Scouting`s merits from the L.A. Times

[Aquila calva]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-fernandez12feb12,0,2361925.story

From the Los Angeles Times

 

Scouting's merits

 

The group's homophobia presents a moral dilemma: to join or not?

 

By Jay A. Fernandez

 

February 12, 2008

 

I recently received in the mail an urgent request to support the cause of something called the Scouting Legal Defense Fund. "Hey, I'm an Eagle Scout," I thought cheerfully. "How can I help?"

 

According to the accompanying letter, my financial assistance was "desperately needed" to prevent the American Civil Liberties Union from using the courts to force the Boy Scouts of America to accept gay scoutmasters. This potential catastrophe, the letter said, "will destroy the Boy Scouts' mission to instill wholesome values and provide solid role models to young men to help them become responsible, well-rounded citizens."

 

After a few phone calls, I came to find out that the ACLU has no active cases against the Boy Scouts. And many past cases focused on the exclusion of atheist Scouts. The ACLU's basic position has been that if Scout troops are supported by the government, as many are, it is unconstitutional for members to be discriminated against based on sexual orientation or religious beliefs. Several legal settlements have led to government sponsorship being withdrawn.

 

Beyond the blatant dishonesty in that letter, its implication that gays can't be role models is an argument that my 14-year-old stepson, Ethan, could dress down without looking up from his multimedia Skype-iPod-"Survivorman" cocktail. So I won't bother with them. But this is suddenly a real dilemma for me because Ethan asked to join a Scout troop.

 

Years ago, the last time this gays-in-Scouting dust-up made it onto my radar, my brothers and I -- all three of us are Eagle Scouts -- fretted over the right expression of dissent. We considered sending back our Eagle badges, as others did, in protest. That we ultimately didn't says less about the extent of our outrage than our pride in achieving something fewer than 1% of Scouts manage. I worked hard for that -- suffered, even -- and, ashamedly in retrospect, I wasn't willing to give it up in the name of principle.

 

At that time, Ethan was 6 or 7 and asking my wife and me about Scouting. We tried to explain why we felt that the organization's decision to exclude children or adult volunteers based on their sexual orientation was antithetical to our ideals. In our view, if we wanted to raise Ethan to have "wholesome values" and be a "well-rounded citizen," then he couldn't participate in a club that openly discriminated. Frankly, I'd like to keep the orienteering merit badge focused on learning how to use a compass.

 

Granted, there were other reasons I was reluctant to encourage Ethan to join, and they had less to do with principle than with the scars -- or "memories" -- I collected during my own dozen years in Scouting. I camped, cooked, hiked, built fires, swam and earned merit badges, seemingly only on weekends that called for soul-drenching rainstorms, while striving for the honor that my parents had perversely made a requirement of getting my driver's license. From that accumulated experience, I can tell you one thing for sure: Homosexuality was the very least of the things a kid needed to watch out for at Camp Thunderdome. The degenerates and bullies I went through Scouting with were generally lunk-headed sadists who smuggled in porn, committed cruel pranks and tried to set each other on fire. Be prepared, indeed.

 

And though I was convinced that my likable (and married) scoutmaster was gay, what actually bothered me most about him was that he thought it would be funny to organize my peers to pick up my cot while I slept and deposit me in the middle of the woods. On awakening alone in the ink-dark arboreal abyss, my first thought was not "wow, that guy maintains suspiciously good hygiene."

 

And then, about the same time as the letter arrived, Ethan again expressed interest in joining. Unlike me, he has the personality for it. Swimming, building, camping, cooking, hiking -- these are all activities he loves and does often with his dad, a former park ranger. So we bought him cool gadgets, and I helped him learn the Scout oath.

 

But in doing so, I was reminded of the dreadful phrase the Scouts and their legal backers, the misleadingly named American Civil Rights Union, tout as the basis of their anti-gay stance. The oath ends with the promise "... to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." Ah, the old "morally straight" conundrum. Does the spirit of that pledge mean that you will never lie, or that you will never lie with a guy?

 

For me, the edification of Scouting came in the form of lifelong calls for strong community, an awareness of one's effect on the natural world, self-reliance and leadership skills. (Camping, however, remains just above waterboarding on my list of favorite activities.) To claim that these qualities are somehow reserved for heterosexuals, either as teachers or students, is to miss the point entirely.

 

Although I find the Boy Scouts of America's stance no less offensive now, I do want Ethan to have these experiences with his peers. The troop he discovered seems to focus on hard-core rock-climbing and hiking (they practically traversed half of Death Valley on a recent weekend). He's old enough to make his own decision.

 

He's also the most nonjudgmental kid I know, unlikely to be corrupted by any bigoted dogma. The truth is, as more kids like Ethan join and eventually play a part in determining Boy Scout policy, the faster those discriminatory elements will vanish like so many sparks from a roaring bonfire.

 

Jay A. Fernandez writes The Times' weekly Scriptland column

 

[SM in NJ]

Interesting article. Your point in posting it without commentary???

 

SMNJ

[packsaddle]

To summarize, the writer 'held his nose' and found a troop that has a program that their son enjoys. As long as the unit doesn't allow the 'issues' to affect the boys in the unit, their son will do fine and they will be able to support this 'local option' approach.

 

From my conversations among the families of this unit, the majority of them have gone through a similar decision-making process. I suspect we're not unique.

[Trevorum]

I agree with Mr. Fernandez. In general, the fellows in my son's troop are much more accepting of social diversity than their parents. Eventually the exclusionary policies of BSA will be a closed chapter to which our grandsons will look back on with curiosity. Today, my son's are amazed when I tell them that when I was a Scout, BSA was racially segregated.

 

[packsaddle]

Trevorum, I have to ask, did you tell them about BSA's racial segregation or did they find out independently.

I agree with you regarding the future. Prejudice won't die, in its various manifestations, but it can be marginalized.

[FScouter]

Do you mean to say that BSA, the national organization, decreed that BSA members were to be segregated by race?

Or that a particular troop decreed that no white boys could join that troop?

Or that there happened to be troops where the membership was only white boys or black boys because that is the troop those boys chose to join?

[Trevorum]

They're also amazed when I tell them there was a time when women were not allowed to be Scout leaders (except as Cub Scout Den Mothers).

 

 

They are amazed, of course, because all this was way back when only white males were allowed to run for President.

 

 

 

(oops, typo)(This message has been edited by Trevorum)

[packsaddle]

Fscouter, you have to realize that when I was a scout in the 1960s racial segregation was a very hot (sometimes literally) issue. In fact it was the way that the Republican Party eventually took pre-eminence in the South - with switchovers like Strom Thurmond, etc.

 

When I was a scout not only were there only white or black troops exclusively, in the charged climate of prejudice and hatred even the mention of some kind of racial integration was met with intense 'interest'. BSA was not immune to this, nor did they exactly 'lead the way' in the Civil Rights movement.

 

I remember going to a Scout-a-rama to compete against other troops. Among dozens of competing troops, there was a black troop there, one of the very few in existence. To our credit, some of the boys in the white troops treated them just like any other scouts. But I remember well the explicit comments, and racial jokes that some troop leaders and some professionals made...occasionally in front of the black troop. I remember feelings of shame and sympathy toward the boys in that troop. I'm feeling it right now as I remember it.

 

At the time, I was embarassingly clueless about politics and Civil Rights and I was more interested in hunting and fishing and camping. But I kept the memories of what I saw and heard. I suspect that lots of other boys did as well.

 

I'm glad those things changed. It demonstrates that although things are not perfect today, things are definitely better. And therefore that BSA is capable of changing in the future as well. So I agree with Trevorum.

[FScouter]

I'm sure there were all-black troops and all-white troops back in the 60's, just as there are today. I'm wondering if any BSA historian here in the forum knows whether BSA, the national organization, had a policy stipulating racially segregated troops, or whether troop themselves oriented themselves to be either white or black. Anyone?

[OldGreyEagle]

I think that something we have to remember is that as a volunteer organization, we will always mirror the attitudes of the societies and cultures that produced us and where we reside. That doesnt mean Scouters behavior will change as fast as the latest flavor of the month, but as societies attitudes change, then the BSA will change because membership is not stagnant, people come, and go and while change may occur over decades, change does occur

[scoutmomma]

A fascinating column indeed, and I appreciate Aquila's bringing it to our attention. My internal debate was similar when my son first asked to join Cub Scouts, and later when he decided he wanted to go on to Boy Scouts (though of course I was coming from a slightly different neighborhood, that of Girl Scouting). My ultimate decision to let him do so was based on the fact that I knew he would learn camping and outdoor skills that he would carry throughout his life, if he stuck with it, and I was not prepared to have a discussion with him when he was 6 about my issues with BSA's policies toward gays, atheists and agnostics. I have since learned that I am not alone in my reservations -- there are plenty of other parents in my son's troop who feel like I do. Other than our sons' annual dues, we do not choose to support national financially to pursue these policies, but have chosen instead to support our sons in their troop -- our own version of the "local option." I have had discussions with various council staff members who feel similarly but are constrained in stating so in public for fear of reprisal, and who tell me that being involved at a local level is the best way to effect change. (Not that Council never asks us what we think of the policies.)

 

Whenever I read or hear or experience anti-atheist or homophobic attitudes from others in Scouting, it is tempting sometimes to just quit -- to remove myself from such toxic attitudes. But I look at my 13-year-old Star Scout son -- two merit badges away from Life -- and see what he's achieved, and I know Scouting is doing him good, and so I stay. And of course now I know and see that he is not only learning camping and outdoor skills, but leadership and self-reliance, and that is a good thing too. As long as he is learning and growing, I will stick with it, and hope that my small contribution of time and energy to his troop will continue to help him and the other boys in the troop learn and grow.

[packsaddle]

Fscouter, I'd like to help but I was viewing everything through the eyes of a teenager. All I can say is that some troop leaders and scouting professionals were open about their prejudice, others were discreet. They pretended to be friendly to the black troop while showing a quite different side to us afterwards.

 

I also know that plenty of black boys lived close to our troop - and there was NEVER any kind of invitation to them by our church. Presbyterian, BTW, and staunchly segregationist.

When busing first began to integrate the schools in a real way, I remember that first crop of black students in our high school US history class. The teacher, on the first day of school, interrogated each black student in front of the class asking each if he WANTED to be there. They, of course, didn't know what to say, as if it mattered. The teacher found one particularly timid soul who just sat there silently and shook. The teacher shouted at him and the rest of the class his conclusion, "So you were FORCED into it, eh?" I'll never forget the fear in those eyes.

 

I seriously doubt that any of those black kids would have EVER considered joining our troop just down the street. Anyway they would never have been allowed to by the CO. And I'm sure that those openly prejudiced scouters would have concluded that the black kids CHOSE not to join, thus confirming their prejudice.

 

Whether this was a matter of official policy or not I can't say. It certainly was condoned, however, and that could be due to what OGE suggested...that BSA tends to follow rather than lead when it comes to such social issues.

[skeptic]

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/2781/The_Black_Boy_Scout_a_history___

 

This link will give those interested a fairly good picture of Black Scouts in the history of BSA, though only a snapshot. I have run across a number of interesting items in old scouting material that discuss the "Negro Scout" and so on. They have been part of the program from the outset it appears; but as noted, it has taken decades to find them more or less on the same plane as anglos.

 

Enjoy.

[Trevorum]

Skeptic, thank you for that link! That is the most informative essay I have read about the history of racism within the BSA. I will bookmark that site.

 

"The Boy Scouts of America never drew the color line, but the movement stayed in step with the prevailing mores."

[RememberSchiff]

The sixties - equal but separate, benign neglect, civil rights movement,...

 

Was there a National/Council/Troop segregation or integration policy? Segregation existed. There were Negro troops (the term "black" was not used yet).

 

I was a young teenager in Jersey. Negro or black boys, some who were members of our CO church, would visit our troop meetings. They received a friendly greeting from us scouts, after all, they were our friends from school and we needed membership. None joined.

Their families were strongly discouraged by our adult leaders. Blatant racism? I doubt it, maybe the more subtle, practical kind that produces the same results. I recall these reasons why blacks were turned away - the troop goes places that were not open or "safe" for blacks, e.g., swimming pools and the Y ; the troop was very concerned about attacks (from outsiders?)if it integrated. Parents certainly had fears '...Look at the Phillies, which white player did Richie Allen punch this week?' If integration wasn't working for the Phillies..., not that it mattered whether a white player started the fight.

 

I came across this: "Black Boy Scouts" the Frederick Douglas District, Here's the link

http://www.amrain.com/boy_pages/1.htm

 

Scroll down the left column and look at Post-war era and Integration. Interesting reading - separate scout camps, black scouts being told not to wear the uniform, fights over council patches with Confederate themes.