NJCubScouter

BubbaBear, with all due respect, I think we do know what the "general consensus" of readers of this forum is as to whether "this debate" should continue. And your poll has confirmed that result. Let's look at the votes: As of a few minutes ago, 4 people had voted, yes, stop the debate, and 14 had voted, no, don't stop it. (In the interest of full disclosure, I think I just accidentally voted for a second time, while trying to see the results on a computer other than the one I first voted from. "Cookies" only know from computers, not account names. So it may actually be 4 to 13.) Muc

I have noticed that in the troop that is the leading contender for my son to join next spring, the adult leaders wear a customized patrol patch (in the patrol patch position) reading "Old Goat Patrol." Technically proper? Clearly not, but it seems harmless. I have not asked about it, but my guess is that the "old goats" hanging out together became a joke within the troop, and they decided to wear the joke on their uniforms. (By the way, this may be a clue that this troop uses the patrol method, as the "old goats" are keeping to themselves on campouts rather than hanging out with the patrol

BobWhite, your comment about a "parallel to Scouting" is very cute and clever, but I see a different parallel between this forum and Scouting. The owner of this forum and BSA National set up a "program" and have issued certain rules and guidelines within which participants may operate. The participants in the forum are individuals who may say whatever they wish, subject to those rules and guidelines. The participants in the BSA are CO's and their units who may select their leaders within the BSA's rules and guidelines. Within the wide range of those guidelines, participants may make th

BubbaBear, I have observed that different people can stand to debate this subject for different lengths of time. If you only had a few weeks in you, I hope you don't begreduge those of us who prefer to keep batting it back and forth for a longer period. In my case, I did get tired of the first forum on which I was debating this issue (for about a year, in AOL's Scouting forum), so I switched to this one. Changing the minds of the people on the other side is not the main goal; as you say, that is probably impossible. But there are dozens or hundreds of "lurkers" out there at any given time,

I disagree with the "glacier" or "flowing lava" analogy for matters of social change. Regardless of what your religious beliefs are, individual human beings are beings of free will. We have both the physical ability to make choices and the intellectual ability to gather and evaluate information to make the right choice. (We don't always make the right choice.) Combining all these free wills into a collective decision-making process is a tricky thing, and sometimes the "collective will" can be difficult to determine, but what we do as a society is nevertheless the product of our individual

scoutmaster says: I seem to have a bit of trouble dealing with conflict. Probably because I just don't like it and hope things can work out without it, but also because I am just not too good at it. Don't sell yourself short, it seems to me that in this case at least, you handled it just fine. Admittedly, conflict is most difficult to deal with when you are one of the adversaries. But when you are "in the middle," as you found yourself in this case, the best route often is to try to get the combatants to see reason, and otherwise just stay out of it. Often after "cooling off," one

Do Tiger Cubs still have a separate promise and motto, or do they now start learning the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack right away, since we now have Tiger Cub dens and den leaders? The answer to the first question is definitely yes, Tigers still have their Promise (I Promise to love God, my Family, and my Country, and to Learn about the World) and motto (Search, Discover, Share.) The answer to the second question is that while they do NOT learn the Cub Scout Promise and Law of the Pack "right away," they CAN do so toward the end of the "Tiger year," which is a change from the pas

Weekender says: Sounds like his problem lies with being a homosexual pedophile rather than a married Mormon. But not an avowed homosexual. The BSA's anti-gay policy would not have affected him at all. In all the cases I have read of in which a male Scouter (or other youth group leader) molested boys, the perpetrator always seems to be "in the closet." It isn't healthy in there. I myself would worry much less about my son being led by an openly gay person than someone who seems on the surface to be happily married but has all this conflict going on in their mind about whether to l

KoreaScouter says: Allowing COs or even councils to set their own policy regarding this would turn into a real briar patch. As opposed to what the BSA is in now, you mean? Wherever a "briar patch" may fall on the scale of good-to-bad, I would say that where the BSA is now is worse. Maybe then Scouting could again be mostly known for what we are trying to accomplish, and not for needless controversies, lawsuits and funding disputes. Local option would work if people want to make it work. You have no need to ask the sexual orientation of the Scoutmaster from the next town who h

"Absolute morality" is just another way of saying "Whatever I and the people like me believe and do is right and moral, and the rest of you people are therefore immoral." This type of thinking ignores the fact that somewhere in the world, maybe just around the corner, and in various times in the past, there are those who follow (or have followed) an even "higher" moral code. To them, YOU (meaning you "moral absolutists" are the sinner. If you take a drink of alcohol now and then, even in moderation and never to excess, you are a sinner in the eyes of some. If you fail to follow all 600+ co

FScouter says: The addition of under God in 1954 was not unconstitutional until just last Wednesday. Hmmm, I don't know, that sounds a lot like "constitutional relativism" to me. Considering that the court has stayed their own opinion, we can ignore it for the time being. I agree completely. It would be far preferable to all of the pseudo-patriotic chest-thumping, hysterical exaggeration of what the decision actually says, meaningless Congressional resolutions, and calls for impeachment of judges (I heard that on a radio talk show) that I have heard about over the past

sctmom says: If you look back historically at Cub Scouting, the Den Mother role came about because dens met in the afternoons when the dads were away at work. And that was still the case when I joined Cub Scouting as an 8-year-old in 1966. Once a week I would wear my uniform to school (something my son and his friends would never agree to in a million years), and instead of walking home from school (there was no busing), I would walk to the Den Mother's house. Her son was in my class, and her older son was our Den Chief. Once you got to Webelos, however, it was totally different.

Let's everybody (and I mean the whole country) just calm down for a minute. Yesterday, I was going to predict that not only would the Supreme Court overturn this decision (which I still think), but that this decision would never even go into effect in the territory of the Ninth Circuit, because either the panel or the entire Court would issue a stay. I chickened out from making such a prediction, but as it turns out I should have paid more attention to the 10th point of the Scout Law. While driving back to my office around 4 p.m. today, I heard on the radio that the panel had stayed its

Ed says: God destroyed an entire town because the men of the town were having sex with each other. Actually the people of Sodom were committing quite a number of sins with great frequency. There is one, exactly one, passage that some have interpreted to mean that there was homosexuality going on. I have read it, and different interpretations of it. The most likely interpretation that I could give... Cover your ears, kids... The most likely interpretation is that what the men in the passage in question were doing was attempting to rape another man. Not quite the same thing

BubbaBear asks: Maybe you know (I don't), when the LDS Church banned polygamy, was it because of moral reasons or political (i.e. was it mandated through law or did church members decide it wasn't right)? It's amazing what you can find on the Web: http://www.dced.state.ut.us/history/HistoryFacts/uhstruggleforst-hood.html This is an official Web page from the government of the State of Utah describing the 40-odd year struggle between the leaders of the people of Utah (basically the leaders of the LDS church) and Congress over Utah statehood. It is a remarkably frank document to

Last year in my old troop (of which my father is still ASM so that's how I know this), the only leaders/parents who agreed to go to summer camp were women. Not a single male leader/parent could/would go. (My father, the former SM, who used to go summer camping every year and on every other camping trip with the troop, is 76 and "retired" from overnighters a few years ago.) My father thought it was a bad idea to have no male role models around. It doesn't sound like a great idea to me either. I think the boys benefit from having both male and female leaders.

BobWhite says: A person who volunteers to be a scout leader agrees to, and is expected to, follow and support the tenets of scouting. If I believed that exclusion of gays, for no reason other than that they are gay, was a "tenet of Scouting," I would not be here, either in this organization or in this forum. I don't believe it is. It is a misinterpretation of the principles of Scouting, by people who wish to impose their religious beliefs on everybody else. That being the case, I will stay in Scouting, and will continue to devote about 99 percent of my efforts to helping to r

Ed says: Popularity & morality are mutualy exclusive! I see. So, since 95 percent of people are heterosexual, then heterosexuality must be extremely immoral. Right? That was just too easy.

Rooster, I will readily admit that I am not a Biblical scholar, but I can read, and for better or for worse, I am trained in reading and interpreting the law. And that is what these passages are, part of the Mosaic law. They are not taken out of context, in fact the verses preceding the ones I quoted only confirm that the idea that you may not make slaves of your fellow Israelites, but only from the surrounding tribes and strangers. I read a chunk of what was on the web site you refer to. It doesn't change what the words say, or the fact that 2 of 3 Christian bible versions chosen at r

Ed says: Maybe I'm being stupid but where does it say a woman can't be a SM or ASM? It doesn't say it anywhere, Ed. (It did up until sometime in the 80s I guess, and there is one major chartered organization that still will not allow this in its units.) This thread was apparently started because in another thread, BubbaBear questioned having women leaders working with the boys at the Boy Scout level (translation, SMs and ASMs.) I don't think his opinion is shared by many around here. I think the vast majority of male Scouters welcome good leaders regardless of gender. So

Bubba Bear says: NJCubScouter, appears to be a young male adult... These days, I normally take "young" as a compliment, though in this case it does not seem to be meant as such. I would be curious as to how you reached this conclusion. (I will admit that I can be a "wise guy" at times, but that's not youth, it's just me.) I'm also not sure what "young" means these days, except that by any definition, I no longer qualify. If you read my profile you would see that I am an Assistant Cubmaster, and in other parts of this forum I have talked about my son who is a Webelos Scout. I also

BubbaBear replies: No, I mean some physical stunt like Columbine. Oh, well, I hope not, but violence against gays because of who they are would be nothing new. They have endured many beatings and worse (e.g. Matthew Shepard) because they were gay. The term "gay basher" is not just figurative. As for people in this forum, well, I know which ones I find to be scary, but I'll keep that to myself. Do you care to address my last question, N.J.? That, I assume, being this: How do the boys benefit by homosexuals being allowed to be scouters? I don't think they b

Rooster, as for the Biblical endorsement of slavery, I don't think the issue is one of context, but one of translation. The site you link to quotes a passage from an unspecified (that I could find) version, that uses the word "bondmen" instead of "slave." I do not know what version you use, but I looked up on the Internet 2 editions that, to my knowledge, are commonly used Christian bibles, and here is the passage in question from both: New International Version: 44 " 'Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also

OGE, your idea is an intriguing one, but I don't think it is consistent with the BSA's position that homosexuality is not the cause of abuse, and that the reason for the no-gay policy is not one of youth protection, but rather one of values. I think that part of the reason that the BSA has said this is self-serving: Having no policy to root out closet gays, the BSA does not want to associate homosexuality with abuse because that would open up a new legal can of worms. Requiring an insurance policy ONLY for units who appoint avowed gay men as leaders would undercut that position. In other w

Although you all may be able to debate this topic with some restraint, I assure you that there is at least one person from either side (somewhere reading these postings) getting worked up to the point where he/she becomes willing to do something desperate in order make a point. "Internet rage"?