ghjim

I certainly hope so

SFE is now weighing in:

I agree and disagree. There are plenty of exclusive private and public universities that admit only the best high school students. They have an important place in our society. I teach science at community college, whose mission, in part, is to provide second (or more) chances to students that did not do well in high school. Every quarter I have one or more single mothers who are often my best students. Most of my students are in the so-called lower middle class, supposedly the main Trump demographic. Some of them work hard and some continue the habits that put them and their families in

Sorry I am late getting into this thread. I am opposed to the DRP (I don't believe in it the way it is written). I am totally OK with making this requirement part of the "local option". It doesn't bother me if a troop wants to restrict its membership so long as those members lose the authority to force everyone to. That has been the problem with the membership restrictions all along. Jim

I am very excited about girls joining BSA. Eagle scout 1969, former OA lodge chief (1971). Philmont Staff Association lifetime member. Currently ineligible for BSA membership due to irreligious views.

If the current youth membership stands at 2.7 million what has accounted for the decline since 1999?

I do know that Boeing continues to gift match employee contributions to any BSA council. I don't think they ever stopped contributing to the BSA.

I don't think Trump wanted to win in the first place. He is as surprised as everyone else that he did win.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/27/politics/boy-scouts-trump-apology/index.html I don't see why the BSA should be the one apologizing......

I am not sure of the date but I am pretty sure we had female staff members at Philmont (including rangers) before 1974....

So Tampa, you are saying that the DRP is only minimally enforced? Although I have not been a BSA member for a long time, it seems to me that this varies from CO to CO. It looks to me that some are enforcing it very rigidly.

As far as I can see nobody on the left telling the religious COs they have to leave the BSA or that they even have to include anyone they don't want. The Mormons are making their own decisions which seem to me to be based on losing this authority over everyone else. Opening the BSA to the irreligious and girls will be the best thing that can happen.

So therefore, is Trail Life USA in violation of the charter? Hasn't the BSA successfully shut down other organizations using the charter as their authority?

If I join a Unitarian church as a means of having "religion" and make sure my CO knows that there is no deception. And in my case the CO is the Unitarian church.

I consider myself agnostic, and to me it means irreligious. This is why I asked the question. I do enjoy scientific inquiry into the supernatural.

Wow, I forgot to check back on my earlier entry and couldn't find it. Whoopee, I have never started a thread before! I guess this answers my question. Jim

So this brings me to a question for anyone who can answer; something I have been wondering about. I believe that the Unitarian church recently has reaffirmed their relationship with the BSA after a period of self-imposed exile. Since the Unitarians accept atheists in their ranks, does being a Unitarian satisfy the religious affirmation requirement? Even if that Unitarian is an atheist? Jim

I thought I would use this thread to ask a question: Whereas I am fully in favor of the decision Gates made to allow Gay adults in I am a little confused. If the BSA "membership" (whatever that word means) voted against Gay leaders, why did the Executive Board turn around and by vote agree to Gate's recommendation?

OK, well my scouting ended in the 1970s. The coed Explorer posts I was involved with were heavy into outdoor activities, especially Charlie Sommers and Philmont treks. Several of the girls I knew that trekked Philmont later wound up on the staff.

I agree with you and also agree that this bullying is not productive. As others have noted there is bad behavior on both sides of the aisle. But I think it is very important to note that as liberal thinking has won recent victories within the BSA there has been no attempt to remove any of the conservative groups that had so much to do with altering the direction of the BSA back in the 1980s. Jim

I do hope you meant "barred" and not "bared". Heaven forbid no one thinks we are trying to bare any female members....

By entire classes of citizens I meant gays and the irreligious. During my years in scouting we had no rules barring these "classes" of people. I don't recall any discussions about admitting girls at that time, although as I have posted before, the admission of girls into the Explorer program was seen then and now as a huge success.

This, of course, is at the very heart of the conflicts that have grown around the BSA ever since "Dale vs the BSA". If you refer to the last 30 years of scouting as the "golden age" then we are in sharp disagreement. To me these were the dark ages of scouting, when we diverted from a cultural icon to a restrictive movement. Hopefully we are now heading into a more open membership environment (notice that this more "liberal" scouting movement is making no attempt to remove any conservative groups from the membership). Will the new scouting movement be the one I love and remember from the

??? No understanding of this post...

Had the ultra-conservatives on the executive board not steered the BSA off into a new direction in the 1980s we wouldn't be in this position. I agree the BSA is in a tight spot. I am in favor of forming girls troops but I can see the other side of the argument. Jim