David CO

I do. If some guy told me that he was a card-carrying flaming liberal atheist, but then he found his beliefs to be inconvenient because a friend/family member/sweetheart was a devoutly religious conservative, so he switched sides, then yes, I would hold the same distain. A better example, which I actually witnessed, was a strict, law-an-order, lock-em-up and throw-away-the-key type of person who suddenly switched sides when his own kid was arrested. The opposite would be a liberal soft-on-crime type who switches sides when his own family becomes the victims of a crime. It drives me nuts when people claim to believe in something...right up until it becomes inconvenient or uncomfortable. (The TV show, Murphy Brown, had a very funny episode about this.)

It is much harder to find a good scoutmaster. If he is wonderful with the boys, you shouldn't do or say anything that might make his job more difficult.

This is one of the standard boiler-plate arguments that is used over and over by liberals who wish to attack traditional religions. It has become a cliché.

Paul was converted to Christianity by a blinding light from Heaven and the voice of Jesus Christ.

I have heard some version of this 3-act story about a thousand times. It starts with someone saying that they were once firm in their moral/religious beliefs. It then goes on to say that someone they know or someone they met has contradictory views. The story ends with the person altering his/her own moral/religious beliefs. It is the standard conversion story.

Well, that's exactly the point. They're not our beliefs. My unit would still stand firm to expound and defend traditional boy scout values, just as we have for the past 40 years, but BSA has abandoned those values, so we have nothing left to support anymore. We no longer have a responsibility to BSA.

There are many good reasons for home schooling, but home schooling in order to avoid learning how to socialize with one's peers is not one of them.

No kidding? They change their clothes in sleeping bags?

Yes, I have. Most of my students/scouts are normal. This liberal culture of perceived victimhood and phony psycho-babble has really got out of hand.

That is possibly the worst indictment of scouts and scouting that I have ever heard. The vast majority of my scouts have been strong, smart, well-adjusted, socially-adept, and devoutly religious. They don't fit your negative stereotypes at all.

Pope Francis has made it clear that he does not agree with the concept of gender identity.

Not where I live. The only place I have ever seen a transgender person is on TV.

That would be nice, but it is not what I am asking for. I would like BSA to stop trying to brainwash our kids into thinking that it is right to do wrong.

BSA doesn't get to set religious policy for my church. If a scout and/or her parents don't like my religion, they shouldn't have come to us in the first place.

Being born into a gender, male or female, is a part of what it is to be human. Many plants and animals don't have a gender (or a fixed gender). I think it is very strange that some people will argue that my saying that people are born with a fixed gender is somehow denying that they are human. I feel that the opposite is true. Those who deny that people are born with a gender are denying their humanity, and are equating them with plants and animals. Liberals need to start treating people like human beings.

No, I wouldn't. I don't go out of my way to insult people. But if a girl (or her parent) goes out of her way to approach me to insist that she is a boy, then yes, I would tell her to her face that she is wrong. She is a girl.

This is not something that scouters chose to be involved with. It has been forced upon us. There is no way that we will validate this behavior. You may want us to, but you can't force us to support it.

Scouting should be an activity where all boys are treated normal. Transgender is not normal.

No, it's not that. The other two examples aren't applicable to a school sports program. It's like comparing apples and oranges. Sports conferences often have limits on practice time, so the school AD has to keep an accurate count and make it available to conference officials. A school is allowed to have student-run practices, just so long as they are counted as practices. We still have an open campus. There has been some discussion about this. Our church and school are not in two separate buildings. Since the church must remain open to all worshipers, it would be highly impractical to have a closed campus.

Yes.

There's no question about it. BSA doesn't trust us. Any of us. I also think there is a financial motive. BSA wants to force more of us to register and pay registration fees.

No.

NJ, I am telling you no lie. When I coached my first baseball team, a small group of players and parents went to the YMCA director to complain about me because I never yelled, used profanity, or told dirty jokes in the locker room (like other coaches did). The boys felt they were missing out on some of the "forbidden fruit" that they expected in a sports program. They felt that this sort of behavior was part of the excitement of being on a big boy team, and they had eagerly anticipated it.

So did I. Only I got it from other scouts, so I didn't really mind. Besides, scouting was like a church picnic compared to football.

I understand the difficulties of starting a new unit. When I started a unit (many years ago), my #1 priority was to secure a skilled high school aged scout to be our first SPL. BSA doesn't require it, but I think they should. You can't start out a troop in the right direction (using the patrol method) if you don't have even one single scout who knows what he is doing. A good SPL is an essential for a new troop. If a high school aged SPL told a young scout to get up off his ass, nobody would have complained about the language. The boy would have been pleased that a high school guy was willing to talk to him at all.