that is the rationale that is used. I would prefer if they didn't.

"OK, I admit I am deficient in my pagan knowledge. But wasnt the original use of the jack-o-lantern to scare away the spirits that may only roam the earth one night a year? And if so, that makes then a relgious icon, flagrantly displayed in school and governmental buildings." No, the jack-o-lantern has no place in Pagan Samhain celebrations. Samhain is about honoring one's ancestors and those that have passed over in the previous year. Why would we want to "scare them away"? Not to mention that pumpkins are native to North America. "And if its ok for Schools and Goverment units to celebrate Halloween because its secularized, what about Christmas? Christmas Trees, Jingle Bells, Holly, Ivy overburdening postal workers" Actually, I personally would prefer if Halloween was not celebrated by non-Pagans. I much prefer not to have a mockery made of my sacred days, thank you very much. "Other than the Nativity Scene, how much of what comprises the modern Christmas is based in religion?" Almost none of it, actually. Most of those other trappings of Christmas are shared by Pagan Yule celebrations (and guess which ones came first?). "Do Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim children not participate in Halloween because they are neither Christian or Pagan?" Don't know about Hindu and Buddhist, but Muslim doctrine forbids the celebration of Halloween because it is "of the devil".

"Most folks who aren't religiophobic recognize that the way to change people's fundamental belief isn't to argue with 'em and call them wicked. It's to convert them. To present a whole system of thought and community and support so that they voluntarily change their fundamental belief. Da question is whether the religiophobes have such a thing, eh?" Except a lot of the folks arguing these days that religious prejudice against gays is wrong are themselves religious people (does that still make them religiophobes?). So yeah, I would think they have such a thing... it's called a whole bunch of non-fundamentalist Christian denominations, most of conservative and reformed Judaism, and a smattering of religions that don't fall into the JCI continuum. When the Mormons tried to codify racism as religious doctrine, pressure brought to bear by the government and society was enough to make them change that doctrine (at least, publically). Does that make everyone else who thought that doctrine was wrong a religiophobe? "Callin' someone else's fundamental belief hateful is a good way to start conflict and war, eh? Is that what you want to achieve?" That conflict was started long ago, the first time that anyone mistreated, or beat up, or even killed a homosexual and then justified it with a religious belief (of any stripe). Sorry, I must have missed all those news stories of gays killing people for their religious beliefs; but the gays must have obviously "started" this by calling those religious folks "hateful", right?

Um...Druish? Sorry, just not a term I hear in connection with Samhain very often. (Not to mention it brings up that great line from Spaceballs.) Governments and public schools celebrate it because it's been secularized. There are no religious elements (at least, not Pagan) in how the holiday is celebrated by most everyone else. Same as (Saint) Valentine's Day, or Groundhog Day (the Pagan holiday Imbolc). But there has been a growing trend in recent years to ban Halloween celebrations from schools because it's "satanic". (cue scary music) I think a better question is, why do schools close for Good Friday, Rosh Hashanah (and sometimes Yom Kippur), and of course, Winter and Spring breaks (better known as Christmas and Easter vacations)?

41% of homosexuals in a recent study reported being the victim of a hate crime at some point in their life after age 16. That's more than "a few people" expressing their hatred. Even if we cut that statistic in half, it's still quite a bit of hatred out there. So to dismiss the idea of homophobia and hatred against gays as politically correct "buzzwords" is to deny the reality of their situation. And I'm sorry, but to say that judging homosexuals that you have never met as "immoral" isn't necessarily prejudice is just crap. At what point does prejudice codified by religious belief get a pass because it's a sacred religious belief? When it's against a person's race? The Mormons tried that, didn't get them very accepted. When it's against women? Various religious groups are still getting away with that one. When it's against another religion? Well, lots of people seem more than happy to condemn fundamentalist Islam for its prejudice against Christians. But wait, when it's against gays? Oh, can't touch that, it's a sacred religious belief, and if you call it prejudice, that just makes you a religiophobe. At what point are we allowed to call a belief that is supposedly based on religion to be just plain wrong?

erickelley writes "To me, bringing those issues up that someone who is attracted to a particular gender may act on it and how do we mitigate that risk isnt irrational." And if that's what they were doing, that would be another thing entirely. By asking, for instance, "What is the chance of a homosexual man also being a pedophile/ephebophile? Would G2SS/Youth Protection precautions have to change if we had gay leaders?" That's a discussion starter. What onehouraweekmy did was a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" intimation of "the gays will molest our sons, they can't help themselves, are YOU ready to let that happen?" Not the same thing at all. If I were a Freudian, I would say that all aversions/strong dislikes stem from unconscious fear, which in turn, stems from childhood trauma. Luckily, I'm not a Freudian, so I don't believe that everyone who exhibits disapproval of homosexuality is a homophobe (although some define homophobia to include disapproval). But I've seen a lot of homophobia in my line of work, and how it affects those it is directed against (especially the young people). So when someone makes a truly homophobic comment, they are not interested in discussion, and I'm not interested in calling it anything else but what it is.

erickelly65, I agree that the term is overused; however, the comments that were made represent the textbook defnition of homophobia: irrational fear of homosexuality or homosexuals. The individuals who made the comments are trying to instill fear (of sexual abuse) using something that has no basis in reality (kind of the definition of "irrational"). I don't believe that promulgating such fear-mongering, irrational, inflammatory untruths advances the discussion either. By exposing these comments for what they are, I hope to keep the discussion from degenerating into further fear-mongering.

oh, joy. More homophobic intimations that homosexuals are pedophiles or ephebophiles. Sorry, but there's no evidence to support your concerns, onehouraweekmy and GoldWinger. In my book, that makes it fear-mongering, plain and simple. And the ignore user list just keeps growing....

Dang, Trev, why'd you have to go and point out that elephant sitting in the middle of the room? I'd love to see the hand-waving prestidigitation that went on that allowed that elephant in to begin with.

erickelly65 writes "So I assume then that to you there is no way to keep the "Duty to God" in the oath and Reverent in the scout law and not be an organization that is invidiously discriminatory." Actually, I think, and I bet Merlyn would agree, that you can maintain both elements and still allow atheists. Reverent is actually the easier of the two. There are many to be reverent without gods. One can revere nature, or the human spirit, or the fabulous complexity of the universe. Nope, no gods required there, although if you happen to think that gods are responsible for all that stuff, it works just as well. One way to handle the "duty to God" thing is the way the Girl Scouts do; allow substitution of another word. Before complaining that that "takes God out of scouting", think on this. What exactly is our "duty to God"? Well, that probably differs depending on your concept of God. For some, that duty is to worship. But for some, the duty that a god requires is to improve themselves (and by extension, the world around them), or to demonstrate kindess and goodwill to their fellow man. If someone feels a duty to demonstrate kindness and goodwill, that doesn't spring from a god, don't they still fulfill that duty in exactly the same way as someone who feels that the exact same duty comes from "God"? Frankly, I would have no problem having someone who substituted "duty to Mankind" because in the end, that is what some Gods really require of their followers anyway.

eolesen writes: "There are documented Wiccans who belong to BSA, which is about as far away as theist as you can get, but they don't have a recognized religious emblem program (Wicca has no national organization to stand behind the program). That doesn't prevent a follower of Wicca from joining BSA, however. Unitarians, equally about as far away from being theist as organized religions get, are also active in BSA. Their religious emblem program was revoked when they added language inconsistent with BSA's policy on homosexualtiy into their "Religion in Life" handbook, but Unitarians are still welcomed as members." Excuse me, but you are wrong here on several counts. First of all, Wiccans are very much, most definitely theists. In fact, we are generally polytheists, and recognize many gods. How does that make us "as far away [from] theist as you can get"?. Just because we don't believe in YOUR God doesn't mean we don't believe in OUR Gods. Second, the Covenant of the Goddess is a nationally recognized organization for Wiccans, and they are in fact, the ones who developed the curriculum for our religious emblem. The BSA, however, rather than addressing whether they approve of the curriculum or not, decided to invent a new bogus rule about having to charter 25 units before a religious emblem can be approved. While at the same time, denying every attempt by a Wiccan coven/organization to be a chartering partner. At best, non-JCI religions are treated as the red-headed stepchild by the BSA, and at worst, my co-religionists are ostracized by ignorant members of the BSA who pay lip service to "respecting the beliefs of others", when they really mean "respect the beliefs of others as long as they include my God". Third, most of the Unitarians I know, myself included, are also very much theists. Some of them are Deists, and believe that while God exists, he/she does not interact with the universe. Again, I find it interesting that because their beliefs in gods differ from yours, you are ready to label them as non-theists/atheists. Yes, there are some atheists in the Unitarian church, but they represent, by far, a minority philosophy there.

Brent, if you consider having your comments compared to what Ann Coulter spews a compliment, you're welcome.

eolesen writes: "There are thousands of church congregations who meet in public schools. That doesn't mean that those schools are endorsing the religion, or that they are imposing it. There's no valid argument that can be made for denying law abiding taxpayers access to facilities built and maintained by their tax dollars. That's why so many units still meet in public schools, even though the school district no longer directly charters them. Likewise with units sponsored by fire department auxillaries, As long as other groups aren't denied access to those same facilities, there's nothing wrong with allowing groups who exercise their freedom of association (perhaps the correct description as opposed to the over-use of discriminatory) to be using public facilities." eolesen, can you give an example of a scout unit being denied access to public facilities that other groups are still allowed to use? Not a scout unit being denied a special rate (i.e. special lease rate) to use that facility, but being told that they do not have the same access to that public facility that other groups have? And please, lets not try to compare apples to oranges and say that the BSA is the same another group that doesn't exclude based on religion or sexual orientation (there, see, I didn't even have to say the dreaded D-word). Even better, come up with an example of another private organization with exclusionary memberhip policies (especially one that targets groups protected by federal civil rights legislation), that have access to public facilities that the BSA are being denied access to. I have never, ever heard of such a case. All the packs and troops in our town regularly use facilities in our public schools and municipal buildings, and have even been allowed to recruit at after-school activites such as book fairs, etc. If you don't have an example, can we please drop the strawman that the BSA is being denied equal access? Frankly, Merlyn, I think you deserve some sort of metal for your continued willingness to explain facts over and over again.

I hope that all the scouts and scouters from Southern California who frequent this board are safe today. I've had the news on in the background today while working on paperwork, and the situation is so dire there. Please say a prayer for all those who have lost their homes, their lives, or a loved one. May those who have been evacuated be well cared for, and may they have a home to return to, or may restoration come quickly to those who will return to find they have lost everything.

Wow, Brent, I've never seen anyone channel Ann Coulter so expertly. Do you have a show in Vegas yet?