NJCubScouter

vol_scouter says to me: By your logic, there should be absolutely no issue with a heterosexual male and a homosexual female tenting together. Similarly, there is absolutely no issue with a heterosexual female and a homosexual male tenting together. I do not think that most would find that tenting arrangement acceptable. Therefore, one should not allow a heterosexual male and a homosexual male to tent together and a homosexual female and a heterosexual female tenting together. So only single person tents should ever be allowed. First of all, I think the obsession with sleeping arrangements by some people is a distraction from the real issues, and totally unnecessary. As I keep saying, I think anything outside the current YP guidelines can be worked out on a local basis depending on the particular situation at hand. Second, when you say something is by my logic, I don't know where you get that from anything I have said. Please do not attribute to me ideas that I do not express. Besides, any arrangements that involve males and females in the same tent are against YP guidelines. I also don't think we need to turn the YP guidelines into a 100-page document that deals with every permutation of tenting arrangements that someone might dream up. I neither necessarily support nor oppose any particular tenting arrangements, other than opposing what the YP guidelines prohibit. If and when a situation were my call, or I was asked for advice, I would give my judgment based on what was going on and what was appropriate -- including what was the best solution for dealing with peoples' perceptions. Also, if these local options are enacted, there will be troops that allow only Jews, only Christians, only whites, only blacks, only hispanics, et cetera. As others have pointed out, local option exists on some of these things already. As I have pointed out, local option exists on many other things as well, including some moral issues. I believe that the BSA is acting in a prudent and responsible manner in order to deliver a program that proclaims to be morally straight which according to most (though not all) religious denominations would preclude accepting homosexual behavior. The policy in dispute does not deal with behavior. It deals with what a person's avowed orientation is. And as I think you yourself pointed out, this thread really isn't for debating whether the policy itself is good or not, it is for dealing with other potential policy changes that might be needed to deal with a hypothetical situation in which the no-gays policy were eliminated or modified.

I have never heard POR used for an adult position -- but come to think of it, the term "POR" (either spelled-out or the acronym) is seldom if ever used in our troop anyway. When talking about the POR's needed for Star, Life and Eagle, people in our troop usually just say "job", less often they say "position." But usually it's something like "Johnny just made First Class and needs a job for Star, what's available?" I think Eagle92 (in the other thread) was just using the term "POR" loosely, as an equivalent for "position."

Your statement about boxing up the old shirts to send them to national makes me wonder, what is national planning to do with the old shirts?

Also wish they made an Eagle pin, but anyway. What kind of Eagle pin are you referring to? I have seen my son's "Eagle kit" (he has not had his COH yet) and I believe it contains the pinned-on badge, two parents' pins, a mentor's pin and the cloth badge. (He will never get to wear the last item since he is 18; at his Eagle COH he will wear his uniform (though he is not registered as an adult, but that is the troop tradition) with his Life badge.) Do you mean a different kind of Eagle pin?

BadenP, can you provide a link to exactly what you are talking about? I looked on Wikipedia and found no article named "New Roman missal" (despite using various capitalizations) but did find one named "Good Friday Prayer for the Jews." (Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_Friday_Prayer_for_the_Jews) What it says is that Pope Benedict revised the "Good Friday Prayer" to read as follows: "Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men. (Let us pray. Kneel. Rise.) Almighty and eternal God, who want that all men be saved and come to the recognition of the truth, propitiously grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved. Through Christ Our Lord. Amen." Is there a different version that you are talking about? I don't see anything there about Jews killing Jesus Christ or anything about an "unfaithful and arrogant people." (Older versions do refer to Jews as being "faithless" and "in darkness" and various other negative comments, but not this version.) Now, I suppose if I chose to, I could comment on my feelings about a prayer that calls for my conversion (being that I am Jewish, and as it happens, married to a Catholic), but I don't choose to.

Shortridge, I don't think you need to have your head spinning. And as I've said a couple of times, I don't think a national rule is needed on this subject. I think local leadership can deal with the different situations that arise as a matter of common sense. My personal common sense would say that in the very rare event that you have two or more openly gay youth members in the same troop, it would probably be a good idea for them not to share a tent. I also think the issue would come up so very infrequently, if it ever came up at all, that very few (if any) leaders would really have to figure out how to deal with it.

BadenP, I fully understand your position. (Gern stole my line!) I don't necessarily agree with it. They might leave, and they might not. Arguing over what someone else might do in a hypothetical situation seems kind of pointless. Neither of us can prove we are correct, nor do I think we will get the chance anytime soon. My main point is, on this issue, I think there is room for both points of view in Scouting. If the opportunity to make that decision ever actually comes up, and those of one point of view decide there isn't room for them, I can't control that. I'll also say (and this is not directed at you BadenP because I don't know if you're in this category or not), I have spent almost eight years in this forum (with some long and short breaks) watching some of those who favor the exclusion of gays saying "If you don't like it, leave." Now, in a hypothetical discussion of what might happen if the policy were changed, it's kind of funny to watch what happens when the shoe is on the other foot. "Oh no, if we change the policy, someone might leave!" So now that's a problem? (Edit: Typo)(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

So a case could be made that Lifers are the thriftiest of all. I'll drink to that. (A diet Coke, of course.) My "Life Court of Honor" didn't cost anything. (Well, back then it was probably 50 cents for the patch and a quarter for the card, so I guess it cost around 75 cents. Well, and divvying up the refreshments with the other Scouts getting awards... 75 cents plus a half a bag of pretzels.) We haven't completely figured out what my son's Eagle COH is going to be like or how much it will cost, but it is a problem I am happy to have, less-thrifty though it may be.

BrentAllen asks me, I guess only you have the ability to predict the future? The difference between me and the people I was responding to is that when I say what I think is going to happen, or would happen, in the future, I say "I think" or words to that effect. Or at least, I always try to, and I usually succeed. I do not know for sure what is going to happen in the future, and neither do those who state their predictions with absolute certainty. I don't know of any Scout Troop that operates as an entity to itself. Whether at Camporees or other district or council events, or at summer camp, Troops interact with one another. Are the council camps going to get into the situation where they allow or don't allow gay Scouts to serve on staff? Will they make that decision a public announcement? What about for every other activity or training event they offer? This would be a very large can of worms. The mind of man (and woman) is very inventive. I am confident that solutions could be found to these issues. The fact is, when I am at a camporee or other district event, there are some Scouters in other units who I know well, a larger number that I know only in passing, and most who I don't know at all. If one of them were to be openly gay, and their troop knew it, I probably wouldn't even know it. The fact is, under the current policy, the Scoutmaster of the troop whose tents are "next door" could be, for all I know, a wife-beater, a drunk, a drug addict and all kinds of other mean and nasty things... and for that matter they could be secretly gay. Why should I worry that under a new policy, that Scoutmaster might be openly gay? I think many COs would find another organization to support instead of that new version of Scouting. Well, at least you said "I think." And maybe you'd be right. But there is really no reason why they should. And it wouldn't be a "new version" of Scouting. It would be the same old Scouting, but without one bad policy. BadenP says (ignoring his personal attacks): ...the BSA can not have its cake and eat it too, they have to be consistent across the board either homsexuality is against the principles of the scouts or it isn't. What kind of message does it send to have both hetero and homo sexual only units within the same organization. It either is allowable nationally or not allowed nationally, otherwise the BSA would be nothing more than hypocrites. First of all, nobody is saying anything about "homo sexual only units." The idea is that units could select their own leaders, as they do now, and if they wished they could basically ignore the fact that a prospective leader is openly gay. Presumably the vast majority of units who permitted gay leaders would still have a majority (probably a very large majority) of leaders who were heterosexual. That would probably be even more true for the youth membership. As I have said, one of the reasons why this issue is so silly is that the number of openly gay leaders under a new policy would probably be very small, and the number of openly gay youth members even smaller. Second of all, you are right in one sense, that if the BSA changed the policy they would be acknowledging that there is a difference of opinion as to the morality of being openly gay. (And we're not talking about "conduct" here; sexual conduct within the Scouting program would continue to be prohibited; we are talking about status.) I don't see a big deal in acknowledging what is so clearly the case. All the BSA would be doing is treating this moral issue the same as many other moral issues, by letting the unit decide. Right now, there are some CO's that would not appoint a leader who is known to have had an extramarital affair; or to be living with another person (of the opposite gender) outside of marriage; or to have had problems with alcohol, or maybe just someone who "likes a drink or two"; and there other CO's that would appoint a leader in one or more of these situations. The BSA has no absolute nationwide policy on any of these issues, and many others. "Local option" is the rule already for most things. Why not this issue as well? So it's not a matter of "hypocrisy". It's the way the organization already runs, except for this issue. With the majority of scouting units sponsored today by churchs or church groups I think it is a pretty safe prediction that if the BSA allowed homosexuals there would be a mass exodus by those units, it just makes common sense. As I've said above, there is no reason for them to leave just because of what might be going on in another unit. Perhaps my confidence in humanity is misplaced, but I think that when it came time for the actual decision, logic would prevail.

Eamonn, no, unfortunately you just can't win. For example, I am sure you did not intend for this thread to become mostly a debate on the internal policies of the Roman Catholic Church. As for the issue that we're actually talking about, I think you make some good points, and as usual on this issue, I agree with Packsaddle 100%. I think the policy will change eventually, because survey after survey shows that younger people have a much more non-discriminatory attitude on this subject. Maybe by the time my recently-Eagled son is my age...

HiLo, the Boy Scouts of America issues charters for individual units (troops, packs, crews) to Chartered Organizations. To my knowledge, every unit is "owned" by a Chartered Organization. Scouting organizations in other countries (such as Australia) may be set up differently. But the charter system has been in effect in the BSA from the beginning, to my knowledge. (Now, if you want to know why it was set up that way, I could speculate, but I don't know for sure. It is certainly not the only way a national Scouting organization could be set up, and there have been some discussions in this forum on the pros and cons of this system, but this is the system we have here.)

Why New Jersey, particularly? Good to see the site is back in business.

The ability that some of you have to predict the future amazes me. (He said sarcastically.) But neither of you (BadenP or vol_scouter) have explained why anyone would pull the plug on a unit just because a different unit has a policy they don't like.

BadenP: I doubt it. I think that when it came time to make the decision, they would realize it makes no sense to shut down their Scouting units when they don't have to change a thing about their own units.

I have a feeling I am going to be in the minority on this one, but here goes: I would talk to the Eagle and his parents and have them make the decision as a family.

TwoCubDad, Maybe it is just a matter of what each of us is accustomed to. In my troop as a Scout, the Eagle COH's were individualized Eagle-only events as well. (Although the refreshments consisted of an "Eagle cake" and coffee or soda, not like today where there is actual food at most of the ceremonies.) I wouldn't mind if our troop combined the Eagle COH's with regular COH's, but that doesn't seem to be the direction things are going.

In our troop, the Eagle COH is always a separate ceremony, with no other awards presented. But this is just a matter of our own troop tradition. Part of the tradition also is that the Eagle COH is for one Eagle at a time -- much to the surprise of some Scouters in surrounding troops with whom I have discussed this, whose tradition is that Scouts making Eagle at around the same time have a double or even triple ceremony. (And about one in ten Eagles in our troop has had no ceremony at all, by their own choice.) I suspect you will find that a majority of troops do it as an Eagle-only ceremony but that a fair number combine it with other awards. Since you have no troop tradition to draw on, you can make your own tradition. (Although if you do it as an Eagle-only ceremony this time, you are not necessarily ruling out presenting other awards at future Eagle COHs; I think going in the other direction would probably be tougher.) I also think the parents' wishes should be an important factor, though not the sole deciding factor.

HICO, to start with, I would change your Axiom #2 to its opposite: "Individual units would have the option of accepting or rejecting openly gay persons as leaders and youth members." This is what many people who oppose the current BSA national policy, including me, think the new policy should be... although actually, there has been very little discussion of the "youth member" aspect. Most discussion has centered on the adult leader aspect, probably because that is the case that the Supreme Court decided and that is what the BSA has made explicit statements about. The BSA's statements about openly gay youth members have been ambiguous and somewhat self-contradictory, with the result that the discussion among the rank-and-file (including the discussions in this forum) have been somewhat muddled. Some statements by the BSA in the past have been to the effect that a Scout who says "I'm gay" would not automatically and immediately be "out" (so to speak). But the implication has been that a Scout who is openly gay would eventually not be permitted to remain a Scout. So maybe the "reject an openly gay Scout" option in my statement above is overly simplistic, but I think simplicity may be a virtue at this moment in the discussion. With the (hypothetical) adoption of a "local option Axiom #2", HICO's Axiom #3 goes away, or at least it should. I think this is basically what I said in one of the first few posts in this thread: If no unit is required to accept an openly gay adult leader or Scout, there is no reason for any unit or CO to leave the program. I think that with a local option, HICO's Axiom #4 should be moot as well. If you are in a unit that decides to accept openly gay members, and you cannot accept that decision, you are free to join another unit that does not have that policy. You are also free to take your son (or in the case of Venturing, your daughter) with you. The same works in reverse, if you are in a unit that continues to exclude openly gay members, you can stay, or you can join a unit that does not have that exclusion -- and if you are someone who has left Scouting because you cannot accept that exclusion, you would have the option of coming back and joining a unit that chooses a non-exclusive policy. Sounds like a "win win" to me: Nobody should feel they have to leave under a "local option" policy -- the most they should feel compelled to do is switch units -- while some who have left because of the policy might decide to come back. What a great idea! (Of course, it's not my idea, and it's not a new idea, but it's still a great idea.) And as I've already said, I don't thing item #5 is a big issue either. I do not see any policy changes that would be required. Quite frankly, I think that even under a "local option" policy the number of openly gay adult leaders in the non-excluding units would be very small, and I think the number of openly gay youth members would be extremely small, for the reasons that some others have already mentioned. But even for those members, I don't see any other policies that would need to be changed on a national level. If a unit ever does have a situation where two openly gay youth members want to share a tent, that can be handled as the unit leaders see fit. If it were up to me, I think I would strongly suggest (at least) that they not share a tent. But I don't think I need a national policy telling me how to handle the situation.

Actually, HiLo, when I was referring to leaders not staying for all of every meeting, I was talking about some of the new leaders being committee members rather than ASM's. I thought that was clear from what I said right after that, apologies if it wasn't clear. Yes, the ASM's should be at the troop meetings consistently, but the committee members need attend only the monthly committee meetings, BOR's when needed for that duty, and special events such as Courts of Honor. Actually, in our troop many of the committee members often do "hang out" during the troop meetings (in a separate room from the Scouts), but of course that is not a requirement of the position.

According to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/kinsey/peopleevents/p_kinsey.html, Alfred Kinsey joined the Boy Scouts in 1911 and made Eagle in 1913. Based on his year of birth (1894), he would have been either 18 or 19 years old at the time. The year 1913 could refer to the year he was presented with the award, or it could have something to do with the fact that at the beginning (and for a few decades thereafter), Eagle could be earned by adults. Not that that has anything to do with the subject(s) of this thread, of course.

So HICO, are you saying you think the design is politically motivated? Couldn't it just be that the artist decided to compose it that way?

Six suitable people to walk in off the street saying they want to be leaders with us. Good wish there HiLo, and of course the key there is "suitable." For my troop, I would tweak that just a bit. Rather than have them walk in "off the street", I would be happy if they just walk in from the parking lot -- instead of driving away after dropping off their sons at the weekly troop meeting. Of course, all six need not stay for all of every troop meeting -- if we had three more active committee members and three more active ASM's, we'd be in much better shape than we are now. And those hypothetical new ASM's need to go on some camping trips and not leave it to the same old crowd, which is gradually dwindling as their sons age out of the troop.

Happy holidays to all, whatever your holidays may be.

Assuming that the policy change was to allow each unit to select its own leadership, without requiring them to exclude openly gay leaders, there is no reason why any CO or unit would have to withdraw from the BSA. No unit would be required to appoint an openly gay leader. I also don't see why any policies would have to change. As for the issue of gay Scouts, about which current BSA policy is not so clear anyway, I also don't see a problem. As others have pointed out, there are gay Scouts now. If they commit misconduct, that must be dealt with as a behavior issue (the same as when a Venturer in a coed crew commits misconduct with a crew member of the opposite gender.) If Scouts were allowed to be "open" about their same-gender orientation, first of all, how many Scouts do you think would take that route? Especially considering that at that age, they are still in the process of figuring out what their sexuality is -- how many of them are going to make a public announcement? As for those who do, the issue is their behavior, not their orientation. If someone did not want to tent with an openly gay Scout, that could be handled by the troop. I wouldn't require a Scout to tent with someone they didn't want to tent with anyway, regardless of the reason.

Extra doo-dads is right! I'd need an extra closet to keep all that stuff. (See http://tinyurl.com/ybs9gr6, which is a link to the official BSA Supply site, as is http://tinyurl.com/y8a9sqg, which has information about the collector's edition and a link to the page for the book itself.) The book itself does look good and not outrageously priced for what it is.