Philly Boy Scouts tell National org to get bent over anti-gay policies

[giza]

For those of you who aren't too familiar with the Boy Scouts of America, they have had a long standing policy of discriminating against gay people. If you're gay, you're not allowed to be a scout or a leader. Their justification for doing this is that part of the Scout Oath has the phrase "morally straight" in it. That's right, the Old White Men who run the BSA say that being gay is immoral.

I am an Eagle Scout and I find this policy repugnant. Imagine my joy when I just read today that Philadelphia's Cradle of Liberty Council pretty much told the national organization to get bent with regards to that policy by voting to end discrimination against gays:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/5972758.htm (Philadelphia Inquirer article)

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/editorial/5981415.htm (Editorial)

The best part of the first article is where Gregg Shields from the National Council said, "We recognize that not everybody agrees with our policy, and we respect their opinions, but we ask their tolerance of the values that we hold." Ah, so I guess his definition of "tolerance" means "excluding people whose sexual orientation we don't like". Asshole.

It'll be interesting to see how this pans out, but I'll be sending a note to the Cradle of Liberty Council shortly telling them that I support their actions and hope that more councils follow suit.

Comments

[sympolarbear.livejournal.com]

*smiles* YES, bout time on that its been way too long in coming. As a former scout I fully support ya on this one. I am proud of the time I had in the BSA and was an Eagle Scout as well. But due to their policy I am not allowed any involvement in their activities. Yet the BSA policy is in no way a reflection of the overall world scouting movement as in several other countries such discrimination does not exist. Hopefully this will be the start of ending or changing the BSA rules as it does a great disrespect with its ignorance.

Tolerance?

[doniago.livejournal.com]

It's ironic that Mr. Shields's sentence, in which he asks for acceptance of a policy that some may find personally flawed, shows far more tolerance than your comment immediately following it.

Insulting those whose views you don't like is not the way to gain understanding.

Re: Tolerance?

[giza.livejournal.com]

I was not claiming to be tolerant. I won't make any claims that I can't back up. :-)

>Insulting those whose views you don't like is not the way to gain understanding.

Then please tell that to the BSA, who has alienated a whole lot of people by running around saying "gay == immoral". They used to also say, "gay == pedophilia", but I think they stopped with that line a few years back.

Re: Tolerance?

[doniago.livejournal.com]

But they were speaking out of fear and ignorance, and you were speaking with full awareness of what you were saying.
There's also the difference between a personal attack such as 'asshole!' and a dispute of facts/opinions.

[blaze-heartfire.livejournal.com]

urg... this is so annoying to see how long this is taking in the end... if this was a race issue, or a religious issue... do you have any idea how fast they would be DEAD? No jews? Dead. No blacks? Dead. No gays however? hmmm I dunno... *twiddle thumbs* It's nice to see some action being taken, and the public and others showing that this will not be tollerated... and it is about time. But yeah that little quote is really... really iritating >.< Respect their right to descriminate against others? I mean C'MON!!! >.

[technomom]

If the BSA wants tolerance of their values, why aren't they extending that same tolerance to others?

I've long had problems with the BSA because of that policy and a few others, like religious discrimination. I'm glad the GSUSA doesn't do that! I have a pride flag pin that says "Girl Scouts Celebrate Diversity" that I bought at the official GS store here in Atlanta :-)

[unciaa.livejournal.com]

Ahyes, tolerance for intolerance, love that reasoning.

[shockwave77598.livejournal.com]

Personally, I'm torn on the issue. Yes, it's a bad thing to have an intolerant organization which denies membership to people because of some silly bias someone somewhere on high has. Wasn't there a time when the Boy Scouts denied membership to people of color as well? I seem to remember a scandal about that somewhen. I don't view their ignorance about gays as being anything different than the long-held ignorance about other races.

And yet, for all that, they are still a private organization and still free to set their membership requirements to whatever they see fit. It's not a govt office, it's a social club and they can say yes or no to whoever they please for whatever (stupid) reason they please. So, I'm torn between competing problems - intolerent people at the helm of an otherwise good organization on one hand, and the right to peaceful assembly on the other. It's a quandry and no solution will make everybody happy.

[giza.livejournal.com]

I did a Google search and was unable to find any evidence of racism. However, I found an interesting FAQ at http://users.aol.com/coffeeweb/LO/faq6.htm (http://users.aol.com/coffeeweb/LO/faq6.htm) which talks about black people who are in Scouting. It was an interesting read.

>And yet, for all that, they are still a private organization
>and still free to set their membership requirements to whatever
>they see fit. It's not a govt office

It's not quite that simple. Part of the thing that complicates this is that the Boy Scouts are a non-profit, a 501(c)3 tax-exempt organization. I've read things that the IRS apparently isn't very happy about this. That could have drastic consequences for the Boy Scouts if their non-profit status gets yanked.

Also, I remember during a flareup way back when I was in high school, the Boy Scouts said, "We're a private organization, we can do this if we want". This prompted some groups who contributed lots of money (like the United Way) to say, "okay, we're not giving you any more money". Oh, how things were different then. It was okay for the BSA to do what they wanted to but not for their sponsors to do the same. I saw a bunch of whiny articles in Scouting Magazine about "these companies trying to force THE GAY AGENDA on us". It was really unbelievable.

As I said in my post, I still think that the national council is run by a bunch of narrow-minded Old White Men who don't like anyone who isn't like them. (They apparently don't like women in leadership positions, either, but that is an entirely different rant. Ask me on FurryMUCK sometime.)