Kahuna

Yes, I think so, and I'm glad I don't have to make that decision. It's a tough call. The fact that things are changing is indicated by a recent recruiting experience. We did a high school drive for Sea Scouts and one of the first questions asked was, "What about gay kids? We have an all inclusive policy on this campus." This is a campus, btw, where about 80% of the kids come from military families. The DE (a Mormon) was with me and we responded that sexual behavior of any kind is verboten among our members, but that we do not ask kids about their sexual orientation. They were happy with that, but all it would take would be one incident of a kid "outing" himself/herself, as Matt Hill did, thereby forcing council to expell him/her to pretty much get us kicked out of the high schools. Fortunately, IMHO, people in Hawai'i are very laid back about sexual orientation, but you can see less and less tolerance for exclusion.

That may be right, that may be wrong, but I think it's the direction we are headed.

It cannot be proved, as in a court of law or scientific proof, that homosexuality or heterosexuality are hardwired OR that they are not. IMHO, it makes sense to believe that homosexuals are born that way, for the simple reason that, particularly in years past, it was a very difficult lifestyle. Why would anyone choose that in 1950? It is also obvious to anyone who has been in scouting for a long time, that some boys are gay when they're 13 years old. They aren't rebellious, they aren't psychotic, they're just gay. Every gay person I have talked to about this says they always knew they were gay.

According to the evidence I've read, the number one cause of suicide among high school students has to do with the fact that they are gay. If it were a choice, I think most high schoolers would rather be chasing after the prom queen. It's a lot more popular.

Can a gay person choose a lifestyle other than the gay one? Obviously they can. They can either be celebate or they can "fake" the hetero lifestyle. I've known a couple of those as well.

I agree that the question is extremely important from a BSA point of view. If, indeed, homosexuality is hardwired, then we are a) discriminating against boys who are akin to minority or handicapped boys and b) running no risk by allowing gays to be leaders because they will have no effect on the lives of the boys. It's my prediction that the BSA will continue to view the issue as profit/loss: so long as membership, money and sponsors depend more on excluding gays than including, they be excluded. When the balance shifts, and you can see some movement in that direction, the BSA will change it's policy on both.

Is there a lawyer in the house? Speaking. :-)

You did not understand me correctly. I am simply saying that lawyers in their briefs of cases often use this kind of language to avoid being tossed out on a technicality. In the earlier example, I mentioned that it is common to say: "if the Court finds the BSA to be a religious organization, then we suggest . . ."

This is a pretty fine distinction, I realize, and one which may come back to haunt them, but understand this kind of stuff has more to do with lawyers than with BSA as an organization. Once you hire a lawyer, you pretty much have to follow his/her advice or get another lawyer.

Trevorum: I've always been more of the Sgt Schulz mentality: "I SEE nuzzing, Colonel Hogan! I KNOW nuzzing, Herr Kommandant!"

Kudu: I would agree it is difficult to understand, but the principle is fairly simple. To give an example, if you have a law that says a person must be a man or a woman to be under the protection of this law, and you say I am a man or a woman within the meaning of this law, you are not admitting you are a woman (or a man). This kind of lingo happens all the time in legal briefs.

Again, I have not read the entire brief or decision, but it seems to me that's what they are saying.

I don't think the BSA is admitting to being a religious organization in those cases. It looks to me (and I have certainly not read every word in each of those cases) that legal counsel was simply arguing they were an organization, among religious and others, that met certain criteria under certain laws and court decisions. They were also arguing that, IF the Court finds we are a religious organization, then . . . This is normal procedure in law.

In any case, all of these cases dealing with "are too!" and "am not!" arguments about being a religious organization are like arguments about angels on the head of pins. I just read this morning that the IRS considers Scientology a religion and not the Freemasons. Go figure that out.

The Balboa Park case is an aberration decided by a bunch of very liberal judges in a very liberal forum. All of these cases differ very much from the plain meaning of the First Amendment: "Congress shall make no law (later extended to mean the States as well) respecting the establishment of religion or the free exercise thereof . . ."

Can the BSA have it both ways? Probably not, but there's no harm in trying. Could the BSA change it's orientation on religion and still be the BSA? I don't know. It certainly makes no sense to me to throw the Scouts out of Balboa Park in the name of the First Amendment. It does not serve the people of San Diego and certainly doesn't help the nominal plaintiffs in that case (which we all know is really the ACLU up to it's usual nastiness).

Merlyn says: On what grounds? You can't simply say "I like the BSA and want the government to finance Jambo" over and over, you know. You need to make actual legal arguments on why this decision should be overturned.

On the grounds that the decision is constitutionally wrong. I'm not going to get into the legal argument that has been made over and over on this forum. I base my statement on the line of cases that have made their way to the USSC, including Dale. Time will tell if I'm right or wrong.

It seems almost certain to be overturned on appeal, either by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court. Those religious leaders (hmph!) are ACLU pigeons. Plenty of time to work it's way up there before the 2010 Jambo.

BTW, why doesn't the BSA buy a big chunk of land someplace and use it for Jamborees as Madkins suggests? Seems like a logical move to me.

I heartily agree that any Scout or Scouter found not having fun should be punished severely! :-)

Fun should be the major ingredient of all Scouting activities. Granted, packing up your gear and loading in the rain cannot be all fun, but if the adults have a spirit of fun, the kids will tend to enjoy anything more.

There's a great line in the movie "Finding Neverland" (if you haven't seen it, you should - it's not Scouting, but a great movie about the lives of kids). When Peter Llewelyn Davies, age about ll, is putting a play written and directed by himself, he tells J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, "It's just a bit of silliness, really," Barrie responds, "I should hope so, now go on!"

That's an interesting question. I think each person has to decide for him/herself what the answer is. I made an similar observation in one of my posts when I suggested that we should not regard Scouting as a religion. Scouting is, as B-P always said (and Bill Hillcourt as well) that Scouting is a game for boys. As to your comment about professionals, I think you are right on the money. I spent five years in professional scouting thirty years ago and have had a much more laid back attitude ever since.

I also think that this seriousness is reflected in many activities for kids today. If you watch the parents during Little League, Pop Warner, basketball or any other kids games, you see a lot of seriousness going on. Something to do with the times, I guess.

(This message has been edited by Kahuna)

A tragedy what happened in London today. Of course, we must exercise the greatest caution in the U.S. as well and the loonies could well pick a Boy Scout Jamboree as a target. We must keep on about normal lives, however, or the terrorists have already one. Eventually, we will beat them, although I doubt we will see the total extinction of this particular brand of craziness in our lifetimes. Until then, we just have to keep on keeping on.

An excellent post, AlcovyS. You raise some very good points. It's a fact that in the most authoritarian or "good old boy" run councils the COR's can outvote everybody else all the time. The problem is that most of them have no interest and, if they did, would not have a clue what to do. Of course, if every unit would raise the issue and train them as to what to do, it would be different. Unfortunately, most unit leadership wouldn't know, either. And since, if the COR's are trained at all, they are trained by people from the council. A real dilemma. Maybe some of us can think of ways to activate the COR's when the situation calls for it (and from some of the posts here, sounds like there are councils where the situation does call for it - luckily, I am not in one of them).

GWB also ran with a record and pretty clear idea of what kind of judges he would nominate. I tend to see the Democrats as being devisive in their opposition. The people chose Bush knowing full well what he was going to do.

Terry: Thanks for clearing that up. It eases my mind somewhat about Juris' case.

Trevorum: Thanks to you for pointing out that there was some abuse by Juris of forum protocol. I had not read some of his posts that were, apparently, rude and uncalled for.

I do remain a little offput by some of the reaction to his departure, which was pretty much along the lines of my previous post. It is obvious that there are several among us who dislike dissent and alternative ideas and dislike it intensely.

The fact is, of course, the Scouting is not a religion. It isn't heresy to disagree with the promulgations of the BSA. Some areas are not to be trifled with, e.g., G2SS. But to experiment with program methods is how this program became what it is. Kimo Wilder invented the Pine Tree Patrol method, which led BSA to a lot of older boy programs like Venturing, Philmont and other high adventure. Cub Scouting was created because younger boys were tagging along on Boy Scout outings.

I would hope that evolution of the program will not be stopped because "it may be a youth program, but it isn't the Boy Scout program." I would hope we can all keep an open mind to the possibility of change. Much of the change in the program over the last twenty years has been change that I don't very much like, but I can recognize the need for it. Other change I would like to see hasn't happened for reasons I can well understand.

Juris may have violated rules and been rude and well deserve the suspension, but I sense a certain "gotcha" attitude in some of the responses to the news. Another forum member has said here that Juris didn't run a Boy Scout troop, he ran a Juris Scout Troop. I have never seen a Scoutmaster running a truly good troop that wasn't HIS troop. That's why we are called leaders.

I don't know if Juris was a previously suspended troll or not. I certainly agree that his spelling and construction was pretty awful. Having had some more Scouting experience than some of you, and once having been a professional, the conclusion I drew from his posts was that he is a genuine, long-time Scouter with some successful troop experience.

It seems unfortunate to me that we cannot tolerate dissent. I am a Scouting historian of sorts and it strikes me how the early Scouters made it up as they went. Have we reached the point that we cannot tolerate new ideas in Scouting? If it is not in "the book" can we not consider it might be a valid idea?

Most of the successful troops I have seen operate pretty much along the lines of what Juris described. I created a troop by sponsoring ourselves and created a 501©(3) corporation to own the equipment. That troop lasted for many years and was adopted by Green Bar Bill Hillcourt. He had no interest in our relationship with our sponsor or who our COR was. He only was interested in seeing we had trained, enthusiastic leaders who were giving real Scouting to about 50 kids.

My first reaction to the news of Juris suspension was the same as Beavah, but I decided to stick around. Nevertheless, I must say it does not strike me as fair, or to the benefit of the forum to have him eliminated.

I have both of those books. I also have a really old Sea Scout Manual, but not the first one. I hadn't looked at the Golden Book in a long time. Interesting what they said about Wilder.

Just a little more on Wilder, if you can stand it, brought on by the fact today is the 71st anniversary of his death.

Kimo was what would today be called a "party animal." He played quite a few musical instruments, including of course the ukulele, which was introduced in Hawai'i during his early life. He wrote and acted in quite a few plays and wrote a screen play for a Scouting movie (lost forever, alas) in which he starred. He once produced a pageant on Kauai depicting the arrival in the islands of Captain Cook. The Wilders owned two homes, one where the Halekulani Hotel stands today in Waikiki, the other up on Tantalus. The frequently entertained at both and the parties were attended by the rich and famous of the generation.

He also played poker once with King David Kalakaua. He was a teenager and managed to lose quite a substantial sum to the King. His father tendered a check to the royal chamberlain, who tore it up. He never gambled again. He was a close friend of Prince Kuhio, who once stopped up Wilder's bugle when they were in military school, leaving him to make a fool of himself on parade. The prince only confessed years later. When Kuhio died, Wilder was privileged to carry a Kahili, a ceremonial staff topped with feathers used for royal ceremonies in Hawai'i. Apparently it was very rare for a non-Hawaiian and a non-royal to do so.

His daughter's book, "Wilders of Waikiki" is a really funny and interesting read. Published in 1978, it is still to be found in libraries around the country (certainly in Hawai'i).

The state archivist finally stumbled over a collection of his diaries and other writings. They are quite voluminous and will take me some time to go through in hopes of finding more interesting tidbits.

I'll have to take your word for what the book says. I don't own a copy. I do know how the partnership has worked from time immemorial and if the books say something other than what I said earlier, it is incorrect.

I can assure you no troop I ever worked with operated as you suggest.

Having said that, I find I have nothing more to say on this topic.

I haven't read those books, but I have attended the National Executive Institute and I can read about it on the BSA website. The relationship between a CO and it's Scout Units is not the same as that of the church and the choir. The choir is a wholly owned (or maybe holy owned) part of the church. The unit and it's committees are owned as a partnership with the BSA. As I said, the COR can fire the committee and the CO can terminate the partnership, but they cannot fire the SM. The do sign the application, it's true, and they can refuse to sign a charter renewal application if they so desire, but I say again, they cannot and should not micromanage the unit by picking and choosing leaders. That is the committee job.

BTW, the reference to BSA Website is: http://www.scouting.org/nav/enter.jsp?s=mc&c=fs

I would be interested in knowing exactly what provision of the BSA Charter or the Rules and Regulations authorizes removal from the program for disruptive behavior. "Whiners" I am pretty sure isn't in there. And are we talking removal by the SE or by Executive Board or by the National Council or the National Executive Staff? I suppose that disruptive behavior such as throwing eggs at the SE would do it under almost any set of rules, but speech? I just don't find any justifiable reason for removal no matter what is said.

SR540B: Nor am I letting the Republicans off the hook. I'm simply saying that never before have we had judges blocked when the majority party had the votes to seat them. Judicial appointments are not exempt under the rules of the Senate from filibuster, but it hasn't been done. And, yes, I am aware that the Republicans have used committee hangups to avoid judges getting to the floor. I don't think the vitriol has to do with the 24 hour news thing. It just seems to me the Democrats are out of power and they are acting like a bunch of spoiled kids who don't understand why they aren't getting their way. I DO think the reason they are out of power has a lot to do with the rise in the last ten years or so of blogs and talk radio, which have made information and different points of view available for the first time.

Anyway, my original point was simply to say that judges who are intelligent have less chance of getting on the Court because there is more material for those who oppose their views to read. That is true whether they are liberal or conservative or moderate. I never intended to get into the Democrat vs. Republican thing at all. I merely pointed out the the Democrats have declared war on Bush's appointees, which I think is indisputable.

BW, I am amazed that anyone who is such a stickler for the rules as yourself (and one who is generally correct about what such rules are) would tell a COR to replace a Scoutmaster. That isn't how it works. The committee and only the committee is responsible to select the Scoutmaster. The COR can fire the whole committee, or with the agreement of the Institution Head, close down the unit. He cannot and should not micromanage the unit's affairs. That is black letter rules.

Prairie Scouter:

I don't want to start a flame war and there is absolutely nothing personal in my response. I strongly disagree, however, with your observations. Thanks, though, for saying you usually agree with me!

I do believe that what you said and I said about Judge Bork is the same thing: He was an intelligent judge who had a written record showing what his views were and the liberal element didn't like him. I didn't know much about him at the time, but having read and heard him since, I don't think he would have had a bit of trouble making "objective" decisions, if objective decisions means interpreting the Constitution in terms of the Founders intentions. It is true that intelligent judges can make objective decisions, it's just that they are much more likely to have a record of written views upon which they can be critiqued.

No "blanket" statement is ever a blanket, of course. However, I think it is apparent that the Democrats hate Bush and will do whatever they can to stop his agenda. The war in Iraq was something they felt they couldn't prevent and would have lost face in the attempt, although some of them tried and now, they pretty much are all piling on, saying the war is a "quagmire" and that we need a timetable to get out. I was not in favor of the war and it obviously was based on faulty intelligence, although I don't agree with those who say Bush lied about all that to get the war going. However, we are now in it, and have expended a lot of lives and money to get this far and it seems to me wrong to give the enemy a schedule for withdrawal. That's what worked so well for North Vietnam in an earlier war. I certainly don't think the Democrats voted for the war out respect for Bush's views on it or any thought that it was a correct war. IE, I think it was pure politics.

In light of today's resignation of Justice O'Conner, it is interesting to hear the comments of Senator Kennedy and some other Democrats who are already saying: "We don't like whoever Bush appoints and will fight it to the death!" That's what I meant when I said they will block anything Bush wants. I've never seen anything quite like it. Even the Republicans, who certainly are guilty of having done the same in the past, gave more slack to their arch enemy, President Clinton. I don't much care whether the Democrats agree with his choices or not. Bush won the election and he gets to choose. I'm not Republican or Democrat, but I'm not much in favor of the "let's all get along" school of politics. The people choose the politicians and the majority decides the issues.

To your last question, according to http://gohawaii.about.com/library/gallery/blgallery732.htm

Coco Palms has never reopened. I guess at this point it won't, unless they bulldoze the whole thing and start over. I can't say that I actually remember the place when it was open, but I have seen the abandoned hulk of it. Lots of other nice places to stay on Kauai, though! :-)

With respect to segregation in the South: as someone has already mentioned, it was the law in those days, which seems pretty shocking to most people who didn't live it. I was a camp staffer in college at a summer camp in Mississippi. Always thought it was a hoot that there was a separate camp for black Scouts, but it started after ours ended. Some of the staff and all of the tents, beds, and cooking gear went over there for their use and then was returned when the camp season ended.

Of course, the U.S. military was segregated in those days too. When I was stationed at MacDill AFB at Tampa, Florida, there was a part of the base called the North Area. It had a separate swimming pool and other facilities that seemed to duplicate a lot of things on the main base. I later learned it had been the quarters of the black airmen stationed there until the desegregation order in 1947.