School SafeRides program continues without gods

[OldGreyEagle]

Doesnt the exisitence of this program give an implied consent to law breaking? The school has this program to give students "safe" rides home if the student is trashed and cant do it alone, and the BSA condones this activity by providing transportation. Is this a mixed message?

[le Voyageur]

Quoting Hunt....."For a perhaps less cynical way of parsing it, perhaps LFL is a way for BSA to provide service to people who otherwise wouldn't get it, even if those people don't ascribe to all of BSA's principles...just as we don't ask the recipients of the food that is gathered in Scouting for Food to sign the DRP."

 

Apples and Oranges. Scouting for Food is not supported by HUD, the US Department of Education, nor the taxpayer....should these revenue sources dry up, LFL will go away

 

 

[DanKroh]

"For a perhaps less cynical way of parsing it, perhaps LFL is a way for BSA to provide service to people who otherwise wouldn't get it, even if those people don't ascribe to all of BSA's principles...just as we don't ask the recipients of the food that is gathered in Scouting for Food to sign the DRP."

 

Well, except that people who receive food that is gathered in Scouting for Food are not signed up as members of the BSA, while the LFL members are.

 

Or perhaps I am confused. Are or are not the youth in the LFL program registered members of the BSA? If they are, is it not strange that they can become registered members of the BSA without the signing the DRP, while those in the traditional program cannot?

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

This is another area where the BSA uses deliberately confusing terms so they can talk out of both sides of their mouths at once.

 

For example, only the traditional programs have "members"; LFL only has "participants". You will sometimes see BSA press releases talking about members & participants in the same sentence -- "participants" to give them a largest total of youth served by including LFL, then switch to "members" when they try to defend their discriminatory policies. They'll even imply that all of the youth they serve (which includes LFL, and includes gays & atheists) support their "traditional membership standards" of excluding gays & atheists.

 

For more wordplay, see various council's "nondiscrimination" policies that vow never to engage in "illegal discrimination".

[DanKroh]

Thanks for the explanation, Merlyn.

 

Personally, I really despise this kind of semantic shenanegans.

 

Calling duck a swan is not going to keep it from waddling and quacking.

 

So do these "participants" have to fill out any sort of form to register their "participation"?

 

It's really sad that someone at National had to think up these word gymnastics to be able to work a loophole in the system.

[evmori]

So it's OK for every other organization to classify members differently but not OK for the BSA? Now that's talking out of both sides of your mouth! And no I don't have examples of other organizations doing the same thing, but that doesn't make it any less true!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

When the BSA deliberately conflates between members & "participants" to deceive people it's an issue, Ed.

 

Here's the BSA's press release from 2000 about their 100 millionth member:

http://www.scouting.org/media/press/2000/000404/index.html

 

Notice that the PR is about their 100 millionth "member", yet their figure of 4.9 million youth must include LFL totals, since in 1999 they only had 3.4 million members and 1.6 million in LFL. Yet the press release suggests the BSA fosters "duty to god" among ALL of these 4.9 million youth, since they don't bother to distinguish between members and participants. I can't even tell if the BSA counted LFL members in reaching their 100 millionth member or not.

[skeptic]

Here is my take on the two. The traditional program is dependent on the sponsoring institution, the group that actually "owns" the unit. As such, it is under the auspices of the COR, as directed by his church, club, or whatever. The traditional foundation of BSA fits these institutions' needs, or they would not choose to use the program. They know up front the expectations of the BSA within this part of the organization.

 

LFL is designed specifically for community based outreach which is focussed through government oversight of one sort or another. While it strives to impart certain elements of traditional scouting, it must be able to accomodate a far broader membership pool. And, since government related programs usually are strictured by PC ordinances, the program must allow for this, or it simply will not happen.

 

Is it right to count the membership in LFL as part of the overall stats? Personally, I question that. Otherwise, I can see having two elements because it serves two distinct groups. I would however, really like National to let the CO determine leadership in their unit. From my observations and occasional probing, few would survive long if certain individuals were to become leaders. So any perceived problem would soon work itself out. But most CO's choose the program specifically because it still has a back bone.

 

JMHO

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

I disagree that COs know "up front" the expectations of the BSA, when public schools used to be the #1 CO, and John Jay High School used Venturing for its SafeRides program. When the SafeRides issue first came up, the school superintendent asked the BSA if the religious requirement could be waived so an atheist student could join, so it doesn't sound like he knew that the BSA expected to exclude atheists from the school's SafeRides program.

[Beavah]

And no I don't have examples of other organizations doing the same thing, but that doesn't make it any less true!

 

I can think of a few.

 

The members and employees of Catholic Relief Services don't need to be Catholic, even though CRS is a service branch of the Catholic Church. Yeh can find all kinds of similar arrangements where religious organizations have an outreach/ecumenical service arm with different membership/employment requirements. Salvation Army, many religious denomination schools, etc.

 

Now, it's an interestin' question whether organizations should be forced to create "secular branches" in order to prevent being excluded from the public forum. Seems like state suppression of ideas to me.

 

Beavah

 

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

Beavah writes:

Now, it's an interestin' question whether organizations should be forced to create "secular branches" in order to prevent being excluded from the public forum. Seems like state suppression of ideas to me.

 

A "public forum" is where people can voice their opinions. Nobody is being excluded from those.

 

The BSA has been trying (and failing) to say that getting money from the government, or getting a subsidy from the government, is, somehow, a "public forum", and excluding them is a violation of the first amendment. I don't know of any court that has agreed with their tortured logic.

[evmori]

When the BSA deliberately conflates between members & "participants" to deceive people it's an issue, Ed.

 

And you have proof of this, Merlyn? Real proof not just your opinion.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[LongHaul]

Now I'm siding with Merlyn, what next? Yes Ed I have proof. In Chicago the powers that be continually solicit public funds for "Scouting" use pictures of our Summer camp and the boys engaged in activities there and then use the money collected to support LFL to the exclusion of traditional scouting. They continually claim that because CAC serves 35,000+ youth and only 10,000- are traditional units we don't need our Council Camps and they sold one for 17 million and are fighting efforts to stop the sale of the one remaining camp for 19 million. Their claim on how many youth are served depends on what they want the argument to support. We serve 35,000+ so our SE makes more than the Mayor but we serve less than 10,000 so we don't need camps, field services, or program resources.

LongHaul

[packsaddle]

Ed, most of the time when we're thinking about the word 'proof', it is easier to disprove something (at least outside mathematics).

But LongHaul has done you the favor of reporting one such instance thus giving you the opportunity to do your thing. It is now incumbent on you or anyone else to disprove what he reported...not just offer up an opinion.

[evmori]

So the BSA can't show Scouts camping & use the money raised for LFL? That is totally absurd and it is something every organization that fund raises does! The United Way show those heart-wrenching videos but not all the money raised from this goes to that specific program!

 

No proof yet!

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10