From: Janyce Wright (justjanw@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Tue Sep 05 2000 - 23:08:03 CDT
Hello L'ers,
What is going on when an unsigned 'letter' is printed without date,
identification or statement of purpose?
Something is faulty: either my perception of what I just read or someone
left off important qualifiers or identification.
Exactly what is called for by this message? I don't get it. The confusion is
not mine alone. Over multiple postings I have read that BSA doesn't allow
gays. Prune juice! Nowhere official have I read that people's private lives
are not their own.
What we have to have is a public appearance that allows simple minded
children to be who they are without being influenced toward ANY questionable
behaviour. I.E., some of us may drink alcohol in our homes but not at
Scouting activities. Some of us may be avid politicos, but we don't hand out
buttons at the Troop meeting.
If, however, we got publicly involved with any excess in those or other
areas, it would be fair - yes, I said fair - for our fellow parents to ask
that we step away for the sake of the Troop's precious members.
What is so blinking difficult to grasp? What can we do except be who we are,
stay alert and continue to back an organization that literally is trying to
help boys build their lives so we don't have to later 'mend men.'
'Shut up' looked too strong to me when I read Bob's post earlier tonight.
But unsupported postings like this one are just confusing to me. Anonymous
only works on limericks. Please.
Respectfully, but emphatically,
Jan Wright
Troop 16 Corpus Christi TX
SR-194 '97
Unit Commissioner
----Original Message Follows----
From: Mike Montalvo <mike_montalvo@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: BSA Enrollment Increases
Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2000 20:11:36 -0700
Letter to Washington Times:
Re: Boy Scouts grows to a record enrollment
The Boy Scouts are not being honest and trustworthy when it comes to
reporting their membership numbers in the media.
The following statement that appeared in your article is not accurate.
"During the last three years, we've grown by 7 percent," said Gregg Shields,
spokesman for the Boy Scouts, which finished last year with 6.2 million
members - 5 million youths and 1.2 million adults.
According to the 1998 BSA annual report, there are 3,383,569 youth "members"
in the "Boy Scout" program (page 28).
Included in these numbers are 945,588 Boy Scouts (less than 1 million),
77,859 Varsity Scouts, 2,172,047 Cub Scouts & 188,075 Venturers (page 28).
Secondly, the Boy Scouts of America runs a separate program called "Learning
for Life" which according to the same annual report has 1,373,615 youth
"participants" (page 29).
The Boy Scouts and the media seem to have a propensity for merging these two
figures (see above examples) from separate programs that have entirely
different criteria for joining and leadership when discussing BSA
"membership".
It is important to note that the Boy Scouts of America have stressed in
court documents and their witnesses have insisted that Learning for Life
"participants" are not members. One reason for this could be that Learning
for Life does not have restrictions on gays being participants
or Leaders. Until a couple of years ago Learning for Life did have
restrictions on gays being adult leaders in this program, but that is no
longer the case.
It is especially noteworthy due to the fact that some BSA Councils are now
substituting their "separate" Learning for Life program, which does not have
"members", when encountering funding difficulties recently with several
United Ways.
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