Our View: Scouts mirror good of U.S.

[fgoodwin]

Our View: Scouts mirror good of U.S.

 

http://archive.nwherald.com/archive_detail.php?archiveFile=./pubfiles/nwh/archive/2005/July/23/Opinion/56539.xml

http://tinyurl.com/baa83

 

Few youth events can match the National Scout Jamboree, where boys and leaders have fun, learn new skills and make new friends.

 

But the event is under fire by civil libertarians, who are suing it over God - and winning.

 

Boy Scouts of America does not quibble about God's place in the organization. A Scout promises to "do my duty to God and my country" and that he will be faithful in his religious duties.

 

Scouts' relationship with God never fails to get them in trouble with organizations that define the First Amendment's separation of church and state dogmatically.

 

Federal Judge Blanche Manning of the U.S. District Court in Chicago ruled earlier this month that the Defense Department no longer can spend money on Scouting. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims that Scouting becomes a religion through the belief in God.

 

We disagree in the spirit of the Scouting.

 

Scouting defines God broadly as "the ruling and leading power in the universe." Scout troops include people of many faiths, including Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and Zoroastrians.

 

Boy Scouts of America has had a working relationship with the Defense Department and military since the 1930s. The department spends up to $8 million to help stage the National Scout Jamboree, a meeting held every four years at an Army base in Virginia. About 40,000 Scouters will meet for 10 days, beginning Monday.

 

Manning's ruling does not affect this year's jamboree but will cut government funding for the next jamboree if it stands. No doubt the case will be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

 

Government support of Scouting does not establish religion. Federal funding helps a private national organization further its goals of devel-oping boys into men of integrity.

 

Religion is woven tightly into the fabric of the United States. Scouting does not promote a religion, but requires its members to be true to God. Scout meetings are not Sunday schools, and weekend camping trips are not tent revivals.

 

God is as much a part of the fabric of Scouting as God is of the United States. Scouts mirror that which is good in America.

 

Published July 23, 2005

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union, which claims that Scouting becomes a religion through the belief in God.

 

The BSA's own lawyers have been trying to sell this lie (e.g. Robert Bork Jr.), and some people seem to have bought it.

 

But if you read the actual court cases, you'll see that the courts haven't ruled that the BSA is a "religion", but a "religious organization", which is what the BSA itself claims in court. Plus, since the BSA practices religious discrimination by having belief in (at least one) god as a membership requirement, the government has to treat the BSA as it would any other organization that discriminates on the basis of religion, which excludes any sort of special favors. Even a few principled conservatives are questioning why the government should spend money supporting a private organization.

[evmori]

If the BSA is a "religious organization" what religion are they?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Ed, I just said that the BSA is not a religion, so asking me what religion they are is pretty dumb. They aren't a religion; they ARE a religious organization, as BSA reps have stated many times.

[jkhny]

Stumbled across this. Not expresing an opinion on content, just noting that I keep running into very similar commentaries - from former Scouts, sons of Scouts, and even current Scouts.....This seems to have been inspired by a news report on the Alabama fraud.

 

Know nothing more than what's on the link. His father seemed like a great guy, wish mine had been a Ranger at Yellowstone and I'd have killed to have grown up in all the places cited. Seems like he died far too young. Bet he was a great Scout Leader.

 

The BSA these people see today is not THEIR Scouting or their father's Scouting. The image they see is tarnished - for varied reasons - and no longer what they believe Scouting should be.

 

BSA has an image problem - like it or not. It "mirrors" too small a proportion of the population of the US - clearly reflected in declining numbers involved in Scouting.

 

"Scouting

This article about the Boy Scouts of America being investigated for reporting inflated membership numbers wasn't that interesting to me until I got to the line,

 

Tom Willis, a dentist who serves on the board of the Greater Alabama Boy Scout Council, said it appeared lists were being faked, possibly to attract more funding or to make paid Boy Scout recruiters look impressive.

 

Wait a minute. There are people who make a living as recruiters for the Boy Scouts? Whaaaaa? How is this even remotely possible? Has membership in the BSA declined to such a point that professional recruiters must be paid to increase the member rolls?

 

My father (who died in 1985) was a ceaseless advocate for scouting and organized many jamborees and troops around the world, as my family traveled from place to place. He's likely rolling in his grave at the recent swing the BSA has taken towards conservatism and outright discrimination. When I was a scout in the early 80's, it didn't matter if you were a homosexual or a non-Christian. At least it didn't matter in my father's view of the BSA, which became my view of the BSA. All that mattered was scouting for scouting's sake. It saddens me to see the BSA fall victim to some peoples' bigotry and small-mindedness.

 

Of course, there are other, more tolerant, scouting organizations. I'd love to see the rise of a secular and tolerant scouting organization to rival the BSA. The optimist in me believes that, of the people who are interested in scouting, the majority don't care whether a member is homosexual or an atheist."

 

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:oF75npam9bsJ:www.mrbarrett.com/archives/personal/+%22Tom+Willis%22+court+Alabama&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

 

[FScouter]

(Yawn) Didn't we already beat this to death in 38 other threads?

[OldGreyEagle]

jk

 

I do not understand your rancor at BSA. But, its how you feel and its not up to me to understand. I do agree at times that BSA is its own worst enemy.

 

When I first started in the Troop I serve in 1997, I was quite impressed. Its an active troop with good leadership and a fine tradition. As an Eagle Scout, I figured I knew all about scouting I had to. I taught knots, I taught cooking, and I did a lot until I was told I shouldnt be teaching much of anything. That was the job of the older scouts and that I could oversee, but I couldnt do it for them. What a shock, it wasnt the way it was done WHEN I WAS A SCOUT, of course that was back in 1972.

 

So, I learned about boy-lead units and did my best to fit in. I started to attend roundtables and discovered an odd fact. No matter what I said, it was like I was in a bubble. No matter what I said, its like I wasnt there. I would make a comment; a suggestion and no reaction would result. 30 seconds later someone else would make the same comment and voila, the second comment would be met with huzzahs. I realized the talkers were all wearing leather thongs with wooden beads around their necks. It was quite disconcerting when I realized the good ol boy network demanded Wood Badge to gain entrance. I asked a Committee member of the troop about Wood Badge. And I was told Wood Badge was a BSA program that took scouters and made them slaves to Council for 2 years and to top it off, you had to be INVITED to become that slave. Well, that was it for me. I became a member of the District Advancement Committee and just rolled along. I went to the 2001 Jamboree as an ASM with my son but I really didnt do much on a Council or District level.

 

In 2000 I got involved in Venturing, and whenever the Venturing adults for together we would rail at Council for lack of support, for not understanding Venturing and generally feeling really sorry for ourselves. The Crew I serve put together the first Council wide Crew Rendezvous in 2002. One of the main organizers went on to become the 2004 Northeast Region Venturing President. This past spring I attended the 2004 Venture Quest weekend as staff and I got to meet fellow forum member Dana Renner who contrary to popular opinion does not repeat everything he says ala Mr. Nicely-Nicely.

 

The other Venturing adults and I, with the youth formed the VEB (Venturing Executive Board) or Teen Leaders Council. The Council Committee, which was formed by interested adults and youth have sponsored the Cardboard Boat Races, Youth Training Weekends, First aid Weekends and we are planning a Shooting Weekend as well.

 

Currently I am an ADC in the District for Venturing, a member of the District Advancement Committee, and the Council Chair for Venturing. I am also going to be involved with the Sections Venturing Quest in 2006. Along the way I became more acquainted with how the BSA works. Its not the well-oiled machine that is sometimes alleged. I see a patchwork of dedicated people working hard to provide programs to the youth. The DEs I have met, and I have met a lot of them, 4 in 5 years in the District alone. They are truly underpaid, under appreciated and worked very hard. The field directors I know are also stretched thin. I know our Council Executive. He is a member of the church that is the CO for the Troop and Crew. HE is also an ASM if the troop. His son is of Venturing Age and I will be recruiting him this fall. Actually I have already started. The demands on his time are tremendous. The pressure he is under is intense and every move he makes is dissected 20 times til Sunday (whatever that means). He is expected to remember every scouter face he sees and be in a good mood perpetually and think fast when people ask him questions which would make me explode.

 

I see a lot of hard working people, both professional and volunteer and I see human foibles as well. I can see how when you pour so much of your heart and soul into something you truly believe in, you become resolute in defending it against interlopers and perceived interlopers. When someone is used to doing things a certain way, I can see how that way becomes part of the culture and sometimes process becomes more sacred than results.

 

I can understand how when an organization that a person has toiled in for years appears not to be the organization it was how devastating it can be. Its as if all the effort you and others have applied has been wasted. I dont approve of all the stands BSA takes. I do think it is inherently the best thing going and I will work to make it better.

 

BSA does disappoint me at times. Then again, so does my son, my family, the Chicago Bears, and not leastwise myself. But it doesnt mean I love them less. So, jk, what I am saying is I dont know why you feel the way you do, but there are people who are working to improve the BSA. We could use your help

 

[jkhny]

"BSA does disappoint me at times. Then again, so does my son, my family, the Chicago Bears, and not leastwise myself. But it doesnt mean I love them less. So, jk, what I am saying is I dont know why you feel the way you do, but there are people who are working to improve the BSA. We could use your help "

 

 

 

Too much to go into, too much to possibly cover, but fact is, I and others HAVE tried here locally to deal with our autocratic and incompetent SE. The way BSA is structured its impossible - CHicago makes that point clear. Volunteers have no real voice or control over Council leadership. And BSA is GETTING my help though they'd prefer I simply walk away like so many others.

 

Property sales opposed by volunteers were fought in court - we lost. Instead of proceeds going to buy a replacement facility as intended, BSA -"our" Council - is taking the money and tacking this name on a place they already own.

 

There are serious problems in BSA. Overpaid, autocratic and incompetent executives. Faked success, asset sales, declinging numbers and support.

 

BSA National makes this all possible and is complicit in it all. Dissent is stifled. ANY valid questioning in BSA is treated as an attack.

 

BSA is anything BUT open and transparent - WHY?

 

The issues I cited are clear warning signs of major problems in this organization. I and others nationwide now believe change is impossible from within. Willis tried to get his Council to correct inflated counts and was thrown out. He is now in court, a process that will take years and cost thousands. Should that be necessary to get BSA to do the right thing.

 

Atlanta has made superficial changes but will still not allow ana outside audit of their far reduced present claim of just over 5000 kids (3400 active). Local Scotu leaders and a civil rights leader believe the true count for this program for disadvantaged kids is closer to 500. Yet this Council just spent $10million on new offices.

 

Grand Teton has a SE who failed to report two separate incidents of child abuse reported to him personally. Dozens of kids were abused there over the 7 years BSA knew they had a problem there.

 

I - and others all over the country are NOT seeing any real and meaningful change in BSA to address any of the issues I have raised. If you can point out REAL progress in these areas, I'd love to hear it.

 

But the focus continues to be on image and not real change.

 

This isn't a matter of "disappointment" this is a matter of outright failure, illegal acts and autocratic unresponsive leadership that hides behind "character" it does not possess. BSA has set itself up as a bastion of "character and values" - its mission is to teach "ethical and moral" decision making to boys.

 

Any movement that betrays its ideals should fear its own true believers more than any outsiders.

 

Yet BSA leadership is actively hypocritical in their behavior - or in the case of the the larger number of "good guys" - silently complicit in the wrongs perpatrated by those around them in BSA. Critics are punished. Volunteers ARE thrown out of Scouting for trying to get BSA to do what is right. DE's fake numbers and accomplishments in fear of dictatorial SE's or at their direction. Others have learned that you criticize BSA or fellow professionals at your own risk - and with the expectation of losing job.

 

Is change really possible in that environment?

 

I have heard from too many good people who have seen the same hypocrisy, seen the damage done in their Councils and been truly hurt by Scouting. You cannot defend BSA when it's thrown out a 17 year Scoutmaster who rightfully questioned why his tiny Council (which seems to survive ONLY to provide their SE with a job) was spending $500,000 on offices instead of kids.

 

Dave Rice - with 60 years in Scouting - was thrown out for talking of "tolerance" - in a NON Scout venue. Some issues will never be rationally discussed in BSA.

 

BSA leadership squashes contrary and dissident ideas and questioning - it won't even listen to them.

 

below -- from the Atlanta site - a good summary of the issue that I and others see. I do not think change is possible from within now. BSA has circled thewagons and views any calls for change as an attack. Those in power in Irving do not want to relinquish it. "Change" however desperately needed, is viewed as bad.

 

My presence has served a purpose. But at this point there is no real point in endless circular arguments that are NOT a true debate on facts or the issue at hand.

 

Again, a voice screaming in the wilderness is sometimes a prophet.

 

Below from

 

http://www.boyscoutsfortruth.com/wst_page8.html

 

 

How far do you believe we should go in exposing the deep problems of the BSA professional organization?

 

Is this something that we all should be letting loose to the interested national media swarming around Atlanta right now?

 

These are far from simple questions. I have wrestled with them for several years without coming to satisfactory answers. I know that the patient is sick. I know that strong medicine is probably required to make the patient well. I fear that the patient is not strong enough to take the strong medicine and that, if it is administered, the patient will die. For me, it always comes down to trying to figure out whether it is better to sustain the patient and gently push them in the direction of health or give the medicine knowing "what ever does not kill us, makes us stronger." Scouting, for all its flaws, has been an important agent for good in this country and has saved many youth from the influence of much less savory gangs.

 

I know that at the just concluded national meeting of BSA a new audit procedure was discussed. The new procedure will require that volunteers, as well as the professionals, sign off on the veracity of the membership numbers. This is an encouraging sign as it shows that national is aware there is a problem within the professional ranks and has taken steps which might fix the problem. The potential devil, here, is in the details. If the volunteers get full access to the fundamental information, and if they are willing to hold the pros to account, there should never be another large membership fraud.

 

If, however, the pros obfuscate the books or the volunteers do not step up, what we have created is volunteers who end up serving as dupes for the pros. In fact, once they have signed off on numbers that are false, they are under tremendous pressure to become, and remain, co-conspirators in future fraud.

 

Can leopards change their spots? Professional Scouters have shown themselves to be as slippery as eels in the past. Sadly, I have reached the point where I do not trust them as a class. One of my local colleagues suggested that the folks in Atlanta had violated real laws. That real harm had been done to people (careers ended, resources illegally diverted, services not delivered) by their actions and that, if Scouting was serious about reform, a mea culpa and a resignation would not be enough. I suspect, though, that that, and some vague promises about cleaning up the council, were all you got.

 

If some one were held personally responsible, it would send a message to the whole organization that these behaviors are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. As things currently stand, no such message has been transmitted. Instead, rumor has it that our council board has been cautioned to steer clear of the media and to refer all questions about membership to the professional staff. By the end of summer, that same message is likely to have filtered down to all the key volunteers. On the one hand it makes sense to coordinate the flow of organizational information through those who are in a position to have the big picture (though one wishes that board members had the big picture). The cynic, however, sees a determined effort to plug leaks and avoid the rogue board member who goes public with the problems. I suspect that similar guidance is happening all across the country.

 

Rumor has it that Scout Executives are taught that there are two kinds of Board Members. There are those who think for themselves and who can bring creative ideas to the organization (along with a certain amount of chaos) and those who are yes men who will not bring much energy to the process but will not bring much disruption either. Smart Scout Executives populate their boards with the latter. Whether or not they are taught to do this, my experience with Scout Boards is that they are largely filled with people who, by habit and inclination, defer to the professionals.

 

It should also be noted that the professionals have what amounts to veto power over the appointment of all key volunteers. Boat rockers, whistle blowers and agitators, who are all too rare to begin with, can be effectively screened out by denying them any power positions (and therefore, information access) in the organization.

 

The combination of lap dog boards and control of senior and middle volunteer management positions give the pros an immensely powerful position from which to block reform (and protect their own positions). It will take a grass roots rebellion or a determined legal attack at the top to actually reform the system nationally. Small determined groups with strong ethics and strong stomachs can achieve local results but, unless the tide shifts nationally, the system always tries to return to the old status quo.

 

A determined legal attack at the top is the fastest and surest way to root out the things that are wrong but the risks are great. A determined legal attack on the corruption at Arthur Anderson and at ENRON cured their corruption but destroyed the organizations.

 

On the other hand, grass roots rebellions are also messy. The typical volunteer scouter is only vaguely aware that the District and Council exist. They are unaware of how they function and they little care, so long as necessary services are provided. (Not unlike their knowledge of government...) If the good ones knew what was going on, they would clamor for reform. But, to make them aware of what is going on, a lot of dirty laundry would have to be hung out in public. Scouting has many enemies who would love to use that to pick the organization apart. Sadly, the rebellion will also divert a lot of energy that should be going into servicing youth.

 

If you loose the press, the dirty linen goes public, the enemies have a field day, and maybe Scouting reforms or maybe it is not resilient enough and it dies. The media, as I am sure you know, follow their own path and, once you have opened to them, things tend to get out of control. Some of them are already enemies of Scouting.

 

All that said, I guess I lean in the direction of going public and pushing the mantra of - preserving the "timeless values" by purging the organizational corruption - and hoping for the best.

 

The acid test data are not really available to me. If the Scout internal study in Atlanta looked at the Council as a whole and addressed the problems of membership padding and professional assessment in both the urban and suburban settings, maybe Scouting sees the light and there is some hope of internal reform. If the study focused only on Scoutreach and the units pre-identified by outsiders as problems, national does not "get it" and strong medicine must be administered.

 

The basic problem MUST BE fixed. It is a cancer slowly eating away at the organization. Just changing top execs in Atlanta will not get scouting to inner city boys in Atlanta ( the new execs will probably steer clear of the inner city because of the "problems" that they had there) or anywhere else. Nor will it fix the basic climate of dishonesty created by the current professional incentive system.

 

So, I apologize for rambling, but I am troubled by selecting from nothing but bad alternatives. It is, I suspect, a little like Martin Luther. All he wanted was for the church to reform itself. Instead, the law of unintended consequences kicked in and the path of Christianity was altered. I worry about the law of unintended consequences... On the other hand, evil triumphs if good men do nothing.

 

 

 

[jkhny]

the short answer - paraphrasing something read somewhere not remembered

 

BSA sure DOES reflect the good old USA - unfortunately.

 

Instead of timeless values, BSA reflects out times. Overpaid executives fake results they cannot achieve. Assets are sold off to meet short term financial goals - hurting the company. Overworked and undercompensated workers see what's wrong and try to speak out byt whistleblowers are punished - fired for their concern. Criticism is met with rhetoric. ANY questioning is treated as an "attack." There is an increasing exodus in the lower ranks, with work being left undone. this company's customers are ill served and begin to go elsewhere for many reasons.

 

The basic business is failing. Great efforts go into a secondary contrived effort carefully crafted to get as much governmental and charitable money as it can - money the main business cannot receive. But the main business is failing and no actions taken have been able to reverse its decline.

 

The only question is whether or not the business will coollapse before or after its executives run through all its assets with their slalries and generous retirement plans - compensation never even seen by the majority of their "workers."