"Straight." Does the institution need to change?

[DanKroh]

Well, first off, again, you are really asking some personal questions that are none of your business. What moral values I decide to teach my sons about sex are between me, them, and our god, and not relevant to this discussion at all.

 

No, being married does not "suppress" heterosexual behavior, it institutionally validates it. So, to follow your argument, then gay marriage would "suppress" homosexual behavior. Then by all means, lets do that right away.

 

Or do you mean that once you and your wife had your children (which must have been conceived by artificial insemination, since no heterosexual behavior was involved), you never engaged in heterosexual behavior again? And that is a thought question only, I am not asking you to reveal details about your married life here.

[Trevorum]

ya know, from the perspective of evolutionary biology, "society" exists to facilitate and regulate sex. That is it's sole purpose. All of our institutions, our art, our edifaces, our social glory are just byproducts from our need to have sex (and not kill each other because of it).

 

[BrentAllen]

I never said there was any benefit to society from suppressing all heterosexual activity. I said just the opposite. I said the traditional heterosexual-parent family is the bedrock of our society, and should be promoted.

Promiscuous heterosexual activity should be discouraged (you know, sexual activity not restricted to one partner?). Do you agree or not?

You are correct - discussing teaching moral values to our sons should under no circumstances be discussed by Scout Leaders. Huh???

"The purpose of the Boy Scouts of America is to provide an educational program for boys and young adults to build desirable qualities of character, to train in the responsibilities of participating citizenship, and to develop personal fitness."

Maybe Scouting in the blue states is different...

[DanKroh]

Well, I agree, but to a different set of terminology.

 

Irresponsible sexual activity (hetero-, homo-, or bi-) should be discouraged, because it can lead to STDs and unwanted pregnancy, as well as psychological damage to the participant(s) if they are not ready for the emotional impact that being sexualy intimate can have on some young (or immature at any age) people. Being unfaithful to a partner that one promised to be monogamous with should also be discouraged, yes.

 

Promiscous is a term that is heavily-laden with moral judgements that are based in the JCI belief system.

 

I am curious where you are going with this entire tangent, now....

[BrentAllen]

I'm not going anywhere with it - we agree! I've just been trying to say the same thing you said in your last post. Well, at least we agree on that one issue.

Now I've got to finish planning our Pack meeting for next Tuesday. We have a Cherokee Indian coming in to teach their culture, show some hides and skins, play some drums and flutes, and show how to make some jewelry. In addition, I'm finally getting my Wood Badge beads. My father and my Scoutmaster from back in the '70's will be there (both Wood Badgers), along with District Committee members and Council professionals. To say I'm a little nervous about the meeting would be an understatement.

[Trevorum]

Brent,

Congratulations on earning your beads!! Now you're old and feeble with the rest of us!

 

- a good ol' BobWhite!

[toutletodd]

It looks like a fun forumn. This debate surges on. Men of good conscience must debate these contoversies. (Women too). I tend to be more pragmatic in my approach to this issue.

 

First the facts.

1. There are many homosexual adults that would do fine as mentors to boys.

2. Almost all pedofiles are not gay. It is an issue of power and perversion.

3. When a youth of today begins to believe he might be gay (which is rare), in scouting environments he is most likely to be supported by caring adults than shunned. Now he may or may not stay in scouting but the love and support of our Scouting family generally rises above this controversy.

4. This issue in the political arena is really not about children, it is about social and societal legitimacy. There are too many activities for kids these days to get bent out of shape over one or the other.

5. The BSA always waits for societal change to be nearly complete before instigating organizational change. I think about the big controversy of allowing women to be Scoutmasters in the 80's.

6. The BSA wants to affect the most amount of families it can. They also need to maintain and increase funding. Organizationally, these really are the main factors in determining organizational policies, values come at a distant third.

7. The majority of families would prefer a heterosexual values set to be included in the values education of their children. At the same time they are far more comfortable with the homosexual community than in recent years.

8. After what happend in Canada with allowing gays, the BSA will not be changing its view on this issue any time soon.

 

So in synopsis.

I don't think the homosexual community is ready to be included in the BSA. The BSA should not be part of the battlefield for the fight for legitamcy. As an organization we need to focus on what is important for the youth and keep this issue out of our playing field.

 

I believe that leadership will be solely based on ones abilities, and character. This should be determined by the chartered organization with major infractions policed by parents and the council.

 

Finally, I believe that homosexuality has a genetic component. That really does not change the issue. Regardless, Genetic prediliction or choice it still represents behaviors that require a value choice on behalf of people exposed to those behaviors. I look at people I know who are gay. I still have affection, compassion, and respect for them even though they have behaviors that are objectionable to me.

Much like emotions I have with special needs Scouts.

 

Well there is my dollar.

 

 

 

[DanKroh]

Brent, I'm glad we found something we can agree on. I'm sure there are plenty of other things we would find common ground on, too.

 

Good luck with your meeting planning, and congratulations on earning your beads. I'm looking forward to taking the Wood Badge course myself next year.

[packsaddle]

Trevorum, I'm wondering if your post on the purpose of society just flew past everyone? I'd comment except I agree.

And Gern, you ever read 'Lord of the Flies'?

[Greying Beaver]

A dollar well spent.

[BrentAllen]

toutletodd wrote: "8. After what happend in Canada with allowing gays, the BSA will not be changing its view on this issue any time soon."

 

I was not familiar with what happened in Canada. Last night I did some searching around, and after seeing the numbers from several sources, I hope the statement above is true.

I could not verify the property issues in the following articles, but the membership decline can be verified directly from Scouts Canada. Anyone want to see this happen here in the USA?

 

The Death of Canadian Scouting

August, 2004

by Featured Writer: Hans Zeiger

 

Big Canadian real estate is on the market. A rather sizable chunk of Lord Robert Baden-Powell's Empire is available for investors, homebuilders, fishing resort prospectors, or blacktop barons. Scouts Canada is pounding in "for sale" signs at the entrances of a number of Scout camps across the country, including at least twenty camps in Ontario. But don't worry. No Boy Scouts will mourn the loss of their summer camps, for the Boy Scouts of Canada no longer exist.

 

Thinking they could become more inclusive, the Boy Scouts of Canada Board of Governors decided in November 1998 to admit females, atheists, agnostics, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transsexuals into troops. Despite that established troops were not even allowed to remain all-male groups, Scouts Canada approved the establishment of the world's first all-homosexual troop in 1999. The troop marches in homosexual pride parades and loudly symbolizes what Scouts Canada calls its commitment to diversity.

 

Scouts Canada's new non-discrimination code reads: "Scouting is a worldwide, multicultural movement. We welcome people to membership regardless of gender, race, culture, religious belief, sexual orientation or economic circumstances. Youth members are strongly influenced by the behaviour of adults. We need to be sensitive to the traditions and beliefs of all people and to avoid words or actions which "put down" anybody."

 

And so, in its attempt to include everybody and everything, Scouts Canada is effectively dead.

 

Budgets have run dry. Troop halls and old campsites sit vacant. Professional staff salaries are severed. Membership is mostly decimated. In the past, membership roles consistently exceeded 300,000. Around the peak in 1965, there were 320,000 Boy Scouts. Today, despite a one third population increase in Canada over four decades and a doubling of the demographic possibilities (with female members), Scouts Canada has dwindled to a puny 130,000 and it is rapidly declining.

 

Open to all, there is a certain liability that accompanies the mixture of sexes and sexual preferences at Scout Camp. It is no coincidence that Scouts Canada's costs for liability insurance against sexual molestation claims increased dramatically by 2002 when, lacking adequate finances, Scouts Canada canceled its sex abuse insurance, and with it many "high risk" activities. Without the insurance, a single pedophile could potentially annihilate Scouts Canada forever.

 

Esprit de corps has evaporated. Last year, wearing a uniform at official Scout events became optional. Scoutmasters were deprived of the authority to demand the wearing of uniforms. "It's time to stop bickering about the clothes we wear," said Ms. Bonita Brick, chair of the National Scouts Youth Committee that handed down the uniform decision. "Accept the reality of change."

 

It seems that change is not so attractive to the traditional core of Scouts Canada. "It is disheartening. Everything seems to be going down and down," laments veteran Scouter Bill Stauttener who manages Union Marsh Scout Camp which is set to go on the chopping block.

 

Eastern Ontario's Camp Apple Hill is expected to sell for just $30,000, a bargain considering that it is 300 acres. "It's very heartbreaking and very distressing," says three-decade Scout leader Pat Tugwood.

 

It may be a sad affair for some who've been around Canadian Scouting for a while, but I say good riddance to Scouts Canada. They ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant. The Scout Oath and Scout Law are obliterated in the land of the red maple leaf north of Parallel 49.

 

It is doubtful that this organization can be resuscitated. Political correctness, having infected whole institutions, does not easily reverse. But we Americans might well consider this malady and contain it at the border.

 

"In meeting the challenges of a multi-faith society which is increasingly gay-positive, the [boy Scouts of America] might follow the lead of Scouts Canada," urges a writer at ReligiousTolerance.org. And thus the far Left attacks the Boy Scouts of America, relentlessly for the past two decades.

 

There are prices to be paid by the BSA for standing on traditional moral values, but none so severe as this eulogy of Scouts Canada. In America, United Way funding may be cut, cities and school districts may abandon the Scouts, courts may order the Scouts to leave public property. But so long as the Scout Oath and Law remain intact, the Boy Scouts of America can survive.

 

Goodbye, Scouts Canada. Political correctness is sure grand, eh?

 

Hans Zeiger is president of the Scout Honor Coalition and a student at Hillsdale College. www.hanszeiger.com

 

[OldGreyEagle]

One must note our buddy Hans does not exactly fit the mold of an impartial well balanced journalist without an agenda to sell

 

Then again, I am not sure such a critter exists.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Zeiger is guilty of a post hoc fallacy - Scouts Canada membership has been declining for a long time:

http://www.scouts.ca/media/documents/mscottdraft7let.pdf

...

Total Membership declined from 300,000 to 200,000 from 1984-1999. It stood at 122,000 in Aug 2004

...

 

BSA's membership has also been declining; Cub Scouts have lost members every year since 1998 (which is about when the Dale lawsuit started getting wide media coverage). Of course, that too could just be post hoc reasoning; but much of the decline in 2005 can be tied directly to the BSA's insistence on discrimination, which cost them all charters from government entities.

 

Mike Marks posted some BSA membership figures for October 2005 to the Venturing list, which (assuming they're accurate) has BSA membership falling by over 400,000 compared to Dec 2004, a 13.5% drop. That drop appears to be a combination of phantom units being scrubbed, and losing what looks to be over half of public school units that couldn't find a new chartering organization (nearly 8,000 fewer units).

 

This decline can (and should) be blamed on the current BSA administration for turning a blind eye to widely-known phantom unit fraud, and their own fraud of issuing BSA charters to public schools in the first place.

 

Mike Marks post is here:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/venturinglist/message/12178

Past BSA membership figures are here:

http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/bsa-membership.html

[BrentAllen]

Are you really Brian Westley, from Scouting For All? Inquiring minds want to know!

I'm sure numbers will be down for the past year, after the scrubbing of the rolls. I can only speak for the units in my area, which are experiencing strong growth. Our Pack is up 30% over last year, going from 72 to 95 boys. There are 4 Packs within 5 miles of us, some larger, some smaller. This is a suburban area, almost entirely single-family houses. Yes, we were chartered by the elementary school until recently. We are now chartered by the PTA - happy? How much change did it make to any individual in our community? None, zilch.

Try to manipulate the Canada Scouts number all you like, and compare them to ours, but you can't deny one huge point. Gay-friendly Canada has had a big population increase, but yet their Scouting memberships continue to decline. Their new policy in 1998 was supposed to open the door for all these new prospects - females and gays - to join. Their numbers should be booming! Instead, they are facing bankruptcy, declining memberships, and are forced to sell properties. How can anyone look at those numbers and see anything but complete failure? Where are all the new members? Where is the retainage? Sad, truly sad.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Yes, I am Brian Westley from Scouting For All.

 

Yes, we were chartered by the elementary school until recently. We are now chartered by the PTA - happy?

 

Actually, I'm going to be going after PTAs and PTOs too. They are almost certainly considered public accommodations, and cannot discriminate on the basis of religion. It's also quite likely that a large number of PTAs/PTOs will be willing to state publically that they will not discriminate, which will put the ball in the BSA's court.

 

Gay-friendly Canada has had a big population increase, but yet their Scouting memberships continue to decline. Their new policy in 1998 was supposed to open the door for all these new prospects - females and gays - to join. Their numbers should be booming! Instead, they are facing bankruptcy, declining memberships, and are forced to sell properties.

 

As I've said, that's a post hoc fallacy, and Scouts Canada has had declining membership well before gays were ever an issue. And there certainly are a lot of BSA councils selling property lately, too.