Is Local Option An Illusion?

[desertrat77]

Not to worry, they will be leaving, and it might be kinda important to BSA to know why.  I don't think BSA thought this one through very well, and telling people to shut up and leave really is an appropriate suggestion to be making.  It lacks a certain veneer of friendliness and courtesy.  After all you are talking about a cadre of people who have been more than loyal to a program that has been waning for years now.

Stosh, very true.   Loyal scouters have kept the spirit of scouting alive for years now.    They've stayed true despite the ambivalence of National towards traditional, historic scouting. 

 

While I agree that it's important that National knows why people will be leaving, the folks at Irving probably don't care.  And if they did, they probably don't have the savvy to figure out what to do about it.   Since '72, they have failed to cobble together any semblance of a viable, sustained vision for the future.   (Exception:   GB Bill's short return circa '79.)     In fact, at times they've launched programs and policies that run contrary to traditional scouting (six foot signal towers?   Improved Scouting Program where camping MB was not required for Eagle?   Etc.).

 

The topic of this thread aside, scouting has already become an extended version of WB21.  And I don't mean that as a compliment.

Edited August 9, 2015 by desertrat77

[JoeBob]

I wish these folks would stop threatening to leave and just leave already if that's what they want - they would have had to been blind not to notice the handwriting on the wall two years ago so it shouldn't have been that big of a surprise

We noticed the writing on the page.  Assured that Gay Boys in the troop would not lead to Gay Adults as leadership examples, we believed and adjusted.  If you think that we were blind to assume that BSA was trustworthy, you may have a point.

 

The written promises proved to be false.

Now we're being told that religious CO's right to approve their leaders will be legally protected from activists.

More promises that we want to believe.

But we've been fooled before.

 

So we're talking about it in the 'Issues and Politics' section of the forum.  If being on the other side of the issue makes you uncomfortable when we discuss the impact of past lies and deception, please take you own advise:  just leave already.

[moosetracker]

Hmmm, maybe those opposing the policy should have told those supporting it to "shut up and leave". Did not hear much of that happen, did we?

 

 I heard those comments a lot in these forums..  Many did not want us to stay and push for change, but to leave and suggested we start our own group..  I do not think the answer then was to try to push us out, I don't think the answer now is for us to try to push you out..  But, I do think the answer is within everyone personally as to what is the best way for them to either figure out how to continue on and be true to your own convictions, or not..  No one can tell you what is right for you personally. All I can say is many of us who pushed for this change found reasons to stay with BSA and push for the right to be able to follow our own religious convictions eventually..

 

We noticed the writing on the page.  Assured that Gay Boys in the troop would not lead to Gay Adults as leadership examples, we believed and adjusted.  If you think that we were blind to assume that BSA was trustworthy, you may have a point.

 

You might have heard that they would not change Adult leadership in the near future, but it was always worded in a way that told you that eventually the change would come, and that the majority of leadership at National knew this was the right direction that eventually had to happen.. They were just planning and hoping not to get as cornered as they did into making this change this soon after the change on the homosexual youth.. They wanted the conservative groups to get adjusted to the first change before taking the next step.. 

 

There was a pool as to when the change would come in our neck of the woods.. This change came earlier then I thought, my bet was for 5 years after they voted to accept gay youth.. Others I knew thought it would be only a year, but I knew that would have been too early.. Still others guessed it would be later then my 5 year prediction, but not much later.. I think the latest was about 7 years last I heard.

[CalicoPenn]

They don't have to shut up and leave and I never suggested that they should - My suggestion is that if they truly have the courage of their convictions, then stop telling us that you're going to leave and act on your convictions.  Threatening to leave and then staying around while continuing to say you're going to  leave sure doesn't make it seem that you're all that upset about the issue.  When openly gay youth were finally accepted into the program, the folks that left for Trail Life didn't spend weeks threatening to leave - they just left, and National knows why they left (or at least in theory knows since Trail Life apparently welcomes gay youth too).  The Bishop of Bismarck didn't spend days and weeks threatening to stop chartering units, he just issued an edict that the entities controlled by his diocese had to stop chartering BSA units, and National knows full well why.

 

Bad Wolf, you weren't hanging out on this forum when members of this forum were telling people who opposed the old policy to "shut up and leave if you don't like it" quite regularly.  The difference is that those opponents weren't threatening to take their ball and go home.  Now, we're seeing not only major sponsors claiming that they just might leave (and I think we all know that what they're trying to do is blackmail the Executive Committee into changing their mind) but we're seeing folks saying things like 'when my son finishes his Eagle Scout, we're out of Scouting for good' and 'when Webelos is finished for the year, we're leaving the Boy Scouts'.  Really?  So you're really hacked off about the issue but you'll ignore it until your son earns Eagle Scout from an organization that you no longer like or respect?  Why should anyone take someone who expresses that seriously?

[fred johnson]

Mis-post 

Edited August 10, 2015 by fred johnson

[fred johnson]

The reason I tend to rattle people's chain like @@fred johnson 's is not because I'm anti-Eagle, it's because I want all those Eagles, and Lifers, and Stars to have something of quality when they move on to other things in life. 

 

You're blinded by wanting to say what you want to say without bothering to address the thread of discussion.  You found a hole to bring up your favorite topic and did.  Geezzzzz....

 

That's why I'm rattled.  Whether you're right or wrong or just pontificating again doesn't matter.   You damaged the thread of discussion with a repeat of a 1000 of your previous posts.

 

You rattle my chain because you're adding noise instead of value.

[Stosh]

I don't believe I brought up the subject of Eagle rank as a marketing brand in the Local Option thread.  

[NJCubScouter]

That's enough rattling of people's chains (mixed metaphor though it may be), and enough getting rattled. Please.

[fred johnson]

That's enough rattling of people's chains (mixed metaphor though it may be), and enough getting rattled. Please.

 

My apologies.

[acco40]

"At every point, the Scout leadership tells us that they will go this far and no farther, but here we are again -- so it's hard for me to believe, in the long term, that the Boy Scouts will allow religious groups to have the freedom to choose their own leaders," Moore told Baptist Press July 14.

 

I don't think the BSA has ever denied a "religious group" (ie. a Scouting Unit) the freedom to choose their own leaders except in an exclusionary way.  In other words, they never forced a unit to choose a particular leader but they have banned units from choosing particular leaders.  Now, with this new ruling, what Scouting Units are receiving is more freedom to choose their own leaders. 

 

JoeBob, don't you agree?  As for perceiving this change as not trustworthy - I see that as quite a stretch.  The BSA continuously "tweaks" rank requirements and other such things in the program.  We all don't agree that these "tweaks" are necessarily for the better but I don't necessarily view them as underhanded or not trustworthy. 

Edited August 11, 2015 by acco40

[SSScout]

Local Option....  It was there alllllong time ago.   I know of a RCatholic Church that will refuse membership to anyone not of their type of RCatholicism.  I know of a Muslim Troop that has openly said they will accept anyone into their membership so long as they realize that this is a Muslim , observant group, in all  things.  Both are very Scout oriented, but from Their view  point.  

 There have been COs and Units that have used Scouting for their Youth Ministry (sound familiar?), and adjusted the program to fit.  Did anyone in Irving complain about that?  There have been COs and Units  (and Scouters on this website!)  that  believed in the Truth of the Scout Promise and Law, and pointed out to Irving when the words did not agree with the actions.  What has been the result of that?

Is the image of The Scout tarnished as a result of this or that  re-interpretation of our Promise and Law?   Those haven't changed.  They still stand.  Compare the wording of the explanation of each point of the SP and the SL in the New SHB and FB to those in the older versions, say from the forties and fifties.   What has changed in those definitions?  I see only some adaptations to "modern" language.   And, we are not asked to "hand over" one's Scout badge if the Scout did not do exactly as he was asked to do....

The "new" standards are , if you think about it, not so new, but only admissions as to what we really mean by our SP and SL.  

What happened when folks really thought about that phrase "all men are created equal"....    It basically came down to admitting who was a man, after all, not whether  some were more equal than others......

Edited August 11, 2015 by SSScout

[skeptic]

Local Option....  It was there alllllong time ago.   I know of a RCatholic Church that will refuse membership to anyone not of their type of RCatholicism.  I know of a Muslim Troop that has openly said they will accept anyone into their membership so long as they realize that this is a Muslim , observant group, in all  things.  Both are very Scout oriented, but from Their view  point.  

 There have been COs and Units that have used Scouting for their Youth Ministry (sound familiar?), and adjusted the program to fit.  Did anyone in Irving complain about that?  There have been COs and Units  (and Scouters on this website!)  that  believed in the Truth of the Scout Promise and Law, and pointed out to Irving when the words did not agree with the actions.  What has been the result of that?

Is the image of The Scout tarnished as a result of this or that  re-interpretation of our Promise and Law?   Those haven't changed.  They still stand.  Compare the wording of the explanation of each point of the SP and the SL in the New SHB and FB to those in the older versions, say from the forties and fifties.   What has changed in those definitions?  I see only some adaptations to "modern" language.   And, we are not asked to "hand over" one's Scout badge if the Scout did not do exactly as he was asked to do....

The "new" standards are , if you think about it, not so new, but only admissions as to what we really mean by our SP and SL.  

What happened when folks really thought about that phrase "all men are created equal"....    It basically came down to admitting who was a man, after all, not whether  some were more equal than others......

 

Oh quit being so logical and using common sense.  We live in the age of egocentrism to the max.