LDS Scouting Mixing With Non-LDS Scouting

[Rick_in_CA]

The anti-LDS attitudes is as bad as the anti-Catholic attitudes I've experienced. I even had one potential leader, write a very long, abusive letter about he and his family will not join Scouts since they let Catholics in it.

 

Better off without him.

 

Wow! I just don't understand people like this. You are definitely better off without that kind of bigotry in your unit.

[TAHAWK]

"Teach your children well."

 

Every once and a while, things turn out, prejudice-wise,despite the best bad efforts of parents

 

When I became an SM for the second time, I inherited an all-White troop in a decidedly diverse community. When a Japanese Scout joined (dad was doing a rotation at Cleveland Clinic) certan parents acted oddly.("Why he [doctor's kid] hardly speaks English.") When two Black kids joined, within two months those three families pulled a total of five kids out of the troop. They told me in a letter that the safety of their children required their action. One of the Black kids ("Juan"), they told me, was a murderer. When I contacted the high school and the police, I was not surprised to find that neither of the newcomers had any criminal record. The offended parents didn't want to be confused with facts..

 

Twenty years later, I met one of the "pulled," now in his mid-thirties, Donald. He was a social worker. I had to ask, and no, Mom and Dad were not happy with his career path. Juan, it seems had intervened on his behalf at a Camporee when someone was bullying this young man. For him, the facts had an impact all his parents' worst efforts could not overcome.

 

One can hope.