Penta

I'm not allowed to have my views shifted by the thread?

Random nitpick: Mods, is there a way to have new post links in email take you directly to the new post, not the first page of the thread?

Other than that: Am I the only one thinking we're having separate convos here? Kudu's beating the drum about the evils of the EDGE method and such, and the replies thereto, as one conversation, and the separate conversation about the achievability of becoming trained in necessary skills by an untrained adult. Seems to me it'd be less confusing were the former to be spun off into another thread, but eh.

Moving on from that: The more I think about the issue, the more I'm struck by a few points. I'm going to list them and number them to keep them organized.

To wit:

1. There seems to be little coherence in what BSA training aims to teach adults. Is it trying to teach outdoor skills? Is it a crash course in all things leadership? Is it simply "policies and procedures"?

IMHO, the prime failing of BSA training, from what I've learned about it online, is that it isn't clear on what the hell it wants to do. It'd probably be quite good, if only it focused and quit being like a kid with ADD chasing the shiny.

2. BSA could indeed teach everything mentioned. But it seems insane to do it all in one course, to try to do leadership *and* outdoor skills.

If I were on a committee revising BSA training from the ground up, here's how I'd do it:

A. Multiple training tracks. CS training and BS training and Venture training might have common courses, but at some point they lead in different directions.

B. I step back from my previous thoughts of training 'expiring'. I'd only consider that for things that can potentially change rapidly like YP issues (where annual retraining seems like a good thing), or other areas where it's important to have everybody on the exact same page.

C. Skills stuff is not meant to teach advanced stuff - Councils should be encouraged to offer training in advanced topics where it seems wanted, but as a rule, courses should teach the basics. More advanced stuff can be filtered out through less-common advanced training or through roundtables and the like. If you have prior knowledge, you don't need the course - but if you don't know things or its been a while, take the course.

How I'd design training:

A. Basic training, required for all positions - YP, for example. How BSA works regardless of program. Fundamental stuff that everybody needs to know whether they're working with Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Venture people, or whatever. Most of this is "Take once and you're done", except for stuff where regular reviews are essential like YP.

B. Program specific training: One track for each program, with the basic stuff as a prereq. These can focus in more and more depth on issues related to that program. I would encourage everybody to at least take the basic program course for each program they're covering, if I were designing it.

If training were to have program-specific elements, I'd be split on whether it should need to be retaken; If we mean for Scouting to be as scientifically-based now as it was when Baden-Powell designed the Scout Method 100 years ago, it might help to keep everybody current on what we know about youth issues and youth development - to the point of trying to "unteach" common myths (and, let's be honest, outright lies) held/believed by most non-specialists. (Factor I squirm at thinking about, but bring up as an example of how the science appears to be leaps ahead of common knowledge: Contrary to common belief that it's stable, the age of puberty (in boys as well as girls) is, clinical evidence is beginning to accumulate showing, going *down*. Sooner or later that's going to slam into Cub Scouts with the force of a tsunami, and may require adaptations to account for it. Less controversially, just think of how Scouting could use new advancements in knowledge of child&adolescent psychology to build a better program.) On the other hand, it might be better to have courses taken once, then have people in each track get regular updates somehow.

I'd have separate tracks for ACMs/CMs, ASMs/SMs, and their Venturing counterparts, and probably other tracks for those who are on Troop/Pack Committees, and still another track for CORs. Separate capstone courses for each program, focusing specifically on issues relative to that program, giving the Boy Scout capstone the Wood Badge name.

C. Advanced training and skills training: Here would go stuff on leadership, advanced outdoor stuff, etc. The more I bat things around in my head, the more I'm of the belief that leadership, in particular, as it relates to Scouting, is something you can only teach the very basics of - the rest is so individual that it can only be learned by the CM/SM being in the arena. Outdoor stuff is a different thing. Every (A)SM needs to know how to camp safely, right? (A)CMs not so much. And after the basics, is every SM going to need to know how to camp in winter (how the heck do you *define* winter, even, in Hawaii or Arizona?) or how to camp in extreme weather?

Basic theme of how I'd design training: Scouting adult training needs to make the adults involved knowledgable about kids, or about the skills they're supposed to help the kids learn. How to lead adults? Can be learned in so many other places. How to do advanced camping stuff? Again, without thinking very hard, can likely be learned through other groups. In short, let BSA focus, in training adults, on training them about kids - everything else can best be taught by other organizations, but if BSA is (as National's strategic plan for 2010-2015 seems to aim towards) "an expert on youth", and that's the image they want to project...Then, naturally, it would seem to become incumbent on everybody to make sure that the folks on the pointy end (the adults actually doing stuff at unit level) *are* in fact taught about the latest in what's known about youth.

3. A final point: I'm not really sure it helps people to bang the drum and preach about "Parlor Scouting" or worse. To be totally honest, Kudu and others...If I were the ordinary person reading these threads, I'd be insulted, both by the implications of there being Holy Writ or heresy on a subject like this, and by the fact that none of that deals with the reality.

Work with what exists, not what you might wish to have, IMHO.

Huh, much more achievable.

Gentlemen, may I beg you to leave the spitballs for another thread?

Beavah: If I were a bastard ACLU lawyer, I'd use a SE as a test case one day. It'd make for a fascinating trial...And I expect the court look at the current arrangements very curiously. The conflicts of interest would seem to make it practically impossible for SEs to fulfill their agency relationship with the councils.

Excellent overview, my dam-building friend.

Holy. You guys rock.

I post incoherently and sleep-deprived* and you guys still give me great info.

*To explain: Most nights, I go to bed about midnight and get up at 6-7 AM. Except Sunday nights, lately...Because I have class at 8 AM and have had to get the paratransit bus at 5:30-6 AM, getting into school at 6-6:30 AM, I tend to just forget about sleeping on Sunday nights, opting more for lights-off laying-in-bed and keeping myself awake, so I don't oversleep. So by the time I've written these Monday morning posts, I'm on 24 hours between sleep.

Re the Corporate stuff, Charter, etc: This answers most of my questions...It raises new ones, but the ones it raises are very nitpicky and lawyerly. Thanks folks!

Re the issue of Scouting's Int'l emphasis: I find myself in deep agreement with VigilEagle's view, from my perch on the outside. It feels really weird that Scouts from other countries know more about BSA stuff than any of us could really claim Scouts from the US know about Scouting around the world. Insofar as my opinion matters, my thought is this: While there is a Scouting Heritage MB, from the Requirements I can find, it seems simultaneously like either a "gimme" or impossible. A gimme if you can get to Philmont or another HA base; impossible otherwise. Which is...strange to me, because Philmont and the like are not cheap. That MB ought really be revised to be achievable without a plane ticket. A "World Scouting" MB could be designed along the same lines, though.

Later: Points well taken, ScoutNut. The only time I remember thinking about adminitrivia like that when I was a kid in Scouts was disability stuff - which often required keeping an ear to the ground generally, hence why I initially was surprised to realize I didn't know things from that point in time.

Bart: More good points. Re the Vatican - That's how many people are attached to the Roman Curia....As of 1996, granted. 300 is wrong, checking my sources reveals, but the number is not large - checking my sources says 1500 or so at the most expansive definition. Which for 1.2 billion people is tiny. But that's way, way off-topic.

Hit send too early.

Re the international bit - I think I spoke poorly there...In fact, I'm certain I did. I wasn't speaking specifically, I was speaking generally. Scouting tends to lean somewhat conservative (around here, anyway), whereas support for international organizations tends to be a more politically liberal view...Which makes for something of an odd juxtaposition, or at least it did at 6 AM when I was thinking about this.

Ah, that answers the form and similar questions...I was wondering exactly that, which bit of the tax code it lives under. Hm.

Maybe this doesn't belong in Open Discussion - Program; I'll let the mods decide, but for lack of a more general forum, I'm putting it here.

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Like I promised in the other thread, I'm keeping each week's musings to a separate thread. These Monday mornings where I need to kill time look likely to happen all semester, so I figured I'd warn everybody up front. (No, I can't really study, before you ask. There's no good place to curl up with a textbook.)

It's been a weird weekend for me, IRL. Participating in this forum brings back a lot of memories of my days as a Cub Scout, and ever so briefly as a Boy Scout. It's also dredged up a lot of sometimes only tenuously related things. I've had everything floating through my head from the "Philmont Grace" (which is weird, because I never went to Philmont, and can't place where I'd have heard it) to "a script for a commercial I'd run if I could decide the BSA's advertising strategy". Plus some random musings.

This is my thread to tap out some of it. It'll probably be weird, but that's life.

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First up: Y'know, it's something that strikes me. You'd never know it from looking at Scouting from the outside, and I don't know how many people in Scouting (especially in the US) really appreciate it, but Scouting is almost curiously international.

Scouting's main constituency in the US is what? Fairly conservative types, among parents and adults, no? Not exactly the type to support much that's international, generally speaking? You could probably get a good helping of anti-UN types in the adult populations of most councils, for example?

Except for Scouting. Which, while BSA may not advertise the fact, is incredibly international - and something where, while BSA may do things differently, there's still enough of an international consciousness and connection to be a strange juxtaposition when you think about it. I can never figure out why the BSA doesn't bring it up more when advertising, push the international angle a bit. The fact that when a boy joins Scouting, he's not just joining something quaintly American, but something so international as to make the average person's head spin. Something not merely with local reach, but global, with a century's worth of history and tradition to boot.

It goes for programming just as much - people who aren't involved (and probably a good many who are involved) likely don't realize, for example, that US Scouts *have* camps in Europe. (They don't realize, too, that the BSA offers awards for being able to speak, read, and translate languages...And actually, now that I look at the requirements for an interpreter strip, I wouldn't be surprised if those are actually *harder* than the requirements to be deemed fluent in a language as used by, say, government. Why the heck doesn't BSA advertise that, that Scouting can teach your kid languages?)

Or even think large-scale. National Jamborees get a decent bit of coverage - albeit sometimes for the wrong reasons - but when was the last time the news covered a World Jamboree?

So count me confused. Except for the World Crest on the uniform, what clue would most people in the US have that Scouting is as global as it is? Scouting has the history, it has the global reach...Why is it not used more often, leveraged somehow?

(For those from overseas: I grant that the global nature of Scouting is probably more apparent, for example, in Europe or Asia. I don't know enough about that to say. I'm speaking about Scouting in the US.)

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I've always been interested in the "Where it's come from" aspect of Scouting...On the large scale yes, but also the small scale. Miscellaneous history and related questions I have, maybe people can answer:

1. When did Youth Protection Training debut? I don't remember things like the 2-deep rule from when I was a kid, which wasn't that long ago. (The fact that I have to say that, "wasn't that long ago"...Scares me.)

2. Similarly...Okay, I know the girls part of the "God, Gays, and Girls" issue triumvirate has always been a nagging issue with Scouting since the Movement began, because boys often as not have sisters. But I do not recall (and I was pretty politically/news-aware, or at least conscious of politics and the news) the other two issues when I was a Scout. Which was, hey, 15-16 years ago? Did they only become issues with Dale v BSA and similar, which seemed to come out of the blue when it was decided in 2000?

3. Does the Scouting movement have any sort of archives? I know there's the museum in Texas for BSA...But are there any sort of research archives, either for the BSA or for WOSM?

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This isn't really historically related, but it's semi-related...OK, can someone explain to me the legal structure of the BSA?

More specifically: I get that the Boy Scouts of America is a C corporation in form, legally a DC Corporation by the Congressional Charter - the same type of corporation legally as the Red Cross (in terms of non-profits) or Coca-Cola (in terms of for-profit companies). Is it for-profit or non-profit? I've always presumed non-profit (they file a form 990, after all), but sometimes I've wondered, especially when I saw that they had a subsidiary (Arrow WV) buy up the land for Summit (which seems strange for a non-profit).

The local councils - Okay, so...Legally, are they owned by BSA National as subisidiaries? Are they even incorporated separately from the BSA? Are they owned by others and then licensed by the BSA?

About that Charter - Yeah...Other than the Report to the Nation PR thing every year, what impact does it have? I know, politically, the chances of Congress holding hearings on the Boy Scouts are slim-to-nonexistent without BSA kicking up a fight, but setting aside the politics: Is it even legally possible, say, for Congress to go "Ooh. Yes. That Congressional Charter that gives you existence? Gives us oversight ability too, so open up to the GAO, and send your top people to the Hill for hearings."

Furthermore - Let's be insane. If the BSA's charter was ever revoked by Congress for some crazy (or not-so-crazy) reason...What happens? Does the BSA cease to exist? Or is there an existence separate from the Congressional Charter? Obviously it'd be a PR black eye, but would it have any practical impact?

Kind of related - Til the 50s or so, BSA was headquartered in New York, if I remember right. Then they moved to New Brunswick, NJ, not too far from me actually (45 min away). Then, in 1979, they picked up and moved to Irving, Texas.

Why?

Related to that: I've heard of BSA National Headquarters described of as everything from "a tiny suite in an office park - you'd never know it was the headquarters of the Boy Scouts if you didn't know to look" to a corporate campus of multiple acres like owned by Microsoft or Google.

At the same time, I've heard of Scouting described organizationally in various, contradictory terms: As being weirdly like the Vatican (which has 300 people running a 1.2 billion member Church from Rome) with local councils being autonomous like bishops in their dioceses, or as centralized as any major corporation with everything being run from National. What's the reality on either of those scores? Just how many people work out of National, or for National, anyway?

Am I the only one thinking the whole "What Wood Badge is"/"What modern Scouting is" discussion probably deserves its own thread by this point?

Actually, on that latter point...

I think sometimes that's what we see here but that nobody totally likes to admit.

Scouting, in the United States in 2010, is in many ways a different animal from the Scouting of 50 or 75 or 100 years previous. Really, Scouting after the 1960s and Scouting during and before the 1960s seem like very different things. Simply by the fact that Scouting is a more diverse movement in many ways, it's a different animal than from when it was founded in the US a century ago, or during its 1960s heyday.

Now, I'm not going to extend beyond that. I don't know enough to say whether what's resulted is good, bad, indifferent, or what.

But I get a sneaking feeling like we're never going to resolve these arguments, because I get the feeling they're as much about Scouting as they are about the wider world.

Anyhow, it's a new Monday and I'm at school bright and early...Came in at 6:20 AM for an 8 AM class, curse the paratransit schedule.

It gives me time to think. Those thoughts will be seen on a new thread.

Bart:

As UCEagle says, Summit was gifted property, like Philmont was (technically, BSA bought it - but every cost of purchase, all $50 million, was covered by the Bechtel family). That's the prime reason it was taken up, I bet - they were getting it for free.

Additionally, former military bases are a very bad idea these days for a few reasons:

1. Environmental remediation: It's a big problem these days - there isn't a base that's been closed that would not require major measures taken to clean it up. Yes, this would ordinarily be done by the service that's closing the base, but it happens on their timeline with no real reason for them to worry about delays. There are plenty of cases where remediation has taken 10-20 years. BSA may take ages to start operations at Summit, for example, but they can't wait 10-20 years for a property to become usable.

2. Population encroachment: Put simply, the military isn't often closing bases in the middle of nowhere. They're keeping those for the most part - they're as desperate for training land as Scouts are for camping land. If a base is being closed, it's because it often is surrounded by population - which tends to rule it out for Scouting purposes, too.

3. Land value: I could be wrong, but I suspect BSA pays property taxes. Most military bases are in what is now prime real estate. Sure, you might be able to buy the property (for which BSA would be forced to pay fair market value, and no lower - the days of BSA as an organization getting deals from the government are long gone), but how would you pay the property taxes, mortgage, etc.?

This all adds up to: If BSA has any sense, they'll take gifted land - land that's either unspoiled (rare), or cleaned up before it's even offered (what we got in this case, I think).

Military bases would not be gifted - they'd be sold, and to get enough land to do anything with it would, in most cases, cost billions of dollars.

We've gotten a bit more philosophical and such than I think is necessarily a good thing. (Yes, I'm also trying to take the heat out of the budding flamewars.)

Allow me to nudge the conversation slightly by bringing up stuff you'd think people would learn in Scouting, but never seem to.

My list of Skills I Wish Scouting Teaches Or Had Taught, linked directly to their usability in Scouting. If I use military terminology, it's because in writing fiction lately I've had to immerse myself in that, and it's what's familiar to me. These are skills that might already *be* taught by Scouting, but don't appear integrated into the core program last I checked (by scanning the rank requirements at scouting.org) - they should not, IMHO, be limited to a certain MB or those who've gone someplace like Philmont.

1. How to give a briefing - This is something that should be learned by a Scout from day 1, IMHO; the fact that it'd deal with the reality that most kids don't know how to communicate with people to pass on information (and that college is probably too late to learn the skill) is a bonus. A "briefing" could be made more complex as the kid climbs in responsibility - At first the kid could have to brief the patrol on their part of the patrol's tasks on a campout. A patrol leader could have to brief the SM or PLC on the patrol's plan to execute tasks during a campout. The SPL could have to brief the SM on the troop's plan for an entire campout.

2. How to conduct an after-action review: Or a Roses and Thorns session, or whatever you want to call it, it goes by a lot of different names. IMHO, kids do not know how to do that, to evaluate a situation for what went wrong and what went right, how to give and take fair, honest criticism. If it were me writing the requirements, this would be an integral part of any troop activity.

Totally agreed, NJCS. It wasn't til I came to this site that it struck me how much adults pour into Scouting, just to make a basic program work.

I think, frankly, the controversy is a good thing - Questioning the volunteer aspect of Scouting is questioning a pretty fundamental aspect of adult participation in the movement.

The fact that I was not immediately run off with pitchforks and torches for doing so says many good things, particularly about the posters here.

Thank you for correcting my art attempt, Kudu.

Thanks for the reference on the tents. Hm.

Scoutfish, how did you get into my mind and express my thoughts better than I'm expressing them?

Seriously. While I brought up precedent earlier, and I still believe that to be enough to say "No, don't bring it up at the EBOR"...Scoutfish is right. I'm the outsider here, and conscious enough of that to be cautious in my words...But something about this, oldsm, triggers alarm bells. Yes, 17/18 year olds can lie. I don't believe that being legally a minor grants the boy any special claim to truth. Yes, the kid wasn't removed.

But you said it yourself:

"My back-channel sources are firm in their belief that something was going on, and said that DCF had previous dealings with the family."

You also said:

"Through back channels, I learned later about the incident that triggered the scout's confession. Sources told me that he was not going home on weekends and was looking for alternate places to live after camp. To make a long story short (well, less long), DCF said "no", that he wasn't in imminent danger, that he was being provided for, etc., so he is living at home."

Non-removal means *nothing*, in most places. Non-removal means there wasn't enough to get a court order - and the bar to be passed in a court order is *imminent* danger. Non-removal does not mean there is nothing there. I note you didn't mention whether DCF was able to substantiate the allegations or not.

I'd look to those previous dealings with DCF if possible - especially if there are any other kids in the home. Previous dealings mean previous accusations of at least some credibility - I don't know of any CPS agency, anywhere, that has the resources or authority to go in absent accusations. Most are too overloaded to do followup on all of the *credible accusations* they get.

Like I said before...This case sets off a bunch of alarm bells. I know you want to believe the parents, oldsm...But I would not.

When you lay it out like that, I see where the situation is way more confusing than I first thought. Hm. I also missed that he was 17/18.

My fear is precedent - I don't really think a BOR, particularly an EBOR, is at all the place to bring up something so personal, particularly not to "ambush" the Scout. It also sets a bad precedent in other regards, too. Yes, any abuse situation is pretty much a he said-she said situation almost by definition. But what if the Scout was younger than 17/18? What if he was 12, 13, 14? My fear is that once you set the precedent, it'll be used against younger Scouts, too. In the chance they're *not* lying, what happens? How does the Scout defend themselves, and *their* reputation? Do they? *Can* they, even? Will kids who've been abused now have to worry their bringing accusations against their parents that the parents dispute will be held against them?

Those concerns would apply with any BOR. With an EBOR, because you're bringing in "outsiders", my concerns in that area double.

My instinct now (with some reflection) is to point this out to step-dad, whom you originally mentioned as wanting it brought up at the EBOR. I wouldn't bring it up at EBOR at all - and I would explain clearly to the Scout's parents why it won't be brought up.

Even if they're right and nothing happened, what about the next kid, who may well be telling the truth, but the parents are good enough at fending off DCF?

Ah, yes, the SEA LION Black Book.

Seems the SS thought Boy Scouts were trained spies. Shades of the movie "Red Dawn" there.

Hm. Let me see if I have you right, Kudu...

Using numbers for each of 4 patrols and S for the Scoutmaster and any other adults, let me try to sketch out in ASCII art what you described looks like. Each line is 100 feet.

1

/|

2-S-4

\|/

3

Right? Wrong? [Edit: Uh, that comes out better in the text box than in preview. Imagine a circular/diamond-y shape...thing...]

The notion of 1 tent per 6-8 boys is sort of odd, to me. Wandering around outfitting sites on the web, I can find 4-person tents, but no bigger. And while I know English weather ain't great, somehow I don't find it really advisable in most of the US to sleep with no shelter beyond what you construct from the elements.

In re B-P: He wasn't, actually, offered the post of Chief of the Imperial General Staff. He was never in contention for such a post, and couldn't have been - without getting too into the politics of the British Army, his military career was on the wrong track entirely. Finally...There are a number of sources for this, but I'll quote Wikipedia:

"In 1910 Lieutenant-General Baden-Powell decided to retire from the Army reputedly on the advice of King Edward VII, who suggested that he could better serve his country by promoting Scouting."

Furthermore, re WWI, from the same article:

"On the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Baden-Powell put himself at the disposal of the War Office. No command, however, was given him, for, as Lord Kitchener said: "he could lay his hand on several competent divisional generals but could find no one who could carry on the invaluable work of the Boy Scouts." It was widely rumoured that Baden-Powell was engaged in spying, and intelligence officers took great care to inculcate the myth."

That said, Burt, your point is decently made: The camping is the ice cream - any leadership skills taught are just the vitamins hidden in the ice cream.

I mean feet, I say yards. Doh.

Okay, my sense of distance is never good, but I was just chewing on things...

And I just realized. While I *hear* about 300 feet between patrol campsites, I have trouble envisioning it in practice.

So I'm going to ask - are there any diagrams, etc. on the web that would show a notional troop camping arrangement using that method, and go into things like tent positioning, etc within the patrol campsite?

At the same time - just how big of a cleared area are we talking about?

I'm trying, I guess, to imagine if there's anywhere I can think of nearby that could ever even fit camping using that method, presuming a troop of even 3-4 patrols.

I take everybody's corrective point. Okay, maybe it's not as much of a chicken/egg dilemma.

I would argue that there still might be one in a brand new troop without even first-class or second-class scouts, but that's in some ways a separate issue.

Given that I'm usually the *optimist* on what kids of any age can do and handle, to find I'm underestimating them is embarrassing to say the least.

I won't deny I like getting applause, BadenP, but I'm confused what you're applauding specifically.

One thing that strikes me as an outsider is two facts that usually arise simultaneously, I'd imagine.

First, for the Patrol Method to work, you *need* older Scouts. You need active Star, Life, and Eagle Scouts.

Second and related, the new troop doesn't have those. And the way things work in most organizations (to which I doubt Scouting is an exception), the habits established initially are very hard to break.

Without older scouts, the adults basically have to take the lead. All that's required, then, is for the pattern not to change (or for the conditions enabling a change not to emerge), and the troop becomes adult-led by default.

Once that happens, how do you then say "Nope, we've been doin' it fundamentally wrong" without killing leader credibility?

(It's sort of a chicken and egg cycle, I realize. You need older scouts to do the Patrol Method...But unless you're doing the Patrol Method already, it doesn't seem like the conditions are in place to learn the Patrol Method.)

I promised myself I wouldn't get involved in the 3G debate I have no skin in the game on...But, oh, hell. It's Friday and I'm bored.

OGE's thought of a poll of the membership is a good one. I'd make it of the *membership*, however, not the COs - for the sake of the COs. One of the biggest CO groups, the Catholic Church, has an impressive split in the US between 'conservative' and 'liberal' factions (relatively speaking!) just among the bishops, and you could wreak all sorts of unintended havoc if you polled parishes acting as COs. Similar with a lot of other CO groupings like the VFW - you could concievably be forcing them to confront an issue they don't want to touch, and tear them apart as they decide how to vote. If you make it of members as natural persons, however, you don't run the same risk.

Alternatively, if National didn't think a poll would do anything but kill Scouting...I'm going to sketch up a policy I think threads the needle. Please note, I'm avoiding specific language, just sketching out ideas.

Actually, two if not three policies. Membership as a Youth can be different from Adult Membership. Adult volunteer membership can be different from being an adult professional.

Youth membership: Should, IMHO, embrace all boys. Period. We should not care whether a boy identifies as gay, straight, bi, atheist, agnostic, or what. That they be a boy who can understand and subscribe to the Oath and Law *in their conscience*, "without mental reservation or purpose of evasion" to quote another Oath, is good enough. (If we take heat, it's most for the impact of policy on the boys. Which is to my view totally fair, because one's sexual orientation is often not really *definable*, if I'm reading the research right, until the early 20s. Teens will not-uncommonly engage in acts of a homosexual nature, but without actually being homosexual in orientation. Similarly, religiously, we must accept that teens (and younger, I'm not forgetting the Cub Scouts!) will question the faith (or lack thereof) they grew up with, and we should be accepting of that fact. It may make adults uncomfortable, but screw the adults.) It should never be permitted that any boy must be anything but a Scout in good standing who is otherwise qualified, to join a troop, to advance within a troop, or to hold a POR. (This bans, for example, an LDS-chartered troop requiring a PL or SPL to hold a certain position within the Church.)

Whether BSA should admit girls is a different, trickier question...One I am choosing not to address. Until GSUSA collapses, the BSA can say with a straight face that we are not competing with our (historical and sort-of-philosophical) sibling/cousin, and that we'd not like to be seen as "poaching". After all, a Scout is friendly, a Scout is kind, and a Scout is courteous, and that would not be any of those. If the GSUSA collapses, then we'll cross the bridge when we come to it.

Adults: Here you can get more restrictive, and IMHO should.

Adult volunteers at unit level: Should be required to subscribe to the Oath, Law, and the Declaration on Religious Practice (which, for the record, is absolutely brilliantly written, shame the implementation can fall short). Should be required to undergo Criminal Records Checks at initial joining and every so often (2-3 years?) thereafter as a condition of membership. However, whether an adult volunteer may be of a certain sexual or religious orientation is, of necessity, a unit concern for unit-level posts. (Yes, I am a fan of 'local option'. I believe that for unit-level posts, it won't come up. If it does, the unit is who's impacted, and should have the choice.) If a volunteer handles money, it may be required by the CO that they be subject to credit checks, to prevent financial misconduct. (Before anyone says "That's extreme" - No, it's not. It's not extreme if you are dealing with money. It's *good risk management*. Whether it's $50 or $5000, embezzlement is still embezzlement.)

Adult volunteers at district or council: Same as unit-level, but with a council-level policy regarding sexual orientation *voted on by all adult volunteers in the council*. Unit and higher volunteers would all have a vote. Religiously: So long as you can subscribe to the Oath, Law, and Declaration on Religious Practice, you're okay. There should never ever be a "religious test" that cannot be directly and universally tied to the post in question, however (such as a requirement that you be of a certain priesthood in an LDS-dominated council, or whatever - I don't mean to pick on the LDS, but while I've heard of priesthood requirements for LDS troops (for instance in the 1974 NAACP v BSA fight), I've never heard of similar for other COs - and it's those sorts of requirements I mean to ban, not a requirement (that could be justified) that a chaplain of whatever faith group be ecclesiastically endorsed). Again, if a volunteer handles money or makes financial decisions, it may be required by the Council or National that they undergo a credit check additional to any criminal records check, with the specific intent of screening out those who may be vulnerable to financial misconduct.

Adult pros: Here I would get even more restrictive, so far as the law allows. A volunteer acting badly is bad enough, a pro acting badly can kill Scouting dead for all time, particularly in a local area. I see the volunteer standards as a bare minimum for pros. Criminal Records Checks, Credit Checks, etc. should occur regularly, with provision for deeper checks (including interviews of people) upon employment and at some regular period afterwards, also allowing for "out of cycle" checks if it is deemed required, or upon promotions. "Morals clauses" should be in all contracts. It is self-evident that professionals must meet at least the standards set by the council of employment, or National standards where those are stricter. (Who are pros employed by, legally? BSA National? The council?) National-level posts may be addressed by specific, even stricter standards, due to their high visibility and profile.

Comments?

In total agreement with twocub and Beavah.

My gut says to ignore everything the stepdad or mom might say on this issue. Keep doing what you're doing, if they try to bring it up to EBOR take the gloves off and drag them through the mud.

Kids who lie about abuse don't get that specific, my gut instinct says.

Do warn the kid in SMC that Mom and Dad are saying this, though - just in case they try to wreck his EBOR at the EBOR, he'll be prepared.

Yes, I am unambiguously on the Scout's side here. He has no way to defend himself except you guys.

If "In truly urban areas there isn't much good Scouting", by which I'm guessing you mean cities like NYC, LA, Chicago, etc. (defining an urban area is tough), then I think it raises a question:

Who *is* Scouting meant for, then? All boys that could subscribe to the Oath and Law I first learned in 4th grade, I thought was the hope. But that, if you had to focus and choose, it was created for (and is meant for) boys in *precisely* those urban areas. Whether it be the East End of London in the 1910s, Watts in LA in the 1960s, or kids in DC today. Kids in the country don't necessarily need the outdoor stuff - they can do that on their own, and the rest of the program, that they do need, can probably be provided by church youth groups or the like without the expenses Scouting entails. Kids in the suburbs? Need something, but that "something" need not be Scouting, because those kids have more opportunities than you can swing a cat at. Kids in the cities, though...Especially poorer kids?

Those kids *need* Scouting, in all of its dimensions. They need it precisely because they're immigrant kids who need a "hook" into what being an American is about, and/or because they're in areas poor enough that there just *aren't* many opportunities for them, because the schools are crap and have been suffering for a century, because people write them off. Except, maybe, gangs. Gangs give them an opportunity, of sorts. Gangs don't write them off. The boys who could be good Scouts, except they can't be Scouts, because Scouting is not really present where they are...Are exactly who gangs look to recruit, last I checked. (And 90% of the time, by the way, it's boys. Girls, I'm given to understand, don't often join gangs, though that does happen.)

It's to me a difference of perspective: To me, Scouting may financially depend on the suburbs - that's life, and I understand if that's where the energy of most adults involved in Scouting goes. But that's not where its purpose is, or where it should be fighting most for boys. Where Scouting reaches the full purpose, IMHO, the point where you get entirely *why* a war hero created a movement 100 years ago, is in precisely the sort of areas you say good Scouting isn't happening. Where, if good Scouting *isn't* happening, good Scouting *needs* to happen. Where, I don't think it's a stretch to say, if Scouting isn't present and doesn't fight like its soul depended on it to be present, then it should hand back it's Charter, pack up, and go home. Among suburban kids, among country kids, Scouting is practically expendable. In the cities, Scouting is essential, and if Scouting abandons the cities, Scouting loses its soul and its reason for being, just as surely as if it quits going camping.

To be totally plain: To say that "Good scouting isn't done in cities" begs the question of "Why the hell not, and why are we not pouring our energy into making sure that Good Scouting can happen there?"

Because it's not just about numbers or money. At some point, if we say "Good Scouting can't happen there" and write off the cities, Scouting loses its soul. Scouting becomes just another yuppie club.