NJCubScouter

Trevorum, thanks for the information, that is what I wanted to know. I did not mean to divert the discussion any more than it is already.

Merlyn, I'll admit as Packsaddle did that you had me going for a few words. And it doesn't stop there, by the way. Where IS your LOCAL LFL office? Most likely it is your local BSA council office, from what I have seen on the web. Additionally when I followed the LFL link it gave me a place to plug in my zip code to get the address of my local LFL office. I got the address. It is an address that I recognize, guess why? And then I plugged in a zip code that I know is in another BSA council in NJ, and I know where that council's office is. Guess what? FScouter, as for why it mattes, for one thing it is my understanding that there are certain grant programs in which the council gets a certain amount per registered member. In turn, the executives are evaluated in part on how much money they bring in. More members (real or not) means more money coming in, means more money for the exec. Now, I think the large majority of Scouting executives are honest. But I don't see how you can ignore the fact that there is a problem. Oh, and FScouter, you had questioned in a past post why the FBI was investigating this. I think it's pretty simple. If you commit a fraud using either the mails or "wires" (phone, computer, etc.) to transmit fraudulent information, that is a federal crime.

Trevorum, thanks for the information about the patch. I probably will get it. Whether I wear it or not, I don't know, I have to think about it. Thus far, as I have said before, I have never taken any "action" regarding this issue in "real life" and before doing so I would need to decide whether it would be in the best interests of my son and his troop. Just out of curiosity (and I realize this sort of misses the point), exactly where do you wear it? Where other knots would be worn? Or on the other pocket, on the pocket itself, where temporary patches are worn? Is it the size of a regular knot? I'm just trying to determine how it "looks" and what degree of unauthorizedness we are talking about.

Acco raises an interesting point and it is one about which the BSA has, with one exception, been curiously silent. That is, how is a Scout to be dealt with if he discloses that he is gay. One might assume that the Scout would be dealt with exactly the same way as a Scouter (an immediate automatic letter of termination from the BSA), but based on the one peice of evidence I have seen, one would be incorrect. At one time (I'd say 2-3 years ago), the BSA published a bunch of materials about the gay issue on its web site. I believe it was in specific response to a particular TV program (on PBS, probably) that was critical of the BSA's policy. One of the items explained what the reaction would be a gay youth. As far as I can recall, it said the youth would be counseled to see if he was serious about violating the Scout Oath and Law, or some other slanted double-speak such as that. If he indicated an understanding and willingness to follow the Oath and Law, everything would be fine. I believe the statement left up to the imagination what would happen otherwise. But the odd thing is that the BSA seemed very reticent to say that it would exclude a gay youth, even though most people would assume that if the counseling did not reveal that the boy was kidding, or if he didn't promise not to say it again, that would be the result. Interestingly, I have searched the BSA web site and this information no longer seems to be present. Even the BSA Legal web site has a FAQ that is clear about the policy regarding gay adults and atheist youth and adults, but nothing about gay youth. I think the BSA is probably counting on adult leaders to tell a boy in that situation, in effect, "Don't tell anybody."

Bbng, BobWhite and FScouter, I am not sure what point you are trying to make. Are you saying there isn't significant fraud in the membership statistics in some councils? Or are you just saying xray's description of how it happens is incorrect?

Bob says: Learning for Life runs the explorer program not the BSA. It is a separate corporation. Maybe in the official books in some lawyer's office somewhere, but in real life, I'm not so sure. We've had this discussion before. For anyone who doesn't know what I am talking about, do a Google search on "learning for life division" and see how many BSA Councils have a "Learning for Life Division." It doesn't sound very separate to me. Look down the page to threefirescouncil.org and click on it, there you will find a council web page that says: "Learning For Life Division - Exploring, Venturing, and Learning For Life" So there's a council with the Venturing program, of all things, run by the Learning for Life division. Interesting, no? And there are many other examples though I don't think I saw any that think Venturing is supposed to be included in the Learning for Life Division. Just another example of how theory, no matter how well it may be legally documented, doesn't necessarily match reality. There may actually be a separate Learning for Life corporation, but it doesn't seem to actually run the Learning for Life program, the BSA does.

Hunt, my reference to "piece of work" as a possible euphemism was partly serious but I suppose included some exaggeration for comedic effect. As I and others have often found in this forum and elsewhere, what a writer believes is funny (or at least mildly amusing) often fails to have the desired effect on reader. It is fairly clear from the context, however, that Rooster was not seeking to pay me a compliment. My guess is that on the "scale" of criticism ranging from zero (neutral) to 10 (what Pat Buchanan thinks of Mark Felt), Rooster's intention was to fling about a 3 or 4 in my direction. What I actually envision Rooster thinking about me as he typed was in the tradition of a certain former president, and I am sure Rooster will welcome the comparison, shaking his head slightly at his debating opponent and saying, "Well... there you go again."

If they're going for a speed record, I suggest eliminating the use of ropes. Scouts rappel very quickly with nothing to slow them down. Of course, you won't get many repeat customers Ouch. That sort of reminds me of the shows my son and I like to watch on the History channel or Discovery channel about military aircraft; we have come to understand what a test pilot means when he says "that'll ruin your whole day." (Basically the same result as rappelling without a rope.)

I just re-read my last post in this thread and decided I should make clear that while most of my post relected my understanding of what BSA policy is, the very end: and at the same time, information about the Scouter that may be known from another setting should not be used to exclude the Scouter from the organization. (Unless the CO wants to.) does not reflect current BSA policy, since the "information" in question would be that the Scouter is openly gay. What I said is what I believe BSA policy should be and what I think is consistent with the Scout Oath, Law and Declaration of Religious Principles... but it is not what current BSA policy is. I think most people probably figured that out but I did not want anyone to think I was referring to what the policy actually is.

Although, I still kind of like my idea, Order of the Shifted Eight. What's the admonition?

Oh.

I didn't see this before. OGE, thank you for your service to the forum and for assisting Terry in providing this service which, obviously, can be a bit trying at times. I do have a question, and I guess this is for Terry. OGE's "title" (appearing below his account name) has reverted to "Senior Forum Member" but now it has an * next to it. (An asterisk, that is.) Does that signify Moderator Emeritus? Star of the Show? The little-known Order of the Shifted Eight? Or what?

Bbng and Trevorum: While the relevant handbooks do leave the door open for some limited discussion of sex and sexuality when initiated by a Scout, I don't think Trevorum's statement was really off-base in the context of what is being discussed here. What is permitted is for a Scout to come to a Scouter and discuss issues of concern to him, even if they involve sex and sexuality, and for the Scouter to respond within his/her ability to do so in a responsible manner -- which will usually mean referring the Scout to someone more qualified and/or appropriate to discuss the specifics. But the key point is, such discussions would never (at least as far as I can imagine) involve the sexuality of the Scouter. Or, sex in general, for that matter. The discussion should focus on the particular problem or concern of the Scout, and where to go for assistance, counseling, whatever. Conversely, the issue involved in the "gay policy" is the sexuality of the Scouter. That subject has no place for discussion in a Scouting setting, and at the same time, information about the Scouter that may be known from another setting should not be used to exclude the Scouter from the organization. (Unless the CO wants to.)

Packsaddle, you crack me up. Of course, I try to return the favor whenever possible. I think Rooster figured I'd know what he meant, just like perhaps I figured that some people (I'm not saying who) may have known what I meant, with my remark. When someone calls someone else a "piece of work" I assume that deep down, "work" is not the word they really want to use, but that either they do not use vulgar language or are observing the decorum of the forum. Of course it is interesting that he refers to me, and not Karkaghne, who re-started this thread and cast his net far wider than I did. I interpreted K's remark to mean that everybody who supports the exclusion of gays is "obsessed with sex," and I was saying that this description would certainly not apply to that entire group. As for those who it would NOT apply to, I suppose if I start to list names I will get in "trouble" there too, because I cannot list all the names so by implication I might be casting aspersions on those I DON'T mention. But certainly BobWhite, Eamonn and Ed would be among the most prolific posters who would be unfairly caught in K's wide net.

Karkaghne says: After a couple of years of hearing pro-gay and anti-gay Scouting issues, and observing well-meaning Scouters endlessly ranting about the evil Gays and their "sexual orientation" in front of the boys... I find this interesting, because I have never seen a Scouter discuss this issue in front of, or with, any boy. I have on occasion happened to overhear or have participated in conversations about this subject with other leaders. Everybody always makes sure there are no boys around and speaks in somewhat hushed tones, recognizing that this is not a subject for the boys. The one time I can recall standing around with a significant number of adults (4 or 5) discussing this for a significant amount of time was at a Klondike Derby when all the boys were safely out with their sleds and would not be back for a couple of hours, and those of us who were not staffing a town were standing around the parking lot with nothing to do. I think we were still half-whispering and there was not a boy within 1,000 feet. Of course, I have long since concluded that the area I live in is not necessarily typical of much of the rest of this country, where this issue is concerned. All of the people I have spoken with about this issue either opposed the BSA's policy or are in the category of supporters who could take or leave it, and if it were changed would not give it a second thought. I suspect this would not be the case if I lived in certain other parts of the country. So maybe people in other states rant about gays in front of the gays, but not where I live. Karkaghne, in a comment that I am sure will provoke all kinds of righteous indignation, continues: ...I come to this conclusion: Up-tight anti-gay Scouters are obsessed with sex! I have to say there are some people in this forum (mostly people who have not been posting lately) about whom this appears to be true. Mostly it is the people who insist that the purpose of excluding gays is to prevent sexual abuse of the boys. There have certainly been some posts by that group of people, that do seem to indicate an "obsession" with sex. Of course, there are others who support the policy about whom this does not seem to be true. But as stereotypes go, it is not a bad one, because there are numerous examples of it being true.

Scoutndad, you say you have asked others in the pack to attend district roundtables but to no avail. Do you attend yourself? And if the answer is no, and nobody is attending roundtables, why do you think that people will be more likely to attend roundtables in the district you're not in, than in the district you are in? (Unless the RT's in the district you're not in are much closer to where you are, which I suppose is possible if your districts are very large geographically.) As for getting a list of troops, have you tried calling the registrar in your council office? I am not sure who you are trying to get the lists from, from the "districts." I suppose councils differ in how they are set up, but in my council all of the professional staff (including DE's) are all in one place, the council office, so if I was sending requests to different places it would be to district volunteers, such as commissioners. Dealing with the council staff probably would be more productive. As for switching districts, my understanding has been that you can't -- even if you are very close to the line, you are on one side of it or the other. However, the boys can choose a troop regardless of which district it is in. But I as a parent would base at least 99 percent of my decision (or advice to my son in making a decision) on the troop itself, because that is what you are going to be dealing with. If there is a "problem" in your district, it could be an ineffective commissioner, chairman or both, and the next person in that position could be the greatest ever, so the district situation could change quickly. I wouldn't base a decision on it, personally.

Hey, TheScout: Where did you go? You never answered my questions. (They are buried back about a page and a half, you have to dig through the Merlyn, Ed and Whitewater Show to get through it.)

ASM59, while you have not specifically said so, the impression I get from reading your post is that the "trail" is a fairly lengthy one through some woods, in other words it's not a matter of walking to the other end of a parade field or something like that; and also that at the time of night you were walking, the trail is not "heavily travled," in other words there would be times when you were walking and not pass another person going in the opposite direction the whole time. If those things are true, and if you think you can already guess what my opinion is, you are probably right. The whole point of the policy is to prevent one adult and one Scout from being "alone together" and as Trevorum said, it is for the protection of both. (Or as I choose to look at it, since I know I am not going to do anything wrong, but nobody else can know that with absolute certainty, the rule is for MY protection, from an unfounded accusation.) And, while the rule does not differentiate between day and night, in effect the time of day can make a difference because a trail at a summer camp is much more likely to be "heavily traveled" during the day. Additionally, what during the day may be a couple of people walking near the mess hall may, at night, be two people walking down a secluded trail, simply because you can't see them. Or to put it another way, you might want to place yourself in the shoes of another adult who happens to be walking down the same trail in the opposite direction one night, and sees middle-aged you and 12-year-old Johnny walking alone together. How HE (or she) interprets the rule might become more important than how you interpret it. I am definitely in the "play it safe" crowd when it comes to Youth Protection.

What can be done to root out of the professional Scouting culture the notion that it is okay to exaggerate and or falsify numbers of Scouts and Scout Units? One would hope that the first point of the Scout Law would be sufficient. Sadly, there have been enough of these incidents over many years to make clear that it is not. And since it is not, I suppose some fraud is inevitable as long as job security is based on "production."

Chuck Ezell, executive director for the 13-county scouting council, said Gov. Jeb Bush, Secretary of State Glenda Hood and lobbyist Randy Enwright were instrumental in getting Card to address the second-annual Golden Eagle dinner at the University Center Club on the campus of Florida State University. "It helps when the president's brother is your governor," said Ezell, estimating the dinner would raise more than $100,000 for Scouting programs. I see. The local council gets to raise some big bucks from a dinner, the White House gets to exploit Scouting for political purposes, everybody goes away happy, huh?

TheScout, I do not have time to take your argument apart line by line. Basically I agree with Merlyn (please note I am talking about your constitutional argument in general, not the San Diego case, which I long ago decided was factually complicated enough that the courts can handle it on their own, and that I do not need to have an opinion on it.) I also elaborated on some my views of the Constitution and the relative roles of the elected and judicial branches, earlier. Our system of government is much more complex than the simple statement "majority rules" or as you put it, "I think the people should make the decisions through their elected representatives." Your statement describes how our government (state and federal) works the vast majority of the time. However, it ignores the Constitution and those relatively rare cases in which a piece of legislation violates the Constitution. In one of your earlier posts, I think you said that the elected representatives can interpret the Constitution, and often they do. But the Bill of Rights (and later amendments recognizing various rights) exists as a limitation on the powers of the legislature (the elected representatives.) As you know, the First Amendment begins "Congress shall make no law" and proceeds to identify what Congress may not do (and there are other such limitations found in the body of the original Constitution, mainly Articles I and some in Article IV.) Do you really believe Congress should be the last word on whether Congress itself has violated the Constitution? Well, don't answer that. For me, the answer is no. To do what you suggest effectively cancels out the Bill of Rights and a number of other parts of the Constitution as well. I also think Merlyn alluded to your argument about whether the First Amendment applies to state and local governments. The First Amendment has been applied to the state and local governments by the doctrine of "incorporation." For those readers who did not happen to attend law school, here is an article that explains what this is all about: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hamilton/20050211.html This article actually deals with the exact same issue TheScout is talking about, that is, does the Establishment Clause apply to the states. In the recent "Pledge of Allegiance" case (aka "Newdow"), one justice (Clarence Thomas) based his decision in part on the idea that the First Amendment is NOT fully applicable to the states. The linked article explains why this is incorrect, an opinion apparently shared by the other eight justices. Now, TheScout, apparently you reject the idea of "incorporation" on the grounds that it was not developed recently enough. All I can tell you is, cases decided within the past 50 or 60 years do "count" in constitutional law, in fact often they "count" more than older ones if they overrule a decision in the past. I have to laugh at your citation of the "Slaughterhouse cases," partly because I doubt that more than 2 or 3 other readers of your post have any idea what you are talking about, but mainly because those cases are perfect examples of what the law no longer is. If you want to cling to cases decided 125 years ago (or around there) and ignore the case law that has been decided since around the 1940's, go right ahead, but I think other readers should be aware that your beliefs do not represent "the law." I also have to ask you something else, TheScout. Do you realize that under your view of the Constitution, there would be "avowed homosexuals" in the Boy Scouts right now? (Well, maybe just in New Jersey, but that is more complicated than I have time for.) In the Dale case, a group of un-elected judges (5 ninths of the U.S. Supreme Court) declared a portion of New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination (adopted by an elected legislature) unconstitutional as applied to the BSA's policy excluding avowed gays. In your opinion, that was an incorrect decision, right? Incorrect for a second reason also, I guess, which is that the NJ statute was declared unconstitutional based on the First Amendment, which according to you applies only to the federal government, not to the states. Right?

Something else occurs to me: Maybe the fact that it takes at least a whole sentence, probably a paragraph, to accurately describe our form of government (rather than a single, easy word) is part of the "genius" of the Framers of the Constitution. Our system of government is not simple or easy, it is complex, with not just one but several layers of "checks and balances" (the branches of government against each other, the federal vs. state government, and the inherent power of a legislature vs. the specific limitations in the Bill of Rights and in the body of the Constitution. Most of the Framers may have been more concerned about the "mob" (i.e. pure democracy) but they protected against "mob rule" without allowing for absolute rule by the "aristocracy" either. I just marval in amazement sometimes at the system we have in this country, and especially that it manages to survive despite the fact that it does have imperfections, and despite the beating it sometimes takes.

TheScout said: Let the people decide throught their elected representatives. That is what our democracy is about. and OGE responded: Actually the American government is not a democracy, its a republic, big difference I wasn't sure which order to respond to these in, but I'll take the last one first, since I think my disagreement with OGE is one of "form" or "terminology" while my disagreement with TheScout is one of "substance." I see it said many times that the U.S. government is a republic, not a democracy. Actually it is both, because there are different kinds of "democracy," and one of them describes the U.S. government. One kind is a "direct" or "pure" democracy, which on a national level exists only in theory. Some smaller units of government do have some limited amounts of "direct democracy," such as those states that allow legislation to be passed by petition (aka "initiative") and referendum, or those towns (particularly in New England) where some local decisions are made by "town meeting" where everybody gets to vote (although even there, I believe there is an elected governing body that does make some decisions; I do not know how they divide it up.) But there is also "representative democracy," and that is what we have. The people rule, but through their elected representatives. Some people call this a "republic," though that word also has more than one meaning. The original meaning of "republic" is a government where "the people" rather than a monarch, hold "sovereignty." In more recent years "republic" has also come to mean essentially the same thing as "representative democracy." Needless to say this leads to some confusion. The UK is NOT a "republic," at least not in form, because it has a monarch, but it is a representative democracy. On the other hand, a country such as Egypt IS a "republic," I believe its official self-given name is "Arab Republic of Egypt," and on paper it has a constitution and elections and branches of government and everything, the only problem is that only one party is allowed to run in the elections and by remarkable coincidence, the last several presidents have continued to be "re-elected" for as long as they managed to keep breathing (that remains to be seen with the current one of course, but he has already been there more than 20 years.) So it is not really a representative democracy or any other kind of democracy, and you can debate whether it is a "republic" as we generally use that term in this country. But the U.S. is both a republic and representative democracy. As for TheScouter, when you say "our democracy," I think you are forgetting that the powers of "elected representatives" (federal, state or local) in the United States are constrained by the U.S. Constitution and state constitutions. Specifically, in this case, the First Amendment. In fact, many of the rights in the Bill of Rights have been termed "anti-majoritarian," but they could just as easily be termed "anti-democratic." The elected representatives have no power, for example, to limit free speech, establish religion, curtail trial by jury, impose "cruel and unusual" punishments etc. etc., because the constitution says they cannot. I suppose that if there were many more limitations on what elected representatives could do, you would have to start questioning whether the U.S. is, in fact, a representative democracy, because at some point the actual ability of the government to do anything starts to become meaningless. As things stand however, it is correct to say that we are governed by our elected representatives, within the limits imposed by the constitution.

Well said, Tj. Though I suspect that not all of your "reviews" will be equally positive.

We have a real nice Scout Camp up on the North Shore where a lot of mainland troops come for summer camp, btw. I am sitting here imagining the Troop Committee discussion that follows the sentence, "The boys have decided they would like to go to summer camp in Hawaii this year."