Deseret News: Editorial On Scouting

[AZMike]

I was thinking the other day that it is too bad that the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's didn't encompass ALL the groups that need the changes to occur...would have been a lot more efficient.

Just like Bill Clinton was confused when he signed the Defense of Marriage Act, or Obama was confused when he said he believed marriage was only between a man or a woman. Those statements went right down the Memory Hole.

[ghjim]

Great article and well said.

 

Not trying to re-open debate. BSA needs out of the political positioning battle. And it should be very easy. Just let each charter org choose their leaders and their members. And then move on. USA is not a homogeneous population. We are a nation of many beliefs and values. Let BSA provide the program and structure and then let the charter orgs run their units. And if a value / belief difference affects specific charter org membership, that's a decision of the specific charter org. Then, let the market drive which charter orgs people join.

I was certainly in favor of the local option. But it was my understanding that the survey the BSA finally did indicated that the majority of the membership was against it.

[Scouter99]

I liked one of the comments to the article:

 

"I don't think that being a Boy Scout had a darn thing to do with me becoming a responsible adult. Sure was fun, though."

 

I tend to agree with that.

Scouting was largely a reactionary movement to combat social pitfalls of the industrial age among urban boys. Scouting today is couched in the suburbs, which have their own problems, but where boys do not face anything like the problems that urban boys continue to face. So, no, for the vast majority of boys who go into Scouting as just one more extracurricular, Scouting does not have the impact that it has for its original target.