May 23rd predictions and post-vote plans

[Basementdweller]

Let me see May 23rd is a Thursday night......

 

Wife is home, No music lessons.....Thursday night is 1/2 price appetizers and margaritas at the local mexican joint before 6........

 

So looks like Shrimp Fajitas for 2 a couple of margarita and home to the patio for some bourbon and cigars.....Hopefully the neighbors are home I enjoy their company on the patio.

 

Sounds like a great evening.

 

 

Is there something else happening that is important that day????

 

I don't think so.

 

[acco40]

It has become very tiresome to continue to have certain individuals posting over the top opinions about National's policy. While it is certainly not exactly 21st century, and it can be at times very burdensome and ill advised, I cannot see that it is "hateful", purposely intended to demean Gays, or a witch hunt to find them and remove them. There is a definite disconnect between what I would call the real scouting, that is on the unit level, done by volunteers within the basic standards of their particular charter org. Reality is, that even today, close to 70% of the general population in this country has pretty much unspoken, but traditional values. While there is far more tolerance and less chest beating by the majority, the larger majority of society still chooses to not associate directly with Gays and other related individuals. They accept that they have certain rights and must be tolerated without public turmoil; but they also choose to have as little interconnection with them as they can. That is not hatred; it is not bigotry, it is simply their right to move in the elements of society in which they are comfortable.

 

BSA needs to find a workable solution to this. But that solution should not force the majority to interrelate should they choose not to; nor should those that are more open to acceptance or are part of the minority be disallowed to participate within their own groups or barred from general larger group participation. Those that are so thin skinned that they cannot abide anyone with different beliefs or styles of life anywhere near them need to simply follow their own choice and not intermix if the situation arises. Just like in the general public, most will have little or no actual knowledge of these issues, as they technically are not a direct part of the real program and are delegated to the parents or guardians should it become necessary.

 

Both fringes of this Political Spectacle should simply be ignored and butt out, as they have no interest in BSA and its basic program. Let the wheels of change continue to move, and stop demonizing either side. That is the problem in the country today; our leaders set such a poor example with their polarization in government, that somehow it becomes a similar focus in just about any other politically charged public interaction.

 

Now, I will sit back and await the vitriol; but this is my simple opinion. And I continue to just not get why so many cannot just allow people to be people and to keep their noses out of others' lives as much as possible. Freedom is not license. Rights are not absolute. Find your comfort zone, and play within it; but if it does not mesh with someone else, just accept it and move on.

Baloney. So you don't see it as hateful that the organization states that they believe that homosexual conduct is inconsistent with the requirement in the Scout Oath that a Scout be morally straight and in the Scout Law that a Scout be clean in word and deed, and that homosexuals do not provide a desirable role model for Scouts. But the ban on homosexuals had nothing to do with conduct - a celebate priest, if self declared as a homosexual, would have been denied membership. That was my beef.

 

The simple workable solution is to get rid of these idiotic restrictions. Labelling folks as "fringe" is a red herring and making a blanket statement that they have no interest is the BSA is a lie at worst and just plain ignorant at best. For me, I don't demonize individuals that don't agree with me on this position but I also think the "just shut-up and let the situation resolve itself" response is very trite.

[Faith]

and I shall finish the game.... scout on! scout on! scout on! I may continue to push internally for what I believe to be the morally correct path for BSA to follow - but it will change very little (if anything) at the local unit level. So long as my sons have an interest' date=' we will be active in scouting.[/quote']

 

Pretty much my feelings on it. I don't see any huge changes impacting our little corner but then again I'm still learning all the ins and outs of it all.

[BadenP]

What I found interesting after watching the video conference on National's website is that allowing gay scouts will be all inclusive and not be at the discretion of any CO. That means that if if gay boy wants to join an LDS troop, a Catholic troop or any other conservative groups troop the CO will be unable to deny him membership with the current wording of the proposal. IMHO I do not see the LDS and many other CO's with an anti gay position remaining in scouting. I think the BSA shot themselves in the foot once again by not giving the CO the option based on their religious principles. If this passes on May 23rd we all may be witnessing the beginning of the demise of boy scouting. Yet another case of National trying to mandate to the CO's an unenforceable policy. Maybe it is time to bring back Woodcraft Rangers, Sons of Daniel Boone, etc.

[Faith]

What I found interesting after watching the video conference on National's website is that allowing gay scouts will be all inclusive and not be at the discretion of any CO. That means that if if gay boy wants to join an LDS troop' date=' a Catholic troop or any other conservative groups troop the CO will be unable to deny him membership with the current wording of the proposal. IMHO I do not see the LDS and many other CO's with an anti gay position remaining in scouting. I think the BSA shot themselves in the foot once again by not giving the CO the option based on their religious principles. If this passes on May 23rd we all may be witnessing the beginning of the demise of boy scouting. Yet another case of National trying to mandate to the CO's an unenforceable policy. Maybe it is time to bring back Woodcraft Rangers, Sons of Daniel Boone, etc.[/quote']

 

I didn't get to see that, I had read online about it would be at the discretion of each individual CO (or council?) but that was quite awhile back. Was that something that was already voted on and what you are stating was the outcome?

[Rick_in_CA]

@Rick in CA: You cannot seriously think that the people who don't want gays in Scouting are on an all out crusade to get ride of the non-Christians too.

 

An all out crusade? No, though there is a small minority (as you pointed out) that would like that. What I have seen, is that there is a large group of people that would like to see the BSA become (or in their opinion, remain) a de facto Christian organization that allows others, but follows Christian beliefs (sort of like the AHG). In discussions of the membership question, when people are asked about "what about other faiths?" I heard a lot of "I don't care about the others, they have to conform to Christian beliefs if they want to be here." (or something to that effect). And of course, just about all these people define "Christian" as "conservative Christian".

 

Basically I saw that a lot of the people (though not all) in the anti-membership change camp were very dismissive of different beliefs ("Don't talk to me about nonsectarian! That's just PC b# s# they had to put in to keep funding from the United Way!").

 

Yes, they are a minority (at least I hope they are - they are in my council), but there are a lot of them. My fear is that if they win the vote, it will empower them to push their point-of-view in more areas. I have already met one scouter that said he was effectively made unwelcome (at council and district events) in his old council simply because he was a Muslim and offered to lead an opening prayer at a round table.

 

Think about it, arguing against inclusion of gays based on religious belief is incompatible with nonsectarian. How many of the people making that argument know that but just don't care? For many scouters, nonsectarian is something to be ignored. For some, it's something to be gotten rid of.

 

Already there are districts where if you are a non-Christian scout or scouter, you will have your face rubbed in that fact at every event. And for some scouters, that is the point.

 

Maybe I'm overreacting to things said in heat. But I was surprised how little respect some people have for faiths other than their own.

[King Ding Dong]

What I found interesting after watching the video conference on National's website is that allowing gay scouts will be all inclusive and not be at the discretion of any CO. That means that if if gay boy wants to join an LDS troop, a Catholic troop or any other conservative groups troop the CO will be unable to deny him membership with the current wording of the proposal. IMHO I do not see the LDS and many other CO's with an anti gay position remaining in scouting. I think the BSA shot themselves in the foot once again by not giving the CO the option based on their religious principles. If this passes on May 23rd we all may be witnessing the beginning of the demise of boy scouting. Yet another case of National trying to mandate to the CO's an unenforceable policy. Maybe it is time to bring back Woodcraft Rangers, Sons of Daniel Boone, etc.

The LDS has already come out in support of the proposal.

[Huzzar]

What I found interesting after watching the video conference on National's website is that allowing gay scouts will be all inclusive and not be at the discretion of any CO. That means that if if gay boy wants to join an LDS troop, a Catholic troop or any other conservative groups troop the CO will be unable to deny him membership with the current wording of the proposal. IMHO I do not see the LDS and many other CO's with an anti gay position remaining in scouting. I think the BSA shot themselves in the foot once again by not giving the CO the option based on their religious principles. If this passes on May 23rd we all may be witnessing the beginning of the demise of boy scouting. Yet another case of National trying to mandate to the CO's an unenforceable policy. Maybe it is time to bring back Woodcraft Rangers, Sons of Daniel Boone, etc.

I think that's an incorrect assessment of the change if it goes through. As my DE told me when we had a troublesome yoot "no unit is obligated to offer Scouting to a particular boy." That means National/Council/Districts don't get to tell a bunch of volunteers that they MUST accept somebody.

 

The change, if it goes through, means the Scout can't be kicked out of Scouting in its entirety solely based on sexual preference.

[Huzzar]

@Rick in CA: You cannot seriously think that the people who don't want gays in Scouting are on an all out crusade to get ride of the non-Christians too.

 

An all out crusade? No, though there is a small minority (as you pointed out) that would like that. What I have seen, is that there is a large group of people that would like to see the BSA become (or in their opinion, remain) a de facto Christian organization that allows others, but follows Christian beliefs (sort of like the AHG). In discussions of the membership question, when people are asked about "what about other faiths?" I heard a lot of "I don't care about the others, they have to conform to Christian beliefs if they want to be here." (or something to that effect). And of course, just about all these people define "Christian" as "conservative Christian".

 

Basically I saw that a lot of the people (though not all) in the anti-membership change camp were very dismissive of different beliefs ("Don't talk to me about nonsectarian! That's just PC b# s# they had to put in to keep funding from the United Way!").

 

Yes, they are a minority (at least I hope they are - they are in my council), but there are a lot of them. My fear is that if they win the vote, it will empower them to push their point-of-view in more areas. I have already met one scouter that said he was effectively made unwelcome (at council and district events) in his old council simply because he was a Muslim and offered to lead an opening prayer at a round table.

 

Think about it, arguing against inclusion of gays based on religious belief is incompatible with nonsectarian. How many of the people making that argument know that but just don't care? For many scouters, nonsectarian is something to be ignored. For some, it's something to be gotten rid of.

 

Already there are districts where if you are a non-Christian scout or scouter, you will have your face rubbed in that fact at every event. And for some scouters, that is the point.

 

Maybe I'm overreacting to things said in heat. But I was surprised how little respect some people have for faiths other than their own.

Can you name and shame these districts or is it all in your head?

[Rick_in_CA]

Can you name and shame these districts or is it all in your head?

 

Can I name the district? Unfortunately no.

 

The Muslim scouter that told me about his old council did tell it's name, and where it was. But that was at a district bbq three years ago, and I don't remember (I just remember it wasn't in a western state - yah, big help there). What I can tell you is basically the story he told me: He had been attending his district round table, and noticed that they were always opened with an overtly Christian prayer. This didn't bother him much, he just assumed that was because only Christians were volunteering to lead the prayer. So he offered to lead the opening prayer at the next round table. He was told that non-Christian prayers were not allowed, and to justify that he was told a story about the last time it was tried (basically the result was threats and violence - he told me the story as he remembered it, we both felt it was so over the top - it had to be grossly exaggerated). He then felt that several scouters went out of their way to make him feel uncomfortable at district and council events (such as the person leading the prayer instead of standing in front of the room, that person would come over and stand in front of him or another Muslim scouter when leading the prayer - or including phrases like "bring Jesus to the non-believers" in the prayers). He told me he reached out to other scouters for support, and didn't get any. So he stopped going to round table and other council events.

 

Of course this is one persons point of view, is he exaggerating or misinterpreting? Maybe. I assume he was basically honest about his experiences.

 

My personal guess is that what he encountered was not an official policy of the district or council, it was the result of a group of scouter volunteers taking it upon themselves to "Christianize" things, and no one was willing or interested in challenging them (or perhaps it was an anti-Muslim thing).

 

Of course, maybe he made up the whole thing, and it's all in his head. I don't really know.

[DigitalScout]

That means that if if gay boy wants to join an LDS troop' date=' a Catholic troop or any other conservative groups troop the CO will be unable to deny him membership with the current wording of the proposal. IMHO I do not see the LDS and many other CO's with an anti gay position remaining in scouting. I think the BSA shot themselves in the foot once again by not giving the CO the option based on their religious principles. [/quote']

 

Both churches accept (celibate) gay members do why would they reject gay scouts? So I don't understand why there is this assumption that the Catholic Church and LDS will fold their units if they are required to accept gay scouts. The Southern Baptist Conference is the only large BSA member who is so anti-gay that they may not allow any gay members in their church and may leave the BSA.

[EmberMike]

To be fair, the BSA has a century more history than the BPSA, so the big difference in membership numbers is expected. More significantly, I'd look at the percentage growth of the BSA vs. the BPSA, which I'm sure will be significantly higher for the BPSA and will continue to remain so regardless of how the vote goes next week. I'd expect that BPSA growth rate to increase significantly if the BSA vote reaffirms the membership policy.

Why would they be sued out of business? They're not doing anything illegal. BSA forced them to take "Scout" out of their name, they did, there's nothing else legally that the BSA can claim ownership of. Scouting is a global movement, the BSA doesn't own it.

[ghjim]

BPSA founded in 2008 and run out of a guys basement in Washington Mo. (small town outside of St. Louis) 19 units nationwide. Not sure I would jump

in with both feet with this group if the vote does not go your way. Last I read about them they were looking for donations to fund background checks

for potential leaders. I guess all groups have to start somewhere.

BPUSA is much bigger world-wide. Just starting up in the US.

[Krampus]

What I can tell you is basically the story he told me: He had been attending his district round table' date=' and noticed that they were always opened with an overtly Christian prayer. This didn't bother him much, he just assumed that was because only Christians were volunteering to lead the prayer. So he offered to lead the opening prayer at the next round table. He was told that non-Christian prayers were not allowed, and to justify that he was told a story about the last time it was tried (basically the result was threats and violence - he told me the story as he remembered it, we both felt it was so over the top - it had to be grossly exaggerated).[/quote']

 

We attended a summer camp a long while back where the camp chaplain (eastern state, rural) was Jesus-this and Jesus-that. I pointed out that many troops had Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other religions and he should be more open. His replay, "Jesus will eventually speak to them." :rollseyes:

 

I doubt this is wide spread, but it is out there.

 

[King Ding Dong]

What I can tell you is basically the story he told me: He had been attending his district round table' date=' and noticed that they were always opened with an overtly Christian prayer. This didn't bother him much, he just assumed that was because only Christians were volunteering to lead the prayer. So he offered to lead the opening prayer at the next round table. He was told that non-Christian prayers were not allowed, and to justify that he was told a story about the last time it was tried (basically the result was threats and violence - he told me the story as he remembered it, we both felt it was so over the top - it had to be grossly exaggerated).[/quote']

 

We attended a summer camp a long while back where the camp chaplain (eastern state, rural) was Jesus-this and Jesus-that. I pointed out that many troops had Jews, Muslims, Hindus and other religions and he should be more open. His replay, "Jesus will eventually speak to them." :rollseyes:

 

I doubt this is wide spread, but it is out there.

Even the quote machine is buggy. That was posted by Rick not Huzzar.