NJCubScouter

I am, for once, rendered speechless. I will see if I can remedy this situation tomorrow or so, and write something meaningful. For now, the most meaningful I can muster is "aaaaaggggghhhhh." Or words to that effect.

I generally agree with Merlyn, Packsaddle and Sentinel on this (and on most other aspects of this subject). I also think this points out the differences between the BSA and a religious institution. An institution that is part of a church or other religious organization is going to be run according to the religious doctrines of that organization. If the church says it's wrong and sinful to have a life partner of the same gender (or whatever this person actually did), one cannot expect to remain employed by that church once the information gets out, however it gets out. But the BSA is not a religious organization. It actually does have one, rather vague, religious doctrine, which is that there is some "higher power." Other than that, it should not be "choosing sides" among religious doctrines. It has been, on the gay issue, and it should stop.

Yes, I just noticed the missing posts. There is a thread is "Issues and Politics" (the one started with a poll, by MichScouter) that has had many posts in the past few weeks, with multiple posts just about every day, but it now says the most recent post was March 19. There must be dozens of posts missing from that thread alone.

It's not going to be unworkable. It will be fine. It will present an issue or two that will have to be worked out at the local level, but they will be worked out there, as are almost all other issues in Scouting. I can understand some people who don't want the change coming up with all kinds of issues to try to argue against it, but that's all it is.

Very sad and surprising news. Sympathies to his family for their loss, and also to the Scouts and Scouters in his community, who have lost a great leader.

Nike: Not yet, but the following did appear on my council's web site on Friday: A new Voice of the Scout survey has been developed in support of the Listening Phase of the Membership Standards Study. The survey will officially launch March 8, 2013 and will run through April 4, 2013. This survey will be sent to parents of Scouts, Volunteer Leaders at the Unit, District, and Council levels as well as Chartered Organization Representatives and Heads of Institutions. We encourage you to check your e-mail and junk/spam mail to fill out the survey. If you are not sure if your e-mail address is in the system for the survey, please contact (name and contact information) for assistance.

(I tried to edit my last post to add this, but it didn't work...) But seriously, why do they need musical acts at all at a Jamboree? Maybe it's because I've never been to one, but it just doesn't seem like an essential part of the experience to me.

Well, they could probably get Ted Nugent to perform. Now there's a role model for morality.

So, BartlettBear, whatever happened with this situation?

Peregrinator says: It is not "bigotry" to not respect someone's beliefs. Why would one respect something he believes is not true? I certainly would not expect an atheist (or Jew or Muslim) to respect my religious beliefs. Leaving aside what is and is not bigotry, I will point out that respecting the beliefs of others, including their religious beliefs, is part of being a Scout (and a Scouter.) In explaining the meaning of "A Scout is Reverent", the Scout handbook says: "He respects the beliefs of others." Of course, I think that's the right way to treat other people even if the Scout handbook didn't say so. (And one could get into a discussion of how much the BSA itself respects the religious beliefs of its members and CO's who believe it is wrong to exclude gay people and/or atheists.) But I think those who say that they do not respect the religious beliefs others need to take a long look at where they stand in relation to the Scout Law.

AZMike, as I am sure you realize, I have not asked any California state legislators about this, nor do I plan to. It's basically a non-event as far as I am concerned. It doesn't matter what one legislator plans to do. You show me a law passed by both houses of the California legislature (apparently needing a two-thirds vote in each house to pass) and signed by the governor, and then we can talk about what it means. As for "massive support from the gay community", oh, you mean all 3.2 percent of the population, which I believe is the figure you used somewhere around here? And that figure might even be high. Plus, of the admittedly limited sampling of gay people I have known in my life (maybe 20-25 people?) I would say that about one-quarter were involved in any way with any "activist" organizations or lobbying. So assuming that my unscientific sampling is somewhat accurate, maybe we are talking about 1 percent of the population? How massive is that? Maybe it's a little more in California. But it doesn't seem very massive. As for "disaffected atheists", if you mean people people who are active in "atheists' rights", there are probably even fewer of them then the "gay activists." There are, however, a lot of straight people and people who do believe in a higher power, who do not think that gay people and atheists should be discriminated against. As for what the "gay organizations" or "gay political groups" will or won't be satisfied with, as I have said in the past: I don't care. I care about what people in the BSA think, and we have a sampling right here in this forum, and almost everybody here (other than those who want to keep the policy as is) seems satisfied with it. The two members of the BSA executive board who want to change the policy are presumably among those who are satisfied with it. This is a BSA issue, and it seems to me that we have come up with a pretty good solution right here within the BSA, and now all that has to happen is that the national council needs to approve it. What you and a few others seem to be saying is "We shouldn't change the policy because some people outside the organization will still keep pushing for more changes." Baloney, I say. I am not deterred by the scary monsters that you seem to see lurking in the closet. (Ooh, in the closet, I like that.) I say, let's have the right policy regardless of whether there are still some unhappy people here or there, and mostly outside the BSA.

Keep in mind that this is only a bill, and it has just been introduced. There are probably hundreds of bills introduced every day in state legislatures around the country that never see the light of day. We have all kinds of wacky things introduced in the New Jersey state legislature all the time that are never passed. AZMike, I think your assumptions about how "local option" plays into this are probably incorrect. If local option is adopted, I think a bill like this would have very little chance of passing. There is no indication in the article about whether it has a chance of passing anyway. Although this may surprise some people, I'd like to see the California state Senate, and everybody else, just back off the BSA for the few months that it will take to resolve this issue, and see what happens. Give the BSA the chance to do the right thing, without a lot of threats and pressure. Then, if they don't, swing away. As Merlyn points out, if a bill like this passed, it wouldn't matter what happened on the "gay issue" because the BSA would still be discriminating on the basis of religious belief or non-belief. On the other hand, if California waits for the outcome of the decision in May, and local option is adopted, I suspect this bill would just go away.

Keep in mind that this is only a bill, and it has just been introduced. There are probably hundreds of bills introduced every day in state legislatures around the country that never see the light of day. We have all kinds of wacky things introduced in the New Jersey state legislature all the time that are never passed. AZMike, I think your assumptions about how "local option" plays into this are probably incorrect. If local option is adopted, I think a bill like this would have very little chance of passing. There is no indication in the article about whether it has a chance of passing anyway. Although this may surprise some people, I'd like to see the California state Senate, and everybody else, just back off the BSA for the few months that it will take to resolve this issue, and see what happens. Give the BSA the chance to do the right thing, without a lot of threats and pressure. Then, if they don't, swing away. As Merlyn points out, if a bill like this passed, it wouldn't matter what happened on the "gay issue" because the BSA would still be discriminating on the basis of religious belief or non-belief. On the other hand, if California waits for the outcome of the decision in May, and local option is adopted, I suspect this bill would just go away.

EmberMike says: If his enthusiasm is the cause for concern, you should have the same concern over the enthusiastic straight guy as well. Absolutely. One thing that would set off my personal "alarm bells" is someone showing up out of the blue who wants to be a leader, who has no existing connection to the troop. By "connection" I mean that the person is the parent of a Scout (and of course many of those parents stay after their sons have left, including me, but by that point the person is well-known and not showing up for the first time) or a young adult who is a "graduate" of the troop. That does not mean that someone without a "connection" is necessarily there for the wrong reasons -- I am sure there are some in this forum who have been leaders of a unit without having a connection, for all the right reasons -- and it doesn't mean that someone WITH a connection cannot secretly be there for the wrong reasons. I'm just saying I think that if you "play the odds", and extra measure of caution is called for. For example, when the parent of a Scout, or a member of the troop who has turned 18, fills out an adult leadership application, in our troop we do not check their references. Maybe we should, but it seems kind of silly. In almost all cases, the parent is already known to other parents in the troop, either through already being involved as a parent volunteer, or through Cub Scouts, youth sports activities, religious affiliations, or some other way. The other parents could all be "references" for the new leader. In the case of the 18-year-old ASM, all the leaders already know him, so they are his "references." But if someone "unknown" does show up, that is when the references need to be checked. In my time with the troop, nobody "unknown" has ever shown up and wanted to be a leader. If one did, I don't think my "alarm bells" would be the only ones going off. And it wouldn't matter what the person's orientation was.

blw2 says: I didn't mean to imply that we should not be friendly, courteous, or kind to everyone.... but we should be reverent as well. "Reverent" does not require excluding gay people, in fact, for many religious people, "reverent" would prohibit excluding gay people. That's really one of the reasons why this is such a contentious issue. If everybody agreed on what God wanted mankind (including the BSA) to do regarding this issue, and agreed on which policy is the moral one, there wouldn't be a debate. What I mean packsaddle, is that Boy Scout used to mean something, and still does.... call it Duddly Do Right, Call it whatever you want. But as soon as the BSA bows to the pressures of this issue, it means far less. One could say that the BSA bowed to the pressures of this issue years ago, in one direction, and now it may be bowing to different pressures, in a different direction. In years past the BSA bowed to pressures on racially segregated units and female leaders. There's always pressure of one kind or another, whether you're the BSA or just a person. Sometimes it is pressure to do the right thing, sometimes the wrong thing. The trick is knowing which is which. IMO, Scouting should not be teaching boys about this issue at all, from either perspective. This issue has no place at all in a youth program. So, why are we letting it have a place? Yeah, well, you might want to talk to the BSA about that. In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court described the BSA's legal position as follows: " The Boy Scouts asserts that it 'teach[es] that homosexual conduct is not morally straight,' Brief for Petitioners 39, and that it does 'not want to promote homosexual conduct as a legitimate form of behavior,' Reply Brief for Petitioners 5." Now, I don't know who the BSA "teaches" that. When I was a Boy Scout in the 60s and 70s, they never taught me that. But they told the Supreme Court that is what they "teach." In any event, the impetus to change the policy is not about "teaching", though its probably unavoidable that no matter what the BSA does (including what they are already doing), there are "lessons" for the boys, whether intentionally or not. That's not the purpose of the policy (whether the current one or the proposed one), though it is one of the results. There's no way to avoid that. The ship sailed a long time ago on keeping this a "non issue", the issue is here, and it isn't going away. It's going to be decided one way or the other, and if a change is not made now, the decision is going to keep being made, over and over again.

BadenP, I think you misread Sequoia's post, although it is not perfectly clear, which is why I asked for clarification. It says "we" (the unit leaders, I am assuming) "were sent" (meaning, we the unit leaders received) a letter "via council", meaning it wasn't sent by the unit leaders, or the council, which presumably only leaves the CO. So this appears to be a CO acting perfectly within its rights (though not necessarily based on correct information) to terminate its own units. Hopefully the council, in forwarding the letter, offered assistance in finding a new CO.

blw2, the problem is that in the case of admitting or excluding gay people, different people define the "moral experience" differently. Some peoples' morality seems to require that gay people be excluded, other peoples' morality requires that gay people NOT be excluded. You can't completely satisfy everybody's definition of a "moral experience", but with local option you can come the closest, with the largest number of people.

Basementdweller, for crying out loud, AGAIN with the "wealthy areas"? You seem to bring that up with every single issue. Now, I don't disagree that money can make it easier to deal with a lot of different problems, but you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this, the size of a Giant Redwood. And just because someone has an obnoxious bumper sticker doesn't excuse an obnoxious reaction -- especially when that reaction is probably not being shared with the person with the bumper sticker, but is being shared with us.

Double post; if I could average out the double posts with the posts that don't post at all, I'd be a happier man.

Letter from who? The CO? Based on what? A policy change that hasn't been made, that wouldn't affect your units anyway? If that's the case, it sounds like you will be better off with a new CO anyway.

This is getting very frustrating. I keep trying to post in this topic and get one error message or another. Meanwhile, I seem to be able to post in Issues and Politics almost every time. Same browser, same computer, same session, different results. Let's see if this one actually posts.

Eagle92, what I am hearing is just the opposite. I suspect that this has something to do with the fact that I live in New Jersey, and you live in North Carolina. Across the country, there are a number of states that are more like New Jersey on this issue, and a number that are more like North Carolina. So how does the BSA deal with this issue and continue to be a nationwide organization?

AZMike wrote, among other things Thanks for bringing this up, as it probably is an issue that hasn't been fully addressed in this discussion. If people will dissolve their congregations and long-standing synods over their moral stands, which are presumably much more important and intense relationships for them than which scout troop their sons are in, what does that bode for the future of Scouting under the New Model? This formerly thriving church in St. Paul closed its doors after the congregation rejected the pastor's new hobbyhorse of support for gay marriage: http://www.twincities.com/stpaul/ci_20975779/pastor-whose-congregation-dwindled-after-supporting-gay-marriage The Lutheran schism over gays will wind up impacting many of the social service networks they have built up, which also doesn't bode well for the BSA - again, the demands of the few will outweigh the needs of the many: http://www.pewforum.org/Religion-News/Lutheran-split-over-gays-and-the-Bible-shakes-up-multibillion-dollar-social-service-network.aspx http://www.mlive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/lutherans_split_over_gay_pasto.html The Ethiopian Lutherans just severed their relationship with the English church over this issue: http://www.christianpost.com/news/ethiopian-church-severs-ties-with-lutherans-over-homosexuality-89745/ First of all, your constant reference to the proposed new local option policy as a "New Model" of Scouting is clever, but I don't think it's correct. The new policy would really just be a slight expansion of the very wide latitude that local units already have in selecting their own leaders. Almost all factors that I can think of are already matters of local option. The exceptions are child abusers, criminals (generally speaking; even there, ther is some local latitude) and atheists -- and currently, people who are openly gay. Maybe there are one or two others but I cannot think of them at the moment. All the new policy would do is move openly gay people from one column to the other column -- the one that already contains most factors that go into selecting leaders. This does not seem like a "new model", especially not with capital letters. Second, your observations about the different churches only confirms what is already obvious: Our society is deeply divided over how to treat gay people. It is inevitable that this division will be reflected in our institutions, including religious organizations and the BSA. Since the BSA tries to encompass all segments of society, including all religions, a policy that reflects this division, and allows the unit-owners (the CO's) to make the decision that works for them and their members, is the right policy.

Sometimes, but not all the time, when I click Post Reply, it gives me a warning that the existing reply will be replaced, and asks me if I want to continue anyway. I have been clicking Yes, but I cannot figure out what reply is being erased, if any. I have not noticed any of my own posts missing. I hope I am not erasing anyone else's posts. Also, I was using Internet Explorer for a couple of other sites and realized IE was running pretty slowly for them too -- not "freeze" slow, but still annoyingly slow, like instead of responding to a click in a half-second it takes five to ten seconds, which if you add all the clicks together, adds up to Way Too Slow. This is one of the reasons I switched from IE to Firefox in the first place. So some of my slowness problems with this site may be the browser -- but that doesn't really help me, since as I said before, Firefox isn't working for me on this site. I find that pretty odd, especially considering that at least one other person has said that this site works for them in Firefox but not in IE! (And before anyone suggests Chrome, I have my issues with that one too.)

Side comment to BadenP: Usually your negative (and sometimes nasty) comments about BSA National seem very exaggerated and unnecessary to me. But on this subject, it is difficult for me to image a group of highly paid professionals, with their public relations advisors and consultants, handling a situation worse than National has handled this one, and I am talking specifically about the last month. It is almost as if they were TRYING to damage the organization that pays their salaries. I don't think they really are, which I guess just leaves massive incompetence as the explanation. However this all plays out, and assuming there is still a BSA to run after it's all over, I hope this organization can figure out a different and better way to govern itself.