Northern Star Council - Inclusive

[SeattlePioneer]

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This is the common prejudice of the secular left. It represents the ignorance of those who have lost any real knowledge or understanding of religion and its history.

 

There are plenty of rational arguments against homosexuality, which is why it represents the values of the overwhelming majority of the people of the world.

 

Against that we have a competing set of values representing "new knowledge" developed by some scientific disciplines. That new knowledge is slowly informing and changing values in many societies, usually beginning with educated elites at the top of society.

 

Just because you have "new knowledge" doesn't mean that the "old knowledge" isn't rational. What you have is political, social, scientific and cultural competition between those different value schemes.

 

Of course those educated elites are used to dictating cultural values to everyone else, and when they don't get their way they get frustrated and angry. That's where we are with BSA.

 

But that represents either impatience or a fundamentally flawed idea. Take your pick.

 

 

[AZMike]

Faith - that is, the personal extension of belief based on a variety of forms of necessarily incomplete evidence, and the change of one's behavior based on the results of that belief, is based on reason, by definition.

 

Certainly, the mountain of scientific evidence that shows the positive psychological, emotional, and medical benefits of religious belief (and the corresponding deleterious psychological, emotional, and medical effects of disbelief) demonstrates that religious faith is by no means a bad thing.

 

The enormous majority of reasonable, rational people throughout history, up to the present date, who are also people of faith demonstrates that reason and faith are not incompatible. The number of non-believers who have espoused other irrational (and often genocidal) beliefs provides good supporting data.

 

To argue that the tiny demographic subculture of those who have no faith represents the only "rational" people would seem to be the geeky delusion of that subculture.(This message has been edited by AZMike)

[johnponz]

SP,

 

For some reason I think you got me all wrong. I am actually a fairly religious person, but I understand that you cannot rationally explain a belief in something that you cannot see or measure. You simply have to BELIEVE, and there is nothing wrong with that. There is nothing wrong with having faith. It has gotten me through some really tough patches in my life, and I am certain that there is a God.

 

I was just trying to explain how BSA is organized and why I think that the organization is unlikely to change its collective mind anytime soon. I really think a lot of people associated with Scouting believe that national is some sort of government or democracy when it is not. People think that the National organization is incompetent. However when you look at it from the standpoint of how corporate governance works, you start to realize, they pretty much act like any other business or non-profit.

 

That was my only real point.

 

Not that it really matters, but I happen to agree with BSA's policy, but that is really not the information that I was trying to convey.

 

[Oak Tree]

Saw a couple of updates on the Northern Star Council topic in this story: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/national-boy-scout-policy-against-openly-gay-members-flouted-by-local-counc/

 

- at least one other council unofficially says they don't follow the policy either - "The sentiment of the Northern Star Council appeared to be echoed in at least one other local Council: a woman who answered the phone at the Chicago Area Council declined to speak officially, but indicated local leaders didnt feel an obligation to hold to national standards on the issue. This is a national policy. Each council is run separately, so what they do, we might not do, she told LifeSiteNews.com."

 

- And at least one church says they've broken ties with the council due to this policy - "After the Tribune report emerged, Rev. John Echert, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in South St. Paul, Minnesota, told LSN that he immediately broke his churchs ties with the Twin Cities group" - I don't really know what that means, though. It's not clear whether any actual Scout units disbanded, or what.

[RememberSchiff]

And at least one church says they've broken ties with the council due to this policy - "After the Tribune report emerged, Rev. John Echert, pastor of Holy Trinity Parish in South St. Paul, Minnesota, told LSN that he immediately broke his churchs ties with the Twin Cities group"

 

I could be wrong, my understanding is that was Father John's first response but then he learned that inclusion was by local option and not compulsory. See my earlier post of his church bulletin Aug 5 REFLECTIONS PARISH SCOUT UPDATE, page 8 of this post.

[moosetracker]

It was also cited in some article that Minute Man also didn't follow it. I was surprised to hear that, as I had heard earlier they tried to and National smacked them back into submission (along with Philidelphia)..

 

I thought that name sounded familure as to it being the letter your posted RS.. You saved me from having to go back some pages to double check.

[Oak Tree]

RS, thanks for the correction. You'd think I'd have read all of the posts on the thread first...

 

I note the error in the article as well - they stated that Holy Trinity had ended their program, when clearly they had not.

 

The Chicago Area Council news isn't all that surprising. I'm sure that a large number of councils practice a don't-ask-don't-tell policy, or even more than that, don't take any action even if they are told. Really, why would you? If the unit doesn't care and the CO doesn't care, I think most councils would just not rock the boat.

 

What's surprising is that the Northern Star Council is talking about it publicly. Is their SE near the end of his career? I'd think that you might find some other SEs who were about to retire, who could take that position if they wanted to make a point. As long as the council board is in agreement, seems like there would be relatively little that National could do.

 

Don't ya just love it?

[BadenP]

Beavah

 

Your so called legal premise concerning the SE is not only innaccurate but just plain wrong!!!

 

Yes the SE can be released by the council board however he is not really fired in the true sense since National in 99.9% of the cases will just transfer him to another position in another council or worse yet give him a position at National. While the SE is morally obligated, but not legally, to look out for the best interests of the council many times we have seen that does not happen, I personally as a DE had three different SE's in five years at the same council. As far as the legality goes one of the SE's was let go for embezzelment of council funds, however he was just tranferred to another bigger council by National and the council was still out the funds until National replaced most of them years later. The next SE from the National list came in, saw its financial status and began selling off the councils assets starting with allowing tree harvesting at the camp, then eventually selling the camp to developers, all approved by the council board who were 98% hand selected by him. Three years after I left the professional scouting the council was closed due to financial insolvency.

 

This is becoming an all too common story in many councils nationwide. Where is the financial and legal responsibility of the SE to the council Beavah?? It doesn't exsist is the correct answer. The poor councils are then stuck with HAVING to select their next SE from a list of retread SE's supplied by National. So you see Beavah your explaination may be the way it is supposed to be but it is NOT the reality of the situation, and never has been.

[Beavah]

Yah, badenP, I don't think we really disagree. Da legal situation is as I have described. Da practical situation is largely as you have described. Mostly that's because of da conflict-of-interest problem that the BSA situation sets up, plus the fact that BSA execs by and large have never taken any real training in law or business. They generally only have internal BSA training, which conveniently omits stuff that da rest of the world would teach.

 

Da moral obligation is as both of us have described, but alas it is a rare person who acts ethically in da face of systems and a threat to livelihood which are set up in a way that normalizes unethical behavior.

 

B

[Fehler]

We at the Northern Star Council are out and proud! If the Chicago Area Council wants to stay in the closet about its policy, well, that's to them.

 

Maybe the "quiet shuffle" of the SE's worked in the past, but that was prior to Google, e-mail, and scouter.com. I can't imagine a reprehensible SE being foisted on an unaware council in this day of age.

[nldscout]

Boy am I disappointed. Somehow a discussion on gays got hijacked into one about religion. What a shame.

[BadenP]

Fehler

 

You greatly underestimate the ability of National has in keeping all that information under wraps so that the details are never made public and NOTHING will ever be found on google or anywhere else. The council board also does not want any bad publicity so all of this is done behind closed doors with National reps when it involves an SE gone bad.

[WasE61]

"Boy am I disappointed. Somehow a discussion on gays got hijacked into one about religion. What a shame."

 

Well, hopefully, you are surprised by that, since most discriminatory practices have some origin in religion...or more specifically, perturbations of religions by factions or sub-leaders with their own power agendas.

 

"We got big trouble! Right here in River City!"

 

- I don't know God, or what he said, but I'm kinda suspicious of the idea he told it to King James.

 

 

[Fehler]

Maybe National can keep official actions under wraps. And the SE's, too. But I can google the Key Three for any district in the country, I can get e-mail addresses from most of the nation's Scoutmasters from troop web sites. If there's a problem, someone knows something, and would be willing to talk about it.

[BadenP]

Fehler

 

Now you are just comparing apples to oranges and it is not applicable with the topic at hand. Besides the positions you mention are transitory in nature and many probably out of date.